Many families gather to take pictures and tell stories during the holiday season and on December 14 Lawrence Central Rotary followed that trend. Instead of having a speaker or a program, each member told stories about holiday gatherings in the past and plans for this year. Past holidays included everything from big family reunions to small dinners with friends and the occasional holiday upset. Grandchildren figured prominently. Sometimes the Rotarian had been the grandchild, relating fond memories. Christmases had been celebrated in other countries, on family farms and college campuses. Christmas 2016 plans range from hosting dinner at home to traveling abroad to be with relatives.
At the close of the meeting, President Jim Peters assembled everyone for a family picture.
Left to Right: John Wilkinson, Nancy Hause, Bob Swan
Three veteran Rotarians shared their stories with fellow members of Lawrence Central Rotary. Each found Rotary in an unusual way!
Nancy Hause joined Lawrence Central Rotary in 2014. Prior to that time, she was a member of Lawrence Jayhawk Rotary and Estes Park Rotary. Her loyalty to Rotary is long-lived, despite the fact that her grandfather, a Boulder, CO, businessman was not invited to join Rotary years ago. At the time he sought membership, the Boulder club assumed he could not be a part of the club because he was Catholic and they did not serve fish at their Friday meetings. Years later, her father joined the Brighton, CO, Rotary club and served as its president. Her mother was an active Rotary Ann, playing the piano for the weekly club meetings. Nancy’s husband Richard was invited to join Rotary in California and played the piano for that club for many years. Even though women were allowed to join Rotary by the mid-1980’s, Nancy didn’t become a Rotary member herself until after Rich’s death. After she and Rich retired and moved to Estes Park, Rich joined Rotary there. He dedicated his year as president of the Estes Park Rotary Club to Nancy’s father. When he died, the Estes Park Rotary invited Nancy to join their group. Nancy is a two-time Paul Harris Fellow. Nancy studied journalism at the University of Colorado, has worked as a writer and editor on newspapers over many years, and continues to do freelance work. She taught news and feature writing at Kansas State for fifteen years. She and Rich had four children and eight grandchildren.
Bob Swan joined Lawrence Central Rotary in 2009, but his first involvement with Rotary was in 1966 when he studied in Buenos Aires, Argentina as a Rotary Foundation Fellow.
Bob graduated from the University of Kansas in 1964 and, prior to his year in Argentina, was a KU Exchange Scholar to Reading, England. After his Rotary year in Argentina and South America, Bob ran for U.S. Congress in opposition to the Vietnam War, and wrote his Master’s Thesis on his symbolic campaign. His lifelong activism has been inspired in part by his opportunity to meet Dr. Martin Luther King in St. Augustine, Florida during the demonstrations that helped end the Senate Filibuster and ensure passage of the historic 1964 Civil Rights Act. In 2009 Bob joined Lawrence Central Rotary through encouragement from one of its founders, Ed Samp. In 2012-2013 Bob served as club president and focused on increasing membership and organizing a fundraiser for polio eradication, held in Lawrence and supported by nine other clubs of District 5710. Bob and his wife Irina from Moscow live in Lawrence where they now follow from afar the activities of Bob’s two daughters and Irina’s son and four grandchildren.
John Wilkinson joined Rotary in 1974 in Topeka and came to Lawrence Central Rotary in 2005. John grew up in Cherryvale, a small Kansas town of 2300 people. He began his career in 1941 as an entrepreneur with a paper route of 235 customers. He also carried luggage between the Frisco and the Santa Fe train depots for travelers. Delivering the paper—the Cherryvale Republican—John became aware of Rotary and was impressed with the community leadership of its members. “Rotary owned the town,” he observed. While attending Independence Junior College, John worked for a CPA firm where he had a chance to visit Rotary clubs. Once again, the comradery of Rotary impressed him. John attended the KU School of Business, did time in the U.S. Army in personnel, and graduated from law school on the G.I Bill. He joined a law firm in Topeka and practiced law for 42 years, spending time as clerk for both federal and state judges and serving as general counsel for the Federal Home Loan Bank for many years. John is past-president of the Topeka West Rotary Club. He has been married to Marianne for 59 years. They have three sons and five grandchildren.
Leawood Rotarian Jeff Deatherage spoke to Lawrence Central Rotary about ShelterBox USA and his role as a Response Team member. The ShelterBox organization is an international nonprofit effort to provide shelter and vital supplies in response to disasters and humanitarian crises. The program is most known for the distinct green plastic boxes containing tents, blankets, ground covers, water storage and purification devices, solar lamps, cooking supplies, a basic tool kit, mosquito netting, and a children’s activity kit. ShelterBox response is tailored to each unique situation as only the supplies that are needed are distributed.
The idea for the program was developed by a local Rotary Club in Cornwall, England in April 2000. This project was quickly adopted by other clubs and has grown into an organization with twenty international affiliates. ShelterBox has responded to 270 disasters in 95 different geographic locations and served over one million people.
Jeff explained the work requires considerable coordination and communication with local officials and other aid providers. The world -wide network of Rotary is heavily depended on to accomplish deployments of supplies. Presently, ShelterBox has representatives and assistance on the ground in Syria in preparation to assist 300,000 civilians trapped in Aleppo by fierce fighting.
Jeff explained that his role as a ShelterBox Ambassador involves periodic training and a willingness to deploy for two weeks each year. Jeff has deployed to Paraguay for flooding, the Philippines after a tsunami, and twice to Oklahoma for tornado relief. He makes numerous speaking engagements each year and often sets up demonstration tents and supplies as he did for the fall LCR Community Bike Ride. He thanked LCR for past support of ShelterBox and presented the club with a Shelter Box Hero award. More information is available at shelterboxusa.org.
The City of Lawrence received great news and Lawrence Central is proud to have helped the city to be able to achieve this designation!
The City of Lawrence has been honored again as a Bronze Rank Bicycle Friendly Community (BFC). The City first received this designation in 2004 from the American League of Bicyclists. There are now 404 communities recognized in the U.S. as Bicycle Friendly Communities; this is Lawrence’s fifth successful application. The Bronze level BFC award recognizes Lawrence’s commitment to improving conditions for bicycling through investment in bicycling promotion, education programs, infrastructure and pro-bicycling policies.
Lawrence-Douglas County Bicycle Advisory Committee members prepared the application utilizing information, such as data collected from bike/pedestrian counts, safety material, outreach efforts, and lane mileage. This year’s application featured Lawrence’s completion of a number of projects that will form the “Lawrence Loop”, a 22-mile paved off-street path around the city, the bicycle education provided by Lawrence’s League Certified Cycling instructors, the on-bicycle safety education at local elementary schools, and the recent commitment in the city budget for bicycling and pedestrian infrastructure improvements. The Lawrence Central Rotary Club’s Community Bike Ride, Safe Kids Douglas County Bicycle Rodeo and Helmet giveaways, the Tour of Lawrence, the Lawrence Mountain Bicycle Club’s partnership with Parks & Recreation for the development and maintenance of the Lawrence River Trails trail, the National Bicycle Challenge, and 100 percentage of buses equipped with bike racks were also highlighted as part of the application process.
By the numbers, Lawrence now has 16 miles of bike lanes, 9 miles of shared-lane markings (sharrows), 39 miles of signed bike routes, and 45 miles of paved shared use paths.
Four Kansas communities have received the Bicycle Friendly designation: Lawrence, Topeka, Manhattan, and Shawnee. Find out more information online at www.bikeleague.org/bfa.
The Burroughs Creek Trail in East Lawrence is a paved path and parkway running for 1.7 miles from 11th Street at the north end to 23rd Street on the south. The trail leads walkers, runners, and bikers past sites that were significant in Lawrence history, blending both health and history for all who travel its length.
In a presentation to Lawrence Central Rotarians, Henry Fortunato explained the variety of historic places found along to the Burroughs Creek Trail. The path “ties together William Clarke Quantrill, and Langston Hughes, 19th-century travelers on the Oregon Trail and World War II-era German prisoners of war, the artistry of William S. Burroughs and the agricultural history of Douglas County, plus a long-forgotten railroad line and a number of dimly-remembered east side neighborhood notables whose names still grace streets and parks,” to quote the Lawrence Public Library website.
Fortunato, retired director of public affairs at theKansas City Library and recent Simons Public Humanities Fellow at the Hall Center for the Humanities at the University of Kansas, made headlines in 2014 for walking 500 miles across Kansas. He said in interviews at the time that he wanted to “take the love for walking and exploring and create something everyone can enjoy.” He envisioned combining “all the things he’s learned in his professional career — public history, presentation, use of graduate students, humanities, and traveling exhibits — to enhance the walking and hiking trail experience in the greater Kansas City area by creating well designed interpretive panels” that tell about what happened along those trails. Happily, Lawrence has become the beneficiary of Fortunato’s vision.
Fortunato’s comments referenced the traveling exhibit of ten panels that tell the stories of people, places, and events associated with the trail. The exhibit is currently hosted at Watkins Museum of History. By next spring, the panels of the traveling exhibit will be translated into interpretive signage along the Burroughs Creek Trail itself that will explain the points of interest and the history of area to people as they travel the length of the path.
