DATELINE: Tuesday, February 18, 2003. President Erika Kirtdoll opened the meeting and asked Michel Listenberger to give the invocation and lead us in the pledge of allegiance.

INTRODUCTION OF GUESTS: Our guests today were from the Toastmaster’s Club. They included: Jim and Donna Fox, Carl and Eloise Woods, and David and Margaret Dyer.

BIRTHDAYS: Susan Cipares celebrates her birthday today and Robert Todd celebrates his birthday tomorrow on February 19^th. Also, Happy Birthday to Amy McKean whose birthday is February 23^rd. HAPPY BIRTHDAY OPTIMISTS!

BRAGS: Dave Morse bragged on his oldest daughter. It seems that young Ms. Morse got Straight As this year and will be honored for her achievement. Congratulations Ms. Morse! President Kirtdoll bragged on Optimist John Willis who spent not only Saturday, but probably 4 to 5 hours on Sunday sorting through hundreds of Optimist Soccer applications to break the group into teams. John also worked on the T-Shirt orders so that all the teams would have their uniforms in time for the beginning of soccer season. OUR THANKS TO JOHN WILLIS FOR BEING SUCH A HARD WORKER FOR OUR SOCCER TEAMS!

ANNOUNCEMENTS: President Kirtdoll announced the District Meeting will be held on February 22^nd in Clinton Township. If you would like to go, please contact her. She also announced that Tri-Star Basketball would be held on Saturday, March 22^nd. We need volunteers to help out that morning at the YMCA. Amy McKean is the chairman of this event. The next board meeting is Monday, March 10^th. Winners of the Optimist Essay contest will be at our meeting next Tuesday to read their essays. Please plan on attending and giving them your support.

50/50 RAFFLE DRAWING: Osceola Skinner conducted the 50/50 raffle. Marsh Pedzinski won the $10 pot. Congratulations Marsh!

GUEST SPEAKER: President Kirtdoll introduced Margaret Dyer who introduced the main speaker, her husband, David Dyer. David is a retired steelworker who was born in Iowa and was one of 9 children. His talk was entitled "Farm Critters and Me". David had several humorous little stories about his experience growing up on a farm. He first told us about his experience with horses and how as a young boy his father instructed him to unharness the horse. He said they were very stubborn and maybe they just didn’t like the way he tried to harness them. He said that once a horse stepped on his foot and that was very painful. David told us about cows that he says are very docile, unless they have calves. He remembered that most of the time as kids they had no shoes so when it was real cold they would climb up on a cow to ride it back from the pastures to the farmhouse. Once his father had bought a Hereshire cow that had horns. He went to get it from the pasture but there was no riding that one and it didn’t want to be led back to the barn. So David smacked it on its nose. It chased him all over until it ran into a pole and stunned itself. Never smack a cow on the nose. Later they had a collie named Boots. That dog would round up the cows. Cadillac was another dog that rounded up cows. David said a year after Cadillac had died you could just holler, "Go get ‘em Cadillac" and the cows would round themselves up in the barn. David talked about how dirty pigs could be, except for their straw beds. They keep their straw beds very clean. One day he was playing around with the little piglets and the mama pig came up and bit him. David reminded the group that all animals, even cute ones can hurt you when their babies are involved. He then told the group about his experience with geese. Once a goose got after him and he thought he would just tap it a little with a stick. Instead he killed the geese. He felt real bad about that – just until dinner time. That goose tasted real good. He also talked about how they raised chickens and how once he started playing with the little stripped chicks. He said that mama hen jumped on top of his head and started pecking him something fierce. David also told a story about how he tried to play with a baby owl. He said that every owl on the farm attacked him until he put that baby down. He also talked about how once he had a 20lb cat. One day the cat came home with a live rabbit in his mouth. David thought that rabbit would be good eatin, but the cat was having none of that. Finally David told the funniest stories about skunks. Hint: Never try to pull a skunk out of a hole by his back end. We offer our thanks to David Dyer for a wealth of funny stories that kept us laughing. Come visit us again soon David.

CLOSING CREED: Marsh Pendzinski led the group in reciting the Closing Creed at the end of the meeting.

"We live in the present, we dream of the future and we learn eternal truths from the past." Soong Mei-Ling, Political Leader

TODAY IN HISTORY: February 18^th

1229: The Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II negotiates the return of Jerusalem to Christian control with al-Kamil, the sultan of Egypt; therefore, the Sixth Crusade ends without any fighting.

1865: After five months under siege, Charleston, South Carolina, surrenders control of the city to Union forces.

1885: Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) publishes The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, a sequel to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, helping to make Twain a popular American author.

1930: The planet Pluto is discovered to be the ninth planet of the solar system, proving earlier predictions by Percival Lowell to be correct.

1970: The Chicago Seven are found not guilty of conspiracy stemming from anti-war protests during the 1968 Democratic Convention.

Mary Tudor, queen of England (1516)

George Peabody, business leader (1795)

Louis Comfort Tiffany, painter and designer (1848)

Yoko Ono, conceptual artist (1933)

Five men were traveling along a lane. It began to rain. Four of the men quickened their step and got wet. The fifth man did not quicken his step but remained quite dry. He did not have an umbrella or hat. How can this be?

The four men were pall bearers and the fifth man was the corpse in the coffin.

American writer Toni Morrison won the 1993 Nobel Prize for literature, the eighth woman and the first black woman to receive the prize. Morrison writes about African American women, celebrating their strength and vitality and revealing their struggles. She won the Pulitzer Prize in 1988 for Beloved (1987), which explored the effects of slavery on a former slave living in Ohio after the American Civil War. Other works, including Song of Solomon (1977) and Jazz (1992), focus on the powerful cultural heritage of African Americans.