President's Report -- Steve Boharski

 

 

            June 19: No meeting. Juneteenth Holiday.

 

            June 26: No Rotary lunch. Year-end dinner gathering. 6 p.m. at Maryhill Winery, 1303 W. Summit Parkway in Kendall Yards.

 

 

 

 

 

            Sheila Fritts was happy to join the Spokane Business Women’s group.

 

            Steve Boharski was happy for his daughter’s graduation from Mead.

 

            Eric Johnson was happy for his daughter’s high school graduation.

 

           

            Calling herself  “a shy farm kid who grew up in Montana,” retired educator Sandy Fink has traveled far and wide from Europe to Asis and Northern Africa, Mexico and Canada, Turkey, and all over the USA.

          

            Her teaching and administrative positions ranged from Portland (“a great start”) to Turkey and Germany, San Diego and Spokane.  Her final position was principal at North Central High School.

 

            Sandy joined Rotary North in 1990 and was club president in 2000-01.

 

            For many years Sandy has been the main contact with the club’s activities at Holmes Elementary School, including organizing the annual supply closet programs.

 

            Her many global trips, she simply said “I traveled all over.”  Her next stop, next week, is Kauai, Hawaii, she said.

 

            Always a detail person, at the June 12 luncheon, Sandy assembled a five-page report of club projects to share with the members.

 

            Her report included 31 Community Projects, 4 Collaborative Community Projects with other clubs, 5 Dirty Hands Project areas, 15 International Projects and 5 years of club donations and expenditures.

 

            And veteran club members also remembered how Sandy played the piano to accompany luncheon songs.

 

                

            Both the distance and the surroundings are markedly different from the south side of Chicago and Kalispel, Mont.

 

            At age 6 Steve’s family –dad was an electrician – moved west.

 

            After graduation at Montana State University, Steve taught school in Montana and for one year in an Alaskan village, before enrolling in veterinary school.

 

            Steve said he met April Weber at WSU 28 years ago in a university bookstore and they worked in Las Vegas before moving to Spokane, where they bought the Garland Animal Clinic from retiring veterinarian and former club member Roger Harder.

 

            Steve joined Spokane-North in 1999 and was club president is 2009--10.  He has served as 4^th quarter club president this year.

 

            One of their sons will continue as a vet at the relocated and enlarged clinic three blocks west on Garland. Steve and April have two sons and two adopted daughters from China.

 

            As he discussed the club’s last luncheon of the 2022-23 Rotary year, Steve talked of “time, talent and treasurer” in the club.  “We have had so much of those for lots of years, and so much talent,” he said.             

 

           He noted that when he asked about how many at the luncheon are Paul Harris Fellows, many members raised their hands.

                

     

            It was a special graduation as nine Lumen-STAR graduates, with their children, received diplomas.

 

            “It was a very moving ceremony,” said Lenore Romney, who, with Jerry Logan, attended the ceremony at Gonzaga. Four of the graduating seniors talked at the ceremony and the grads then distributed flowers to special people in the crowd, she said.

 

            Lumen is the downtown location for high school students who have their own babies and children.

 

            She said the grads talked about their families “and the babies expressed themselves.”

 

            Lenore and Jerry Logan have spearheaded the club effort to provide scholarships to two students for “gap money – what’s needed to get to the final steps.”         

 

            Jerry said the $1,500 scholarships “go for materials, books and other items.”  The Scholarships will go to those students “who need the most and have the best chance of success.”

           

           He said the program resembles efforts he worked on as an educator in the 1981 Spokane Valley Alternative School.

 

           The Lumen scholarship winners are scheduled to attend the July 24 club luncheon.