WEEKLYWEEKLYWEEKLY ASSIGNMENTSASSIGNMENTSASSIGNMENTS

DATEDATEDATE GREETERSGREETERSGREETERS INVOCATIONINVOCATIONINVOCATION PLEDGEPLEDGEPLEDGE INTROSINTROSINTROS

22 Mar Frase/Foster

Fachin Fong Fonseca

29 Mar Hanson/Guerard

Fulton Fussy Grabert

5 Apr D.Johnson

Hayden D. Haynes J. Haynes

WEEKLY PROGRAMSWEEKLY PROGRAMSWEEKLY PROGRAMS

22 Mar Boys and Girls Club Impact Zane Smith

29 Mar Club Assembly

5 Apr Skyline Cabinets (Off Site) South from 58 on Mt. Vernon Dave Spalinger

CECIL MARTIN, President, 2005-2006 - “Think Globally, Act Locally” Jim Bell – Guest Editor

Website: www.BBRC.org

March 15, 2006

Volume 31

IMPORTANT UPCOMING EVENTS

Apr 1 - 7:00 a.m. - Pancake Break-fast at CHW Learning Center, 631 E. California Ave

F ormer President Neil Walker pre-sided of the meeting today with his normal soft-spoken demeanor. Af-

ter invocation by Tim Cox and our Pledge led by Bret Cross, we were sere-naded by the group, “Banshee in the Kitchen”, (the name from observing Life As It Is in the O’Doherty household, we think). Dixie King introduced Banshee members ( Mary Tulin, guitar, Jill Eg-land, Flute, and Brenda Hunter, Fiddle and Hammered Dulcimer) who played

wonderful Irish tunes for us. Banshee in the Kitchen regularly tours in the Bay Area and LA area, and seems to be very popular, even though they can’t play “Freebird”. Jill had her

daughter Amelia with her as well.

Visiting Rotarians as intro-duced by Mike Daniel in-cluded Jack Saba, East Club, and Jerry Arseneau, Nim-pomo Club.

As for guests today, Sandy Foster introduced her son

Chris Foster; Bob Nelson introduced T. J. Trent (on leave from the Army and in route back to Baghdad); and Vince Fong introduced Ed Searfoss.

Announcements for the day included Dixie King ques-

tioning the wisdom of the birthday card she received from President Martin on Hillcrest Memorial letterhead. Cecil should have been fined for soliciting. Mike Daniel told us that 18 members enjoyed his company last nite at the Great Castle for the monthly Diners Club get-together. In Mike Stepano-vich’s absence, Mike D. also wetted our palates (not Pilates) about the upcoming Wine Tasting Tour to Paso Robles for our Rotary group. At least two wineries are in route, Tobin James and Eberle, as well as a catered lunch at the The Caves, a

noted and marvelous private meeting location. This event is planned for the Saturday before Mother’s Day, or for those of you who need more specific info, that would be May 13th.

Mary Jo Pasek raffled off her Relay For Life gift bags, 3 to be exact. PP Michael O’Doherty chipped in with macho prizes to go with the more feminine articles. Winners were John

Guerard, Carla Grabert and Jeff Haynes. Speaking of Carla, she made a wonderful announcement of her future wedding plans to Dr. Henry Lowenstein, Dean of the Business College at CSUB! Way to go Carla!

Becky Smith reminded us that camping this weekend at Morro Bay (3/17-3/19) has (1) opening still available. Contact Becky if you are interested in freezing your buns off at the

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PP NEIL WALKER

“Banshee in the Kitchen”

Amelia Eg-

WHERE TO MAKE UP Meeting Day Rotary Club Meeting Place Time

Monday Bakersfield South Holiday Inn Select Noon

Monday Inyokern Homestead Restaurant 6:30 a.m.

Monday Wasco Valley Rose Golf Course Noon

Tuesday Bakersfield North Holiday Inn Select Noon

Tuesday Foothill High Interact Club Foothill High 7:15 a.m.

Wednesday Bakersfield West Stockdale Country Club Noon

Wednesday China Lake Heritage Inn Noon

Wednesday Shafter Minner Air Field Cafe 6:30 a.m.

Wednesday Bakersfield Breakfast The Petroleum Club 6:45 a.m.

Wednesday Taft Jo's Restaurant Noon

Wednesday Interact Bakersfield High School 2:40 p.m.

Thursday Bakersfield Downtown Bakersfield Art Museum Noon

Thursday Tehachapi Kelcy's Restaurant Noon

Thursday Delano Mary’s Heavenly Bites Noon

Thursday Frazier Mountain Communities Dream Castle Café & Bakery (Frazier Park) 7:00 a.m.

Thursday Kern River Valley Ewings (Kernville) 7:00 p.m.

Friday Bakersfield East Veteran's Hall Noon

1st & 3rd Mondays Bakersfield College Rotaract B.C. Executive Board Room 6:00 p.m.

Page 2

BBRC PAST PRESIDENTS 2004-2005 - Michael O’Doherty 2003-2004 - Neil Walker 2002-2003 - Harley Pinson 2001-2002 - Susan Eaton 2000-2001 - Don Trybul / Mike Daniel 1999-2000 - Paul Cooper 1998-1999 - Mike Daniel 1997-1998 - Ray Geigle 1996-1997 - Bonnie Crawford 1995-1996 - Carl Leech 1994-1995 - John Tait 1993-1994 - Greg Smith 1992-1993 - John Vasinda 1991-1992 - Bill Jones 1990-1991 - Glenn Ray 1989-1990 - Mike Kirkwood / Howie Wass

1988-1989 - Howie Wass 1987-1988 - Craig Holland 1986-1987 - Anil Mehta 1985-1986 - Bob Bryant 1984-1985 - Sid Chapin 1983-1984 - Jerry Starr 1982-1983 - John McWhorter

beach this coming weekend.

Gary Fachin noted that the next Pancake Breakfast sponsored by our club will be on April 1st, Saturday. Please contact Gary to offer your assistance on 1 of the 2 short shifts available in this very worthy cause. Gary said that this event is becoming very popular and means a lot to some hungry people.

The Centennial Memorial Grove tree-planting this past weekend (thank you so much Jackie Maxwell) was a huge success. Lots of help from lots of people allowed us to plant 136 trees in less than 90 minutes. The club should be very proud! Jackie displayed a photo board that she had prepared. She also graciously gave copies of the photos to the members. This project has been included on the club’s website, www.BBRC.org.

Cheryl Scott finally celebrated her 30th birthday (after being stuck on 29 for several years). Tim and Susanna Cox are cele-brating their 14th wedding anniversary and Sandy and Bruce Fos-ter their 31st! Wow!

The fine masters were fairly quiet today. In a rather unique twist of fate, Jerry Saba was fined $20 for the members who did not wear their Rotary pin.

(Continued from page 1) Ed “How could life possibly be any better than this” O’Donnell celebrated his 60th birthday parked in the garage of his new house sitting in his “wife’s” new 325i “beemer”, and dreaming about his $10,000 vacation in May to the Caribbean. He was appropriately fined as well. Ed was a little suspicious of the Fine Masters’ wheel following his somewhat hefty monetary recognition. Ed said later that he was more prepared to accept a penalty of washing a Hearse, or mowing the grass at Hillcrest. Easy come, easy go, Eddie!

In the BBRC “Craft Talk of the Day”, Jerry Starr discussed his life and times in the medical indus-try. Jerry, BBRC’s very first elected President (1983-84), is married to Robin. They have two wonderful teenagers, Megan and Matthew, who keep the family hoppin’ and lively. Jerry has been in the medi-cal field since his stint with the Air Force and has also worked at just

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PP Jerry Starr

Page 3 Volume 31

WHO IS THIS FUTURE ROTARIAN? Shown here at the age of 7 just after his boxing

match and itching for another fight.

(Answer to last week’s mystery: Jim Bell) Send a picture to the Editor or bring one to the meeting.

about every hospital in the valley, and then some. Currently focusing more on Behavioral Health Care (things like Adult Psychiatric, Chemical Dependency, you get the idea) Jerry’s office is at Memorial Hospital. He also told us that the Hospital is in, as Karen

Wass would put it, “escrow”, and this may lead to a job change for him down the road when “escrow” closes.

THE PROGRAM Our Guest Speaker today, intro-duced by Kay Pitts, was Allen Carden, Executive Director, Cen-tral Valley Higher Education Con-sortium (sp) and member of the

history faculty at CSU, Fresno. Allen has been a Ro-tarian since 1988, current member of the Rotary Club of Fresno. Allen’s topic and passion is to educate us all on the growing gap of college-educated adults in the non-white population of the valley, and especially Kern County. Check out these startling statistics:

• 28% of adult population in California above 25 years old has a degree from college

• 16% of the adult population in the Central Valley above 25 years old has a degree from college Only 12%, less than half the state average, of the adult population in Kern County above 25 years old has a degree from college Hey, and this was the good news. Check this out: in a 2002 study of then current kindergartners who could potentially go on to college -

• For every 100 white students, 86 will graduate high school, 24 get a college degree

• For every 100 Asian students, 78 will graduate high school, 40 get a college degree

(Continued from page 2)

(Continued on page 4)

Sue Benham

Allen Carden

See my shiner, Santa?! Bring me that wimpy kid from last week’s newsletter, and I’ll

give him one just like it !!!!!!

Bakersfield Breakfast Rotary Club P.O. Box 2568

Bakersfield, California 93303 Email editor: nwalker1@bak.rr.com

• For every 100 African-American students, 76 will graduate high school, only 11 get a college degree • For every 100 Latinos students, 45 will graduate high school and only 6 get a college degree This is disturbing information at best. Considering that the Latino population is the fastest growing part of our population base, this study suggests, unless something changes, the future population in the valley and Kern County will be a less-educated body. As Allen pointed out, the earnings differential for the edu-cated vs. non-educated currently is a whopping $1.25 million over the course of a person’s life-time (bigger if you’re in the oil industry). Allen pointed out that students who graduate from college earn more money, volunteer more time to civic endeav-ors, are more engaged in the community and vote more. For more information on this topic please visit this website: www.collegenext.org.

True to his military training, Past-President Walker ad-journed the meeting exactly on time directly after Anne “you go girl!” Fonseca won the cash drawing.

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JIM BELL VOLUNTEERED FOR NEWSLETTER DUTY FOR THIS EDITION. THANKS FOR A GREAT BULLETIN.

If one ever needs to validate the importance of what we do in Rotary, appreciation such as expressed in this note from Catholic HealthCare

West Learning Center to BBRC will get you centered.

Our thanks to Gary Fachin for his dynamic leadership with this project.