Steamboat Blogs

CLUB HONORS ROTARIAN OF THE YEAR; INSTALLS NEW OFFICERS

Posted on05. Jul, 2010 by Mike Forney.

Outgoing President Suzanne Schlicht and Rotarian Mignon Stetman congratulate Jane Denning (far right) on her selection of 2009-2010 Rotarian of the Year for the Rotary Club of Steamboat Springs.

The selection of Jane Denning as Rotary Club of Steamboat Springs Rotarian of the Year was one of the highlights of the club’s annual Changing of the Guard. ceremonies on June 29th at Rex’s American Grill.  It was a double honor, since Denning also was also inducted into the office of  president of the noon club later on that evening.

‘Jane Denning was deeply involved in all aspects of our club over the past year,” according to outgoing president Suzanne Schlicht.  “One of the toughest jobs your president has is singling out one Rotarian from so many of you who have given so much to our club and our community.  But Jane’s contributions this year really stood out,” Schlicht said.

Denning is an escrow officer at Heritage Title.  She began her term as president on July 1.  She has been active in a wide variety of the club’s programs and activities and recently graduated from the Rotary District 5440 Rotary Leadership Institute.  She also attended this year’s Rotary International conference in Montreal.

Scott Marr assumed the position of vice president and president-elect.  Marr owns the Steamboat Springs Holiday Inn and served for several years as club treasurer.  Bill Kennedy, a retired school superintendent from update New York was named treasurer.  Winnie DelliQuadri, a City of Steamboat Springs employee will serve another year as the club’s secretary.

New board members this year include Steamboat Springs School Superintendent Shalee Cunningham, restaurant owner Rex Brice and attorney James Moylan.   Other board members serving the second of their two year terms include Nancy Spillane, Ed Allbright and Angela Catterson.  Suzanne Schlicht will remain on the board this year as past president.

Continue Reading

HIGH SCHOOL INTERACT CLUB SCORES AT CONFERENCE

Posted on05. Jul, 2010 by Mike Forney.

The Steamboat Springs Rotary Interact Club was named the outstanding Rotary youth group in Rotary District 5440 at the recent gathering of some 450 Rotarians from Wyoming, Northern Colorado, Idaho and Nebraska in Casper, Wyoming on June 5^th.

The award was presented during the Rotary district conference at the Casper Events Center. The local Interact Club includes 40 Steamboat Springs High School students who complete at least two community service projects each year.  Interact members were recognized for their work on two projects with seniors at the Doak Walker Care Center, their canned food drives for the Lift-Up Food Bank and for their participation with local Rotarians in delivering holiday gift packages to more than 100 orphan children in Agua Prieta, Mexico.

Members of the Steamboat Springs High School Rotary Interact Club pose with Rotary president Suzanne Schlicht with the top award they won at the Rotary District Conference.

The three-day conference also featured several national keynote speakers including Jason Ryan Dorsey  a prolific author and recognized authority on the “Gen Y” generation, polio survivor and polio eradication activist Ann Lee Hussey, and cowboy ethics author James Owen.

Continue Reading

FLOWERS FESTOON CITY THANKS TO ROTARY!

Posted on05. Jul, 2010 by Mike Forney.

Neither orange traffic cones nor missing street surfaces stopped the Rotary Club of Steamboat Springs from making their rounds once again this year with hefty barrels festooned with brightly colored spring flowers.  187 barrels were delivered by about fifty Rotary volunteers in less than two hours.

Merchants were thrilled to have the flowers delivered this year.  Many feared that Rotary would not come through for the first time in more than ten years.  “The Rotary flower barrels have become a real tradition in Steamboat Springs and we were not about to disappoint,” Lori Elliott, Rotary chair of the event

Rotarians Jeff Steinke and Greg Stetman move one of the heavy flower barrels onto a flatbed trailer for delivery to downtown Steamboat Springs.

said.  Rotary volunteers fill the barrels with fresh flowers, deliver them early in June and pick them up in mid-September.

The City of Steamboat Springs waters the barrels in downtown locations with a small motorized vehicle that also is used to water hanging flower baskets.  “It’s a real community effort to beautify our downtown,” Elliott said.

Continue Reading

ROTARIANS PITCH IN TO HELP COMMUNITY

Posted on05. Jul, 2010 by Mike Forney.

Local Rotarians traded their cell phones and “business casual” clothing for rakes, hoes, shovels, garbage bags and paint brushes during the Routt County United Way Day of Caring on Wednesday, May 19^th and the Routt County Road Clean-up project on May 22^nd.

“Rotarians really do pitch in on projects like the United Way Day of Caring” according to Dan Hagney, who coordinated Rotary’s participation again this year.  “It’s pretty amazing how much work you can get done in just a few hours with a few hard-working volunteers,” he said.

Rotarian Ashley VanNess organized a team of 20 Rotarians and family members to clean up more than 4 miles of Route 40 near the Milner Land Fill the following weekend.  “It was incredibly windy,” VanNess said.  “But, we persevered and filled a lot of garbage bags with debris.”  Among other treasures the group found:  a full set of automobile tires discarded along the highway.

(L-R) Rotarians Jane Denning, Mike Forney, Cam Boyd and Scott Marr hold up a thank you letter from the children at Holy Name Preschool after the team completed restoration of the playground surface.

Continue Reading

LOCAL LIBRARIAN SELECTED FOR AUSTRALIAN VOCATIONAL TRIP

Posted on28. Jan, 2010 by Mike Forney.

Sarah Kostin, Youth Services Librarian at Bud Werner Memorial Library will leave next Saturday, February 6^th for a five-week business, cultural and study exchange to New South Wales, Australia.  Kostin joins four other young professionals from Wyoming and Colorado on the trip which is underwritten by The International Rotary Foundation.

Kostin was recommended for the trip by the Rotary Club of Steamboat Springs according to club president Suzanne Schlicht.  Local Rotarian Mike Forney was chosen by the Rotary district to lead the group.

Team member Sarah Kostin reviews the travel manual and itinerary for the upcoming trip to New South Wales, Australia with Steamboat Springs Rotarian and team leader Mike Forney.

Rotary International pays for the round-trip flights and the exchange team members stay with host families of Rotarians in Australia. A similar group of young professionals from Australia will visit Rotary clubs in Wyoming and Colorado In May and June.

Kostin has held several positions at the local library since she joined them in 2004.  She worked previously at Horizon Specialized Services as a community integration specialist.  She earned a Bachelor of Science degree at La Salle University in Philadelphia and a Master’s Degree in Library and Information Science from the University of Illinois.

All of the participants are between 25 and 40 years old and are required to have been fully employed in their profession for a minimum of two years. They cannot be Rotarians or direct relatives of Rotarians.   They were selected based on their interest in the study of diverse cultures, an outgoing personality, a commitment to serve as an “ambassador” to another country and a desire to learn more about their individual fields and vocations.

Other team members include two from Jackson, Wyoming; Matthew Weisman, Director of Information Technology for the Town of Jackson, and Joshua Mallonee, International and Service Program Coordinator at Wilderness Ventures.  Leslie Sampson, senior vice president of HomeState Bank is from Loveland; and Tiffany Lehman, owner and business and life coach for Living on Purpose lives in Fort Collins.

Mike Forney, who served as club president for the Rotary Club of Steamboat Springs last year, said  “The team will travel a wide area of Northeast New South Wales, from about 240 to 400 miles north of Sydney.  The team will visit many of the 55 Rotary clubs in the host district, attend their meetings, witness and participate in a wide variety of community and international service projects, and explore the area’s natural resources and highlights.  They will also meet and confer with Australians who work in industries and professions similar to their own.”

The Rotary district in Australia includes seaside resort area and communities deep in the Australian bush.  The district features extensive tourism, farming, equine management, education, manufacturing, aviation, and healthcare. The team will also study the aborigine culture and visit with aborigine leaders during their tour.   February and March are the height of the summer season in Australia with temperatures reaching 110 degrees inland.

The team members were chosen during an extensive interview process in November.  Since that time they have participated in weekend training and orientation sessions in Jackson and Laramie Wyoming and Fort Collins, Colorado.

They leave Denver International Airport on Saturday afternoon, February 6^th and arrive in Sydney Australia on Monday morning, February 8^th after crossing the International Date Line.  They will return to the United States in mid-March.

Continue Reading

Local Rotarians Help Dispatch Tents to Haiti

Posted on28. Jan, 2010 by Mike Forney.

In less than 30 minutes last week, Steamboat Springs Rotarians collected more than $6,000 to purchase and dispatch tents and supplies to earthquake-ravaged Haiti through a unique Rotary program called ShelterBox.  Fellow Rotarians in Wyoming and northern Colorado raised another $60,000 in the past several days for ShelterBox purchases.

SRT (ShelterBox Response Team) offload ShelterBoxes from French Red Cross IL 76 Aircraft at PAP airport in Port Au Prince, Monday, 18th January 2010 (Picture by Mark Pearson)

As of Monday, January 25^th, Rotary ShelterBoxes are already providing emergency shelter for more than 20,000 people in Port au Prince and surrounding areas. Hundreds more ShelterBoxes containing disaster relief tents and other life-saving supplies are being sent to the city in the next few days from Miami, Curacao and France.

“Our local Rotarian family responded immediately when we learned that our dollars would be applied almost immediately to helping the homeless in Haiti,” Rotary presidents Kevin Kaminski and Suzanne Schlicht said.

Each ShelterBox costs $1,000 and supplies an extended family of up to 10 people with a tent and lifesaving equipment to use while they are displaced or homeless… Highly trained ShelterBox Response Teams distribute boxes on the ground, working closely with local organizations, international aid agencies and Rotary clubs worldwide.

On Friday January 29^th, ShelterBox is chartering a 747 aircraft with 1,800 boxes to fly from Stansted Airport to the Dominican Republic where they will be taken overland to neighboring Haiti. It is the second flight chartered by the international disaster relief charity for the Haiti response after a plane loaded with 700 ShelterBoxes and 100 tents flew out of England last week.

A number of ShelterBoxes have also been used at an orphanage and at two hospitals in Port au Prince where tents are being erected to help save lives.

ShelterBox’s Founder and CEO Tom Henderson said: ‘In terms of logistics, the aid operation in Haiti has been ShelterBox’s most challenging in the last decade, with only one airport on the island which has been shut until recently and the port shut as well.

“As food, water and medicines are now starting to get in; the focus now is fulfilling the urgent need for emergency shelter.”

To add to the logistical problems of delivering aid in Haiti, the airfield has only been operating during daylight hours and there has been a shortage of aviation fuel.

Public donations are vital to ShelterBox’s continuing work around the world according to local Rotarians… To make a donation go to www.shelterboxusa.org to donate online and get the latest updates on the charity’s response to the Haiti earthquake.

Continue Reading

LINDSEY YOST – STUDENT OF THE MONTH

Posted on22. Jan, 2010 by Mike Forney.

Lindsey Yost receives student honors from Rotarian PJ Wharton

Lindsey Yost, daughter of Kathi and George Yost and a senior at Steamboat Springs High School is the Rotary Student of the Month for January of 2010.  Lindsey was honored at the regular Rotary meeting on January 19^th.

Lindsey is a member of the National Honor Society maintaining a GPA of 3.4.  Her career interests are in the area of sports medicine and she has taken medical preparation  and the care and prevention of injuries in addition to her general studies.  She is considering attending college at the University of Connecticut to further her career goals.

Sports are a important part of Lindsey’s high school experience.  She participates in varsity volleyball and is captain of the basketball team.

As a leader in school, Lindsey has many other roles within the high school community as well.  She serves on the Link Crew that helps younger high school students adapt to their new environment.  She is also a senior class officer and participates in the Leadership Class.  Last year she served on the Prom Committee and this year she is on the Graduation Committee where she is producing a senior slide show for graduation.

One of her instructors, Dr. Daniel Tullius, advises that Lindsey is self motivated, highly disciplined and gifted as well.  PJ Wharton, Rotary Student Coordinator cited these strengths in recognizing Lindsey’s successes at Steamboat Springs High School.

Continue Reading

END POLIO NOW!

Posted on01. Jan, 2010 by Mike Forney.

Rotarians have already raised more than 800 MILLION DOLLARS since 1985 to eradicate polio worldwide.  Now Steamboat Springs Rotarians are joining more than 1.2 million Rotarians to raise another $200 million needed to kill polio forever!

The second annual Rotary Community Barn Dance at Sidney Peak Ranch on September 26th already contributed $1,000 to the effort.  School children throughout the Yampa Valley helped the club raise another $800 during End Polio Now Day Wednesday, October 28th.

Everyone can do their part.  If you want to make a contribution, go to  http://www.rotary.org/en/Contribute/Funds/PolioPlusFund. You may also make a $5 contribution to Polio Plus now by sending a text message from your cell phone.  The text address is 90999.  The message is POLIO.  You will receive a confirmation message within seconds!

See photo of students participating in Purple Pinkie Day at Steamboat Springs High School.  (l-r) Katie Arnis, Rachel Grubbs, Gabrielle Bohlman, Cheyanne Chadwick, Calyx Ward and Sutter Duerst.

Continue Reading