The regular meeting of the Pensacola Rotary Club was held on March 25 under sunny spring skies. Rotarians were greeted at the door by Dr. Ed Ranelli. Bob Rogers handled raffle ticket sales for Tim Kane who was buried under a mound of tax returns at his office.
President Jerry called the meeting to order and led the club in the Four Way Test and then called Earl Hutto to the podium for the prayer and pledge.
The first item on the day’s agenda was the presentation of new members by their sponsors. Blair Crooke introduced Barry Cole, Kathy Horton-Brown introduced Nancy Fetterman, Nigel Allen introduced Alexis Bolin and Milton Usry introduced Bill Dollarhide. It was noted that with this tsunami of new members, President Jerry has succeeded in meeting the goal established for his reign – woo hoo!
The raffle pot of $84 was claimed by none other than the Mayor of Palafox – Nathan Kahn.
R.P Doyle was called to the podium for Sunshine accompanied by a smattering of applause. R.P. introduced 2 military guests, 4 guests of the club and 3 visiting Rotarians. No visit to the podium by R.P. would be complete without a few tidbits from the most recent edition of the Rotary magazine and he provided several fun facts for the benefit of the membership.
The club then joined in a rousing version of Happy Birthday You All for the birthday boys and girls.
President Jerry then called Paul Young to the podium for the presentation of the program. Paul introduced Ginny Graybiel who is the managing editor of the Pensacola News Journal. Ginny provided some insights to the old days at the PNJ newsroom when the reporters came in to work at 4 PM and left after meeting the deadline by 1 AM. The worldwide web has caused dramatic changes to the old ways of doing business and locally Hurricane Ivan accelerated changes at the PNJ as many readers turned to the online edition for constant updates and reports due to the breakdown in other lines of communication. The most significant change involves “CNN type journalists” who are scanning for news stories 24 hours a day and covering many more stories than in the past. The PNJ website is experiencing dramatic growth in the number of visits it receives as more people seek to get their news on a dynamic basis as opposed to waiting for the paper to be delivered in the morning. Ginny explained that the objective is for PNJ.com to become the MySpace or Facebook for the Pensacola community.
There being no further business the meeting was adjourned.
See where Roger MacDonald was crowned King of the Saints and Sinners ball!
And Randy Jackson was one of four clergy singled out by the press to provide views on the celebration of Easter.
Jean Norman and United Way are moving ahead well with program of the United Way Foundation called The Agnes Weis Society. The goal: to reach a point where Society earnings would pay all United Way operating expenses.
Grover Robinson may have started something really interesting! Through his suggestion the commission has memorialized the legislature to trim ALL salaries set by the state. That’s two good moves in two months. Keep it up!
Even with the current real estate gloom Wanda Cross’s company seems to be smiling.
John Appleyard’s new reader/coloring books called Going To The Hospital is out, en route to all county fourth graders. Our Jimmy Jones is cartooned in the story as he counsels little ones.
Nathan Kahn– April 1- born in Mobile, AL,in Rotary 32 years
Charles Sherrill Sr. (Charlie) – April 6 – born in Pensacola, FL, in Rotary for 39 years
Bob Gaines – April 6 – born in Daytona Beach, FL, in Rotary 44 years