DATELINE: Tuesday, June 17, 2003. President Erika Kirtdoll opened the meeting and Tom Majerek gave the invocation and led us in the pledge of allegiance.

INTRODUCTION OF GUESTS: There were no guests.

BIRTHDAYS/ANNIVERSARIES: Craig Krassow and Tom Majerek. Congratulations Gentlemen!

ANNOUNCEMENTS: Big Brothers Big Sisters announced that they will need someone from the Optimist Club to be "slimed". This caused a lot of commotion with various people being nominated. Dennis Middleton announced there is a 5K run/walk Saturday June 21^st at Fernwood Botanical Center. Volunteers should be on site by 8:30 a.m. President Elect Liz Capron announced that the packets for the Dragon Boat Challenge are available. So far 9 teams are tentatively signed up. If you know of a company that can sponsor a Dragon Boat, contact Dave VanStrien or Liz. We will be limiting the number of teams to 20 this year and it is possible that the Youth Teams will race on Sunday during Riverfest. Dr. Todd announced that next week’s program should be interesting, as we are having a forensic artist, Tom Fuller, as our speaker. He also said we need programs for July 1^st, July 29^th and the rest of August. If you know of a possible speaker, contact Dr. Todd.

50/50 RAFFLE DRAWING: Dana Trowbridge conducted the 50/50 raffle. Rudy Kappe took home the $11 pot! Congratulations Rudy!

GUEST SPEAKER Tom Majerek was our guest speaker today. Tom brought us up to date on this year's, first, Blue Grass Festival. It will be held at the River Front park June 27, 28^th and 29^th. Tom gave a bit of back ground on "Blue Grass" music. He said that Blue Grass is also known as Old time music and Hillbilly music. He said years ago, the Europeans brought their instruments and played the music in their homes, or at church. Blue Grass is rooted in Gospel music. It is played mostly with acoustical instruments. There will never be a drum in true Blue Grass music. Five instruments make up a Blue Grass band; a mandolin, fiddle, banjo, guitar and a bass. He said Bill Monroe was one of the first men to make Blue Grass popular. He started out on a radio program, WSM, in Nashville on a show at the "Grand Old Opry". The show became very popular. The music concentrates on vocal harmony. Later Lester Flatt and Ernest Tubbs also became involved in Blue Grass. Recently there has been a resurgence of Blue Grass music, made popular through movies such as "Deliverance" and "Oh Brother Where Art Thou".

The festival will begin Friday evening about 4pm. Tom has brought in bands from Chicago, Lansing and other areas. Some of the bands that will be featured are: Twenty Three, who do traditional Blue Grass and Gospel. The Balos Family Gospel Singers (a family of 6 plus one on the way). Hot Toe Midi, Steppin in It, Our own Rich Schpok’s band the Time Traveler String Band, who entertain you between songs, Cornmeal, Deadwood and Fiddlin’ Roger Osborn’s Blue Grass Band. Along with the good music, there will be Arts and Crafts vendors, kiddie games and rides and several food vendors. The Eagles will also have a beer tent.

Tom has plans for next year. He is hoping the festival will grow and he is hoping to bring in carnival rides, as well as National Blue Grass Bands.

CLOSING CREED: Rudy Kappe led the group in reciting the Closing Creed at the end of the meeting.

"The trouble with fulfilling your ambitions is that you think you will be transformed into some sort of archangel and you’re not. You still have to wash your socks." Louis De Berneres, Writer.

"Bad times have a scientific value. These are occasions a good learner would not miss." Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803 – 1895)

"I know of no rights of race superior to the rights of humanity." Frederick Douglass (1817 – 1895) Abolitionist

TODAY IN HISTORY:

1775: In the early days of the Revolutionary War, British troops attack Massachusetts militiamen in the Battle of Bunker Hill. The British suffer high casualties but capture the American position.

1789: As the French Revolution approaches, the French Third Estate, the assembly of commoners, declares itself the National Assembly, in an attempt to wrest political power from King Louis XVI.

1876: In the Battle of Rosebud Creek, Oglala Sioux and Cheyenne forces led by Crazy Horse repel U.S. troops, eight days before joining Sitting Bull to defeat General George Custer at Little Big Horn.

1976: Four teams from the folded American Basketball Association (New York Nets, Indiana Pacers, San Antonio Spurs, and Denver Nuggets) join the National Basketball Association.

1972: Five men are arrested in a burglary of Democratic Party offices in the Watergate building in Washington, D.C. The cover-up of White House involvement will lead to President Richard Nixon's resignation in 1974.

1994: Driving a white Ford Bronco, O. J. Simpson leads police on a slow freeway chase before being arrested for the murder of his wife and another man, a crime he was acquitted of the following year.

James Weldon Johnson, writer and civil rights activist (1871)

Charles XII, Swedish king and general (1682)

John Wesley, founder of Methodism (1703)

Igor Stravinsky, composer (1882)

Charles Eames, architect and designer (1907)

Francois Jacob, biologist (1920)

What is the next letter in this series? O T T F F S

I was born on this day in 1943. I created the Republican "Contract with America."

S -- these are the initial letters for the numbers: one, two, three, four, five, etc.

Newt Gingrich became speaker of the United States House of Representatives after the 1994 congressional elections, in which the Republican Party gained control of both houses of the Congress. The Republican Party’s election platform was summarized in the "Contract with America," which Gingrich had created and which became the party’s agenda for the new Congress.