Large Turnout for Hispanic Men Immunization Clinic

The Bowling Green Rotary Club, in cooperation with the Barren River Area Health District, provided free Hepatitis B vaccinations to Hispanic men through the use of a Blane Community Immunization Grant awarded to the club from Rotary International.

The clinic was held at the La Luz del Mundo (Light of the World) Church, with standing room only attendance. Following a presentation of the dangers of Hepatitis B by Dr. Juan Gutierrez of WKU's Area Health Education Center, over 30 Hispanic men lined up to receive their shots administered by volunteer nurses from WKU's nursing program under the guidance of the Health Department. The children were entertained with Spanish storytelling, piñata-breaking and one lucky young girl even won a brand new tricycle! "This event far exceeded our expectations", said Kim Flora of the Health Department. "We expected maybe 50 people to show up, but we lost count after 100! This has been our most successful attempt at reaching out to the Hispanic community, and it could not have been done without the generosity and help of the Rotary Club."

Since the Hepatitis B vaccination is a 3-part series of shots, the Health Department will return to the church over the next few months to ensure the men who received the initial shot receive their follow up shots.

Several members of the Rotary Club helped in tremendous ways: Joe Davis, of Gerald Printing, donated his printing services for the posters and flyers advertising the event; Mike Fuqua of Party 1 Superstore, donated all the party supplies; Nathan Hodges of Bowling Green Technical College, donated the advertising and food costs; and Kevin Mays, of National City Bank, donated matching funds and served as the Rotary coordinator for the event. Also in attendance representing Rotary was Director Mac Jefferson.

Senator Guthrie Wants Retirement Reform

Brett Guthrie talked about the deepening debt that the State Retirement System is incurring. He discussed different directions that could be taken to ameliorate the situation. Senator Guthrie thought this was a pressing problem that the State could not afford to keep postponing forever.

Brett's comments seemed to be focused on what system future employees and new hires would be under rather than to try to take away benefits that vested employees would have.

Jody Richards Talks About Achievements

Club Member and Speaker of the House Jody Richards talked about this short session being very focused by necessity. He was pleased that a significant Mine Safety Bill had been passed and also the Bonnie Frederick Bill intended to protect our State's Social Workers.

Jody fielded many questions from the audience and talked about Educational Testing and the cost of Health Care. He reflected that he did not think State Sponsored Universal Health Care would be the answer for our problems. He thought that Health Care was a complex and multifaceted problem with no easy solutions.

Jim DeCesare Shares Insight Into Session

Jim DeDesare is no stranger to our club. He talked about wanting to continue to try to repeal the Alternative Minimum Tax. He also commented about legislation to make a ZERO TOLERANCE for any level of positive drug testing. In other words a person would be considered "under the influence" if any showed up in testing.

Jim also joined with Brett and Jody in answering a number of questions following their prepared remarks. He was on the Education Committee and talked about school testings among other things.

Vickie Elrod Encourages Foundation Contribution

Most of our members are aware of a push by our District to get each club to up their annual contributions to the Rotary Foundation. Incoming District Governor Dave Weller was here last fall talking about each member contributing $100 a year. Vickie mentioned that individually we may want to make a contribution to the Foundation in Memory of Past District Governor Jerry Parker. If we could do this before the end of June it would come within the Foundation's Fiscal Year and if we could do it before our District Conference in May we could include the total in recognition of Governor Parker.

Joe Liles Presents Local Legislators

Joe Liles was able to get State Representatives Jody Richards and Jim DeCesare to come and discuss the recently concluded session of the Kentucky Legislature. Also on the program was State Senator Brett Guthrie.

Thanks to Joe for pulling this together and to our legislators for the work they do and for their willingness to come and speak to our club. Of course House Speaker Richards is a member of our club and has been for a number of years.

New Weekly BG Noon Club Blog

Welcome to our new club blog. We hope to post summaries of each week's announcements and programs along with a photo or two. Also we plan on interviewing new members and posting a brief bio with their photo. Perhaps for the benefit of those new members we may try to do the same for established members. With your cooperation we may ask you to let us take a candid photo at a meeting and ask a few bio type questions.

Please feel free to post your comments or email me at kenembrymd@bellsouth.net