District Governor Visits

DG Palmer, Pres. Susan Van Deren, and Susie Palmer

We were pleased to welcome District Governor Stuart Palmer and his wife Susie to the club last week for his official visit. In addition to the Palmers, John Roberts, Assistant District Governor from Ft. Collins was present as was PDG Charlie Peterson. Charlie was also there to sell peaches.

DG Palmer said he saw energy and perspective in the club and announced that he would work on PR for the Windsor Tornado Recovery. Before the meeting, the Board of Directors met with DG Palmer and laid out the club plans for the year.

DG Palmer reiterated RI’s commitment to defeating polio worldwide. It is still a daunting task. He cited for instance the fact that India has 25 million births per year. Each of those children must be immunized. To date 99% of polio has been eliminated in the world. Two billion children have been immunized.

DG Palmer also talked about other focuses of Rotary. Since 2002, 250 World Peace Scholarships have been awarded. He pointed out the Rhode’s Scholarship program awards 30 scholarships a year world wide. Rotary sponsors 520 or more Ambassadorial Scholars per year at $25,000 each.

Other information includes:

• To date, over one million Rotarians have become Paul Harris Fellows.
• In April, a GSE team from Southern Chile (Patagonia Region) will be visiting the District.
• The District Conference will be the last of April/first of May in Jackson Hole to avoid conflict with summer visitors.
• The District is planning on chartering buses to carry area Rotarians to the District Conference.
• The District Goal is to enroll 216 new members in the next year.

Before departing, DG Palmer awarded “The Quiet Rotarian Award” to Karen Kunz for all she has done for the club over the years.

DG Palmer says Rotary is “ordinary people doing extraordinary things.”

Quiz: Surprisingly, Denver has more park land than any other major City with over 10,000 acres of parks (consider the vast Denver Mountain Parks system. There are 24 of them.) Next question: At 30 to 35 degrees north and south of the equator, these areas are notorious for their calm winds…so calm in fact that sailing ships were often forced to jettison excess weight to lighten their ships. What are these areas called?