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Please join us for the next Rotary In the Know featuring a tour of the Avera Addiction Care Center! Open to Downtown Sioux Falls Rotarians and their guests.
Jeff Hazard, CEO and principal of Koch Hazard Architects passed away on Friday, August 30th. Jeff was a member of Downtown Rotary for 30 years.
He was remembered in lovely tributes by the Argus Leader and by Jodi Schwan on SiouxFalls.Biz. Please see each of the tributes below.
Downtown Rotary hosted two of the 2019 South Dakota Hall of Fame inductees for a panel discussion on Monday, July 29th. Fellow Rotarian Dick Brown and Clyde Fredrickson participated in a panel moderated by Past President Michelle Lavallee. Not surprisingly, many members of the Hall are also members of Downtown Rotary and many of them were on hand to welcome these new inductees.
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Rod Carlson was honored at the Annual General Meeting as the Ritz Rotarian of the Year. The recipient should exhibit the award principles: "Emanates integrity, decency, and humility; is a servant leader; guides with dedication, outstanding leadership and tremendous motivation." Mr. Carlson's nominators said, "Rod has been a positive force for Sioux Falls as a resident since 1973. He is married (49 years) and together have raised 3 children and 8 grandchildren. Rod served our nation with his commitment to the US Air Force (1967-71) and was awarded Bronze Star with Valor (Vietnam). In the business community, Rod worked 31 years at Midcontinent Communications/Sioux Falls Cable. In his tenure, he displayed his leadership for 25 years as a GM of Operations and 6 years in a Vice President role for Government Affairs and Community Relations. His assertiveness, professionalism and charisma were successfully channeled for lobbying efforts in South Dakota, Minnesota and North Dakota. Rod also worked as Vice President Business Development at First Premier Bank and was Sanford Health Director of Public Relations from 2007 - 2014. Rod's calm demeanor, sense of humor and tenacity to do what right continue to open doors for him and he continues to stay busy as the current Director Public Relations/Marketing at Active Generations. Staying busy has never been a problem for Rod. He has been active in the Sioux Falls community for 45 years through numerous organizations. This impressive resume is why I nominate Rod Carlson as Rotarian of the year. Rod exemplifies the Four Way Test: being true and fair, building goodwill and friendships and benefiting the community." Congratulations Rod! During the past couple of months, we have completed eight focus groups plus an online survey. Forty-one percent of our club participated in a focus group or survey. We also heard from experts on each topic to help us choose our One Relevant It, a long-term project that Downtown Rotary will be known for. We thank you for all your engagement and especially your thoughtful comments.
Many of you mentioned that you felt both projects – cleaning up the Big Sioux and mentoring – were worthy and deserving of our attentions. The final vote had 153 of 296 members voting and the tally was 59% choosing mentoring and 41% selecting the Big Sioux.
So the official One Relevant It will indeed be mentoring, the details of which will be worked out beginning at the first planning session in July. Who will we partner with? How many groups already mentor? We want to offer mentoring for multiple populations so we need to do this research. Kids, recently released offenders, start-up businesses, etc. are all on the table. Please let us know if you are willing and interested in helping to establish our approach.
Many of you may know that mentoring is a great fit in Mayor TenHaken’s One Sioux Falls. We have also spoken with the Mayor about his plans for the Big Sioux. He feels this is definitely a long-term play and requires state officials, and other agency involvement. That said, there were such passionate comments about Rotary involvement with clean water, we feel we should form an ad hoc committee to at least study the issue and gain more information. If anyone would like to be a part of this, please let us know.
So while this year may be spent in planning rather than doing, we think the outcomes will be well worth our efforts. Jessie Schmidt, our incoming President on July 1, 2019 will spearhead the planning process. Then in 2020, under Jason Herrboldt’s leadership, we will begin to execute the plan.
