We’ve reserved the space, got the sponsors, now we need you to come out and enjoy our second 2018 Lawrence Community Bike Ride.
Here’s what we’ve got on tap for this year’s event from 10:00-12:00 at the Haskell Indian Nations Stadium parking lot:
Family Friendly Bike Ride With Safety
Kids Helmet fitting
Safety Vest Giveaway
Training Wheel Takeoff Area
Bike Checkup & Maintenance area
Healthy Snack Zone provided by The Merc
The always popular Lawrence Kids Calendar Kids Inflatable Zone!
The ride will be on Lawrence’s Burroughs Creek Trail which is a great, smooth concrete multi-use path that is wonderful for beginners as well as seasoned riders to have a safe place to ride and enjoy Lawrence’s Eastside.
Thanks to all our sponsors these annual events just get better and better.
All riders must fill out a release you can download one from this LINK.
(We’ll have them on hand too.)
Get this on your calendar! We look forward to seeing you!
Kelly Schultz, Megan Durner, and Joan Durner share the positive impact Sister Cities is making in Lawrence.
Megan Durner, incoming Senior in Lawrence, discovered her love for cultural exchange as a Freshman. Through the Sister Cities program Durner’s family hosted a student from Germany. It was such a positive experience, the family hosted again the following summer.
This summer Durner became the exchange student, traveling to Eutin, Germany, a Lawrence Sister City since 1989.
“Being in Germany is the best thing that has ever happened to me,” said Durner. “I truly learned what it was like to live in someone else’s shoes. I relished learning the differences and similarities in how we live.”
As soon as Durner received information about her Eutin host family, she started talking with her host sister. “By the time we met she felt like family.”
The whole trip felt like “something out of the movies,” said Durner. The students went to class, on day trips, and took in the beauty of the small lake-side town.
2019 will mark the 30th year of Lawrence and Eutin’s history as Sister Cities. Kelly Schultz, from the Sister Cities Governing Board, shared an update on changes in the board’s structure.
The City of Lawrence has recently restructured several of its boards in order to improve efficiency and combine like-efforts. Sister Cities is now managed by a Governing Board and will continue to benefit from financial support from the City for operating expenses. While this has reduced the board size from 14 to 9, the change has provided greater autonomy.
Lawrence has three Sister Cities: Eutin, Germany, Hiratsuka, Japan, and Iniades, Greece. The goal of Sister Cities is to “Promote peace through mutual respect, understanding and cooperation — one individual, one community at a time.”
Schultz thanked Lawrence Central Rotary for their support of Sister Cities programming. “The goal of good international relations is something Rotary is very interested in. It’s also a way to assist students with an incredible educational opportunity. Sister Cities combines these two goals.”
Schultz encouraged the Club to send a Rotarian on the 2019 delegation to Eutin, celebrating the 30 year international friendship.
Mandy Sheldon Lynn, Lieutenant Governor and District Executive for District 5710 joined Lawrence Central Rotary to demonstrate how to access and use Rotary’s various technology tools.
By logging in, Rotarians have access to even more, such as managing their profile and information, and directly contacting fellow Rotarians.
Rotary has also gone mobile, with a ClubRunner App, making it easy for Rotarians to find Clubs to visit as they travel and directly contact members in their own Club. These tools make it easier for Members to communicate and partner on fulfilling the Club’s local mission and Rotary’s global priorities.
There are eighteen different first responder groups serving Douglas County. These are the people who do what needs to be done when others don’t even want to think about.
These people may be professionals or volunteers. They include the 911 operator who keeps a suicidal person talking on the phone until help arrives; the patrol officer who gets the victim out of a car despite the danger of a gas line leak; the firefighter who risks a rescue from a burning house before the fire trucks arrive; and the sheriff who risks a gun shot in order to intervene in a domestic dispute.
Since childhood, Michelle Derusseau has admired first responders. In 2010, she took time to attend the Lawrence Citizen’s Police Academy where she listened to the stories and participated in the type of role play training that professional police receive.
Now, Michelle expresses her admiration by serving as chair of the Valor Awards committee.
Started in 2011, the Valor Awards recognize first responders in Douglas County for their acts of bravery and selflessness in the work of saving lives. Each September, all first responders and their guests are invited to attend an appreciation banquet where the Valor Awards are presented. Community contributions fund the event as well as the proceeds from a Valor Golf Tournatment sponsored by Intrust Bank.
When Jim Daniels, a slave in Missouri, found that his owner had died, he feared that he and his family would be sold and separated. Daniels contacted John Brown for help. Brown brought Daniels and his family out of Missouri to the Grover farm near Lawrence. The “cargo” of 12 people stayed several nights in the Grover’s new stone barn, then began a journey on the Underground Railway that would take them north and east through Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, and Michigan, en route to freedom in Canada. The Grovers defied federal law by harboring the fugitives, risking fines and imprisonment.
Judy Sweets, local historian and archivist, has dedicated her energy to researching the Underground Railroad in Douglas County. She explained that there are originally thirty sites on the Railroad in the area. Two remain in Lawrence: the Grover Barn at Stone Barn Terrace and Lawrence Avenue and the Miller Farm at Haskell and 19th Street.
The stone barn was built in 1858 by Joel Grover and his wife Emily on their 180-acre farm located about a mile-and-a-half south and west of the center of Lawrence at the time. When the Grover family finally left the farm in 1953, the barn was used as a sculpture studio for many years. In 1981, the Grover Barn was refurbished by the City of Lawrence to serve as Fire Station #4.
We’ve reserved the space, got the sponsors, now we need you to come out and enjoy our second 2018 Lawrence Community Bike Ride.
