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Volume 83 Issue34 Wed, March 20, 2024

Rota-Scribe: RobertJahncke

Orange County History
by Stan Oftelie, Orange County Historian

With a LOUD Clang of the Rotary Bell, President Jim opened the meeting: "Welcome to Rotary"

"Just an update on the kitties: We took in a stray cat, unbeknownst to us, she's pregnant! So the kitties will be a month old this weekend. they just opened their eyes and I think as they develop and you get to know their personalities, I'm picking one out for each of you.

"Thank you for all your warm wishes. I appreciate Sally,& Judy; the baby shower is really not necessary. I thank you for that thought.

"I know you're thinking I'm not weird, but I am weird, and I appreciate the fact that you accept that, and it makes my day, it makes me happy. So without any further ado, I believe we've got Judy Atwell, who is doing the patriotic moment, and Bob Sattler for an invocation."

Judy: "Thank you. Good afternoon. I think you need to be standing on your feet right now. Will you all please join me in a pledge to our flag. "

Bob Sattler: "I don't know if you noticed, but Judy is dressed in patriotic colors to give the patriotic a moment. So there's so many things that you could brag about and be thankful for. I mean, I noticed it was so beautiful outside, as I was walking in, you heard birds chirping. I'm going to default to a prayer on my list for a long, long time. It's the one I said every night going up, and when I go see my cousins in Ohio, I guess I said it so fast I had no idea what I was saying because I was used to it. But anyway, to your bowed heads, "God is great, God is good. Let us thank Him for his food. Amen".

Jim: "That's my kind of prayer. I don't think we have any guests here today and we don't have a song leader.I guess we'll go straight to recognition. I was told by today's recognition master to remind you all that there is an ATM machine downstairs in the pro shop. So without any further ado, Mike Cochran has the honors today of recognizing our club members.

Mike: Good afternoon, and first of all, when everybody looks up this way, Sally, you take a picture with me, I can't wait, I can't wait to get a picture, just wave to her, smile. Thank you so much, just so you know, all of you have now been recognized. Part of the fine master's job is to, well, my instructions came from the all -knowing, the all -seeing, and the all -powerful master that finds himself, and he said, you know, do something to bring some money for the club. So I'm recognizing each and every one of you as great materialists. And for that recognition, I would ask that you to celebrate that for yourself. Anyway, we'll go through a little bit. of some of the things that you could be recognized for individually.

But since you're all being recognized as a great Rotarian, we'll just kind of look at the monetary side of it at that. So we'll start with this Tim Hedrick here today. Anybody see Lewis Kuntz today? Okay, I might have to increase the general fund. Kim Barlow. Okay, John Christiansen. I knew you were his last name. Busholish. You can stand up. You've got a newest nine tag on them and everything. Okay, how about Leslie McCarthy? I know she's here. Leslie, today is a special day. Coming up in a few days is a special day. What would that day be?

Leslie: Thirty-nine years of winning bliss with Kevin

Mike: David Gillanders, tell me what special coming up.

David: My wife's birthday or my Rotary Brithday .

Mike: Pick one.

David:Alright, my wife's birthday next.

Mike: There you go. That's $5 for you for showing up. There's an ATM downstairs. We have George Lowe. George, something coming up special on the 26th.

George: "My wife's birthday, but my son's birthday is on the 24th. For him, $5 for your wife, put in how much you think you should put in for her, since you're special. Okay, now... My wife's birthday is on the 26th, too, so you can just do both of them. That's $30.

Mike: Okay, well that takes care of the special. Oh, wait, one more... It was very hard to find out this person's Rotary birthday. It's just not anywhere in the records. Monica Fernandez. Yeah, what's coming up?

Monica: My birthday.

Mike: Yeah, your birthday, but I can't find it anywhere. So how do you find it? I'm not able to... I can neither confirm nor deny that I got it anywhere. I just would call on it. Anyway, I don't know how you've kept it out of the massive record-keeping apparatus that Bob Jahncke has established.

Announcements: Gerardo has been ourfaithful scribe and did a lot of photography for us. Unfortunately, he's had to move on now that he has transferred over to Cal State Fullerton and retired from his job with us. So the interim, before we find his replacement, we're going back to the old system of scribes. So we don't have a scribe for today. So anything you say or do will not be held against you in the future. So if anybody's interested in temporarily volunteering until we have that duty in place, that would be great. Also, I don't know if we have a care and comfort person associated with the board, but if there's someone who's willing to volunteer to perhaps do that, Pick up a thank you card that we can all sign and get that forwarded off to Gerardo. If you have his e -mail address, please send him an e -mail. I wish him well. He did a lot for our club and we really appreciate his efforts with us.

On the tables. April 20th. Love Fullerton. So if you can please sign up if you are interested and join in on a project.

Rick Crane: On the table, you'll find some sign-up sheets and some flyers. We're going to have our annual Cal State Fullerton Rotary Night for Baseball at Cal State Fullerton on Wednesday, April 17th. The game time is at 6 o 'clock. And so there's one sign-up sheet on each table if you will pass that around. And Jim is our current president, as you know. He will be doing the first pitch. Please sign up and I'll be ordering tickets in a couple weeks and I'll need to know the number count by then.

Miko Krisvoy: "Next week, Wednesday, March 27th. Please come to help me out. us for the SHHS Top 100, Sunny Hill High School. It's on your table. And this year we are still doing school and we were not able to use the cafeteria. So I'm crossing my finger. If the weather is good and it will be fun day. 27th of March this coming Wednesday, starting morning at 6 o 'clock. So I'll see you there. We'll be great to see you, 5.30.

Leslie Mc Carthy: April 10th. Please bring ALL your friends, neighbors, and business acquaintances. We are having a big Fullereton Rotary Open House.

Un-Corked: Reach out for those sponsorships. We have $13,000 committed to date We are paid out to the tune of eight thousand to date And Dan is doing an outstanding job in Updating and incorporating these guys into our website with their URLs because we are guaranteed, Jimmy Williams promised me a minimum of 10,000 hits on our website this year, so advertising charitable donations, however, they want to code it, but please go after them.Thank you.

Dan Ouwleen: Everybody you can thank one or more of the former past presidents at the table for authorizing me to do this Happiness of Hope is hosting our annual community meeting on April 11th at RSVP in downtown. It's a no-ask event It's not a fundraiser, but it's an opportunity to learn about the work We're doing doing if you haven't heard the rehab and beautification of the homes We have on average street is really an ad to the neighborhood down there was super excited about it But yes, no ask it's not a fundraiser. So I'm not asking for money if you want more details I do not have flyers because it's 100% digital, but I'm happy to send you the link and you email me in the directory, obviously. Finally, I get recognized today, I get to make an announcement, and I get to have a root canal at two o 'clock.

So it's a great day to come in. Nice, guys. Well, now that the top 100 is not on April 27th, and it's March 27th, you said, I want to make you all aware that there is a march for mental health on April 27th being put on by the district. We're asking all the clubs in the district to get involved in this. You may not be aware, but our current R.I. President, Gordon McInally, made this one of the top priorities for ordering this year, just to put a focus on mental health, which we all know is what she needed. And so this is a district -wide event. It's pretty inexpensive to be a part of it. It's $25 per person to come out and do a 3K walk. And I'll send a flyer around to everybody to email, so you have it. So again, that's April 27th. But it's also on the district calendar.

I know several of you as well. So it's going to be interesting to kind of tiptoe through time and see what Orange County is all about. And a special shout out to George and Chris Lowe for making this event today.

So without any further ado, I'm going to ask Chris Lowe to come up, who I found out today was a past member of this club. I don't know why he said no, he should work on it. He will be introducing today's speaker.

Chris Lowe:Thank you, Jim., it's great to be back. I do. Yes, Jim, I will be back more frequently. Thank you all for inviting Stan. Stan told me this is his third time back in the course of ten years, and he really enjoys being here with a really good club.
I just wanted to give you a few introduction points that you might not be aware. Stan, how many people were born and raised in Orange County? A couple people. Stan was born and raised here in Orange County, and will turn 75 next month.

He went to that little -known school in LA called USC and graduated with distinction. He had the privilege of working both for the registered and the times and received awards with both papers. He then left to work for the County Board of Supervisors, Ralph Clark. He left that job to run Orange County Transportation Authority. He served for a number of years as its CEO. So if you're driving back to Los Angeles and you hit Buena Park and it goes from six lanes in LA. to twelve lanes in Buena Park in Orange County, you've got to thank Stan because he passed all the measures that made that possible. The grandfather of transportation in Orange County, he also served as one of the founding CEOs of the Orange County Business Council and created a chamber for the county. But I think Stan, in the last several years, has been better known as the historian for Orange County and a cancer survivor. So while he was working through cancer, he wrote this book that... he's going to talk to you about today, specifically for third graders.

California curriculum requires third graders to learn about local government. So Stan and his team realized that teachers didn't have a book specifically for Orange County. So while he was working through cancer, he set out about a year to write this book, and Stan has made it possible for all of you to get a copy today. It's written at a third grade level, so like Dick will appreciate, it's written, politicians and third graders can comprehend it. This book has been in existence for 15 years. It has hosted, I think, five events at Angel Stadium, where Stan set Guinness Book of World Records for the largest history lesson. He had over 15,000 third graders there in attendance, and he has been responsible for donating over 150,000 of these books to Orange County third graders over that period of time.

So an amazing accomplishment for the man that everybody calls the Orange County Historian, and it's a great pleasure. Please join me in welcoming Stan Oftelie.

Thank you. Usually people introduce me and say that most of your transportation problems are my fault, and they're right.

It takes so long to get stuff built in this state that the things I was working on 17, 18 years ago are being built today, and it's a sad commentary, but good things will happen. So let's take a look at this.

Stan told stories about the early formation of Orange County from the 1890's through the 1970's.. It was the wild west, with guns and horses. Huntington Beach had to pass a law to forbid horses from entering the bars!! It was a story of politics and money.

Proposed new members:

Don McFarland, Retired Aerospace, Proposed by Bob Sattler
Bill Christensen, AIG Retirement, Proposed by John Christensen,
Ricky Fair, Real Estate Investing, Proposed by John Phelps,

Stan, thank you so much that was really really interesting .

Please pick the lucky number for our 50:50 raffle.

The lucky number: 39322322. Bob Sattler is the lucky winner.

Next week another good program that takes on the Library and Rotary district 5320 with my boss district governor Roy Jefferson. I'll see you next week.

This meeting is adjourned.Have a Great rest of the week.

(published using 100% recycled electrons)
3/27/24 Upadates on the Hunt Library & Rotary District 5420
District Governor Roy Jefferson and Librarian Judy Booth share the podium.
3/27/24 SHHS Top 100 at SHHS, 6pm
4/3/24 The Future of Water in Southern California
Charley Wilson, Executive Directr S.C.W.C
4/10/24 Special Membership Campaign Meeting
Leslie McCarthy
4/17/24 New Member Craft Talk
Amy Choi-Wan shows uss the Ropes oof Advancing Education
4/17/24 >Rotary Fellowship Baseball - CSUF Ball Field
4/25/24 FUHS Top 100 at FUHS, 6pm
5/22/24 PIRACY ON THE HIGH SEAS
A Personal Harrowing Story Told by Fullerton Rotarian Matt Howells

this edition was published in Fullerton, CA
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