The meeting began on the call to order by President Steve Shinstrom at 6:30 PM.
Russ Stromberg led the Club in the Pledge of Allegiance with all Rotarians and guests standing in mutual respect. President Steve gave a charming story as inspiration of a small boy trying to buy a puppy, from a litter listed in a pet shop for $30-$50 per puppy. The owner called out the litter for a demonstration run and one puppy straggled behind and the owner explained he was crippled. The boy offered to buy that one for his $2.37 and to pay $.50 a month until the full price was paid. The owner asked why and the boy lifted his pants revealing his crippled leg with a metal brace and explained he wanted the crippled one because maybe he was the only one who could understand what the puppy was facing.
Thanks to Rick Ostrander and John Pruitt for manning the front desk.
Guests included Sue Cohn, a former member, Joanne Wright Bill Woods' friend and companion and Patty Shinstrom, spouse of President Steve.
Two cards from scholarship awardees were sort of read and a card for Pat Swenson was circulated for signatures in comfort for her accident and surgery for a new shoulder.
Announcements were:
(1) Next Monday, 6/11 is the Duck Dash Kick Off event at Wilde Rover, 5:30 for drinks and meal thereafter.
(2) A dual Board meeting at Rich Bergdahl's office on June 13th;
(3) July 15th is our picnic at Everest Park;
(4) Our Duck dash on August 11th;
(5) September 24th is the Kirkland Rotary Foundation Auction;
(6) Dee Dee Rusnak announced a photo art show by spouse Chris at NW Cellars on Friday June 8th (5-8 PM) and Sunday June 10th(1-4 PM);
(7) Final Miracle League game last Saturday with 24 kids participating Every kid got a team photo and a baseball size card with their picture; Thanks to Rotarian George Anderson for his action shots photography contribution;
(8) Special thanks to Rotarian Jason Overleese for his able and creative assistance with the batters, some of them are difficult to communicate with and physically handicapped.
Program: Rotarian Scott Becker introduced fellow Kirkland Chamber Board Member Chris Chambers the COO (Chief Operations Officer?) of Kirkland Urban, developer of the Park Place replacement. She showed a power point display with colorful artist renditions of each phase of the project to provide office, retail and residential areas with open promenades for cars and people. The numbers of square footage for each area was staggering to imagine and the presentation generated multiple questions from a clearly excited office of Kirklanders on such areas as parking, entrance and exits and timing of completion making a welcome improvement to the landscape. The City of Kirkland should eagerly anticipate this beautiful and well done addition to the Cityscape.
The meeting closed with a story (joke) by President Steve about a woman stopped for driving under the speed limit at a slow and traffic hindering speed 22 mph. When she defended by saying that was the posted speed limit and she always drove the speed limit, exactly, she was shocked to hear she had been mistaking the highway number sign for the speed limit which she had been religiously following. When the officer wondered why no one else in the car had anything to say, he was shocked to learn that the highway sign before entering the city had been Number 119 and the riders were still in too much shock to be able to speak.
Meeting concluded at 7:30 PM
John Woodbery
Scribe