Bradley presents Meals on Wheels

Abilene, Oct. 20 - Betty L. Blazier-Bradley, below right, of Abilene's Meals on Wheels, spoke to the club yesterday and explained the ministry of her organization to the elderly and disabled.

Meals on Wheels Plus, Inc., is a private, non-profit charitable organization providing meals for the homebound since 1975.

MoWP serves folks over 65 and the disabled between 18-64 if they are homebound and unable to feed themselves.

In addition, the group provides daily contacts for lonely people, arranges emergency medical care, makes referrals, provides electric fans, coordinates "books on wheels" for the library and is alert for neglect, abuse or exploitation.

The group always needs volunteers to deliver meals, assistants in the kitchen, fund raisers, donations of canned goods, and financial donations. Contact Betty at 672-5050, or Box 903, Abilene, Tx 79604.

- Submitted by Dave Haigler
Abilene Wednesday Rotary Club

Hukill promotes Paramount

Abilene, Oct. 13 - Yesterday's program at the AWRC was Betty Hukill speaking on the Abilene Paramount Theatre's 75th anniversary coming up with events beginning Thursday, October 27, 2005 with a gala opening concert featuring Texas boogie-woogie and blues singer/songwriter Marcia Ball (left) and her band. Also scheduled for the series are the award-winning one man show An Evening With Groucho starring Frank Ferrnte and mandolin artist/singer/songwriter Sam Bush.

 

Source:  Paramount's webpage.

 

Published at http://abilenewednesdayrotary.blogspot.com. 

Club features Hembree on vet medicine, beautification award, and upcoming programs - Oct. 5

Abilene, Oct. 5 - The Abilene Wednesday Rotary Club met today and heard club member Dr. Dale Hembree, D.V.M., speak on developments in veterinary medicine, and club president Willis awarded the Business Beautification Award to Haskell National Bank.

 

Dr. Hembree (shown at left, along with a rowdy table of Rotarians) explained the chances and precautions for avian flu.  He said animals have the same kinds of medical needs that humans do, except the market will not support anywhere the level of expense that human medicine pays. 

 

Dale said when he went to vet school, the percentage of men students was 70%, but now that ratio has been almost reversed, because more men have been driven out of the practice because of the expense of doing business.

 

Dale shared vignettes from his practice with the Abilene Zoo and his own private practice of small companion animals.

 

Club President Miles Willis presented the Business Beautification Award to Robert A. Howard, right, Chairman & CEO of Haskell National Bank located at 3202 Buffalo Gap Rd., in Abilene.  Club member Dickie Greenwood is employed with the donee bank. 

 

Dale Hembree, program chair for the month, announced that the Oct. 12 meeting will feature Betty Hukill speaking on the 100th anniversary of the Paramount Theatre, the Oct. 19 will have Betty Brazier of Meals on Wheels, and the Oct. 26 will honor the Food Bank of Abilene.

Mark Young explains Boys & Girls Club

Abilene, Sept. 28 - Mark Young, below left, Executive Director of Boys & Girls Club of Abilene, was the guest speaker at Abilene Wednesday Rotary Club today.

Young succeeded Teresa Walch as director when she returned to Arkansas with her husband Bryan due to his reassignment with the Air Force.

Young explained that the club serves the after-school needs of 3,200 students in the Abilene Independent School District, as well as many in the Wylie School District. The Wylie district provides bussing from school to the club, but the AISD does not. Young said that the AISD's justification for refusing bussing to the club locations was that they would have to treat all charitable clubs equally. But he said the Wylie district saves two bus routes by bringing students to the club's location rather than taking them to their homes.

Young also said that the club needs a facility to serve food. Currently the club provides a balanced meal to club members on Tuesdays and Thursdays and has to set up one of their gymns for food service. If they had use of a dining room, they could use the gymn for programming those two days. Young said that the kids eat so voraciously, he suspects many of them are not being fed at home. He said he hoped the club could provide more than two meals a week, if it had the resources.

This post can be found at http://abilenewednesdayrotary.blogspot.com.

Haigler explains securities arbitration - Sept. 21

Abilene, Sept. 22 - Rotarian Dave Haigler, below right, delivered a classification talk yesterday to the Abilene Wednesday Rotary Club, and overcoming his basic shyness gave a second talk on blogging to the club, since no other members were prepared to give another classification talk.

In this photo, Haigler is shown explaining the convergence of the deterioration of the legal system as a result of tort reform with the growth of alternate dispute resolution, or ADR for short. Dave explained that arbitration is one of the methods of ADR, mediation being the other primary method -- the difference being that arbitration is binding and mediation is merely assisting the parties to come to their own voluntary agreement. Dave said he became interested in ADR in 1996, the same year he was club president, and in 1998, an employee of his who was leaving recommended him to the National Association of Securities Dealers as a securities arbitrator.

In his second talk, Dave explained how the club could benefit from having an internet blog, and this blog is the result.

This post can be found at http://abilenewednesdayrotary.blogspot.com.

Nutt explains need for planning for disabled children

Abilene, Sept. 8 - The Abilene Wednesday Rotary Club yesterday featured past-president Rex Nutt, left, chairman of the board of Disability Resources, Inc., speaking on pre-need planning for developmentally-disabled children.

Mr. Nutt, a physical therapist by trade, was introduced by Celia Danforth as needing no introduction, but Celia explained some things Rex would be too modest to say of himself, such as the fact that during his 14-year tenure on the board, DRI's capitalization has increased from $280,000 to $6.4M.

Nutt presented slides, such as the one above left showing what he said when his wife Joann said she was pregnant.

Rex explained that the programs and lifestyle offered the residents of DRI are tailored to the individual's specific limitations and that DRI personnel recognize the difficulties families feel in giving up their loved one move somewhere else besides their home. DRI offers options for a loving family to provide for their developmentally-disabled child.

For more information about DRI, click here, or call Karen Pressler at 325 677-6815.

-Dave Haigler