Just before arriving at our weekly gathering of Rotarians, Mindy Wilmot and Stephanie Baker extended warm greetings and slick promises regarding this week’s 50/50 raffle. After President Ron Nelms rang that fateful bell, our very own Cheryl Scott and Joe Nunez lead us in our devotion to God and our country respectively. Then Dan Johnson helped (mostly in vain) keep us on key as we sang an acoustic version of Jimmy Buffett’s Margaritaville.
Once everyone became comfortably seated, Pres Ron recognized Karen Bonanno who celebrates her two year anniversary with BBRC this week. Congratulations Karen!! In addition, Michael O’Doherty introduced his friend and guest Andy Escobar with First American Title followed by Craig Holland introducing his friend and guest Nick Simmons, a physical therapist with G&G Physical Therapy. Welcome Andy & Nick! Continuing our celebrations, Becky Brooks’ birthday is this Friday and Ken Quarnberg recently took his lovely bride to Steak & Grape to commemorate their 29th wedding anniversary. Try as he might, Pres Ron was unsuccessful in extracting additional information from Ken regarding their anniversary activities.
Our weekly Rotarian spotlight found Dennis Scott, a charter member of BBRC. Dennis spent his professional career in the education field with the Kern High School District, first as a math teacher and later as Associate Superintendent of Business. This summer Dennis will celebrate his 45th wedding anniversary with Frances and together they have three children and three grandchildren and NO pets! An alumni of North High, Dennis furthered his education with an undergraduate degree at UCLA and PhD from USC (what??). His love affair with metal on wheels began with a ’65 Karmann Ghia convertible, he attended the Moody Blues for his first concert and he sites several high school teachers as his personal inspiration.
The Program: Mark Witsoe; Director of Airports, County of Kern Airports
Our program director, Pete Leveroni, introduced our featured speaker, Mark Witsoe, Director of Airports for Kern County. Mark shared several fascinating insights on the past, current, and future developments for air travel in and through Kern County. Meadows Field is the primary focus for commercial travel and just recently completed a years long project updating the runway to better separate the landing of heavy commercial aircraft from that of lighter personal planes. Currently Meadows Field services two carriers (American & United) with direct service to Dallas (AA), Phoenix (AA), Denver (UA), and San Francisco (UA). The airport hopes to finalize a deal with another carrier (TBA) to provide direct service to Sacramento and from there additional connecting service to Seattle and the Northwest. Finally, a couple of years ago SBBC created a subsidiary, CAU, through which the college offers flight training for budding pilots and associates, bachelors, and masters degrees in various aviation related fields. In addition to Meadows Field, the department also oversees general aviation airports in Taft, Poso, Buttonwillow, Kern Valley, and a few others. Of course this was just a smidge of the great insight Mark shared with us- those in attendance left well educated and excited about the future vision Mark provided.
Community Service
At the conclusion of Mark’s program, Pres Ron reminded us about the upcoming All Club project at Jim Burke Ford and Jeff Haynes reminded us of Saturday’s upcoming club social at Coseree’s Kitchen (lunch and Bunco). Jeff also informed us of the district’s upcoming Giants/Dodgers event on June 20th. Jackie Maxwell and Becky reminded us of Thousand Flags coming up in just over a month- we’ve raised over $14,000 so far. Denise Haynes will be emailing out copies of the updated club bylaws in preparation for a vote in a couple of weeks. Cheryl will be emailing out invoices for foundation pledges.
Opportunities and Rewards
Oh to be happy!
Mike O'D was $20 happy for taking his grandkids to Disneyland last week and proposed that Neil Walker and Tom Burke be $32.25 happy each for calling him at 0645 last Wednesday.
Dan Johnson was $5 happy for the upcoming concert by AMAZING guitarist Gary Hoey and that Dan's band, Blonde Faith’s is the opening act.
Stephanie Baker was $25 happy for spending the past 10 days in Maui
Dale Bender was $5 happy for surviving yet another tax season.
Cheryl Scott was $20 happy for updating her car lease (moved from an A6 to an A4).
Denise Haynes was also $20 happy for updating her car lease (from an Expedition to an Explorer).
Dave Spalinger was $20 happy for helping the Stockdale High School Virtual Enterprise team win 2nd place at the National competition in NY.
Finally, our newest Rotarian, Temo Lopez, was extremely happy for winning $50 in this week’s 50/50 drawing!
