NEWS NOTES

Tina Taylor from the morning club tells me that they netted $2100 on their auction. She will be by to visit later to thank our club for our support. Way to go A.M. club!

NO MEETING NEXT WEEK

There will be no meeting on December 26. Make yourself a note.

JANUARY 2nd and 9th at the Carroll Knicely Center on WKU's South Campus.

Happy Birthday Colonel Bob - oh yes, Merry Christmas too!

Colonel Robert Spiller was born September 25, 1928 in Philadelphia, PA. He turns 79 this Christmas. Honestly I can't think of anything worse than being born on Christmas. Colonel Bob says it did have it's downside. But what a great present to his parents! He graduated in 1946 from Marple-Newtown High School and came that fall to Western Kentucky State Teachers College to major in pre-veterinary medicine. He joined ROTC here and the rest of course is history. Colonel Spiller is a thirty year veteran of the Army and served both in Korea and Vietnam. He retired in 1980.

Bob is married to the former Cora Jane Morningstar and they have 4 children and 8 grandchildren. Cora Jane is a Bowling Green girl and they married in 1951. They live in Oakland. Bob has a 1930 Model A and a 1972 Dodge with original paint. He is a volunteer guide at Riverview and enjoys caning chair bottoms and repairing porcelain. Bob says he also likes to hook rugs. In addition to supporting the Salvation Army as you see him here at our December 19, 2007 Christmas Party, Bob is a staunch advocate for Veterans. Bob is often asked to lead our invocation and he never does so without asking God's blessing on our troops and veterans. I can assure you that veterans have no greater friend or supporter in our community than Colonel Robert E. Spiller. Happy Birthday Bob and many many more.

Leitchfield Boy a Success - Colonel Jim Allen

Jim and I grew up next door to each other and we were best friends in high school. We're still pretty good pals. You'll have to excuse me for having a lot to say about my old buddy. Jim and I are 1963 graduates of Leitchfield High School - go Bulldogs! There was such remorse after we left that shortly afterwards they closed the school and consolidated into Grayson County.
Jim's dad owned Allen's Lake on US 62 between Leitchfield and Caneyville. Jim and fellow Rotarian Linda Thomas were both lifeguards there. One of the happiest summers of my life was when the electricity in the concession stand went out and all the Dream Sickles and Fudge Sickles kind of melted together. They were salvaged into a chest freezer on his back porch and we spent the rest of that summer prying them apart and eating them. We rode bikes, went fishing, camped, and crawled around caves. Jim's Dad was County Judge and mine was State Representative. Both Republicans and all the time politicking or trying to get one another to run for something. Later Jim actually did run for State Senate in a heavily Democratic district. Jim Bunning was running for his first state office at the same time. The rest of course is history.

Jim started out at Union College at Barbourville and was on their swim team for two years. I had started out at Western. We both ended up at UK sometime in the mid 1960's. Jim and I would likely still be there if Dr. Savant at the College of Agriculture hadn't on separate occasions looked over our collections of huge numbers of college hours and declared us graduates.

While at UK Jim met his wife Judy. They've been married 40 years this year. Jim sold shoes at Myers in downtown Lexington while he was there and started a shoe store in Leitchfield when he moved back home. In 1970 he had the opportunity to buy a little weekly paper called the Grayson County News from my cousin, C.B. Embry Sr. As managing editor and publisher the paper did well. By 1975 he merged his paper with Al Smith of Russellville who also owned some small community papers. Over time they began to buy other community papers. In 1985 Jim and Al had the opportunity to sell out to Park Communications and did so. Jim stayed on as managing editor of the Leitchfield paper until 1990. During 1988 to 1991 Jim earned his Masters in Communications from WKU.

Jim had been in the Army Reserves since 1969 and when he retired from the newspaper business he went full time Army in Public Affairs. He was stationed in Columbus, Ohio and St. Louis, Missouri before being transferred to the Pentagon. He ultimately became the Public Affairs Officer for the Secretary of the Army and the Chief of Staff of the Army. He was there on 9/11. Jim spent his last year and a half teaching at the Army War College in Carlisle, PA before retiring to Bowling Green in 2005.

Jim and Judy have 12 acres on Old Greenhill Road in Alvaton and own a horse and a springer spaniel. They have three sons ages 39, 37, and 35 and 5 grandchildren. Jim teaches a night class fall semesters in speech at WKU. Currently he is rebuilding a 1984 Jeep Scrambler and he enjoys woodworking. He's made some very impressive looking cornhold game sets. I think Jim just likes to stay busy.

Orangeburg Grad Done Good - Dr. Tom Updike

Tom Updike is from Maysville, Kentucky and was born about a week later than Rosemary Clooney. He graduated from Orangeburg High School in the days before all the high schools were consolidated into Mason County High. Tom was in the Air Force stationed in France during the Korean War. He earned a BA in Economics and English from Kentucky Wesleyan in 1958 and a MA in Counseling from UK in 1959. He got a specialist degree in Leadership there in 1961 and later earned his PhD in Leadership and Behavioural Science from Auburn in 1967. He taught at Bryan Station in Lexington before becoming the Director of Counseling in Hardin County. He was a professor at U of L and later VP of the Etown Community College. Tom came to Western in 1968 and held various posts from Assitant Registrar to Director of Admissions as well as a full Professor of Counseling. Tom married his wife Norma in 1960. They have one son, one grandson, and one great grandson. Tom enjoys reading and sports.

MEETING NOTES

Next week is our annual Christmas Party and WE WILL NOT MEET on December 26.

In January we will meet on Wednesday the 2nd and 9th at the Carroll Knicely Center on WKU's South Campus. Make a note.

OAA Founder Vickie Elrod

In discussing Vickie's many achievements we'll have to just hit the high points. Let me start by saying that she is an outstanding recent President of our club. She's a 1987 graduate of Leadership Bowling Green and is the 1991 recipient of the Athena Award for Business Women. After twenty years in banking, in 1998 she went to work at Holland CPAs and is both their Chief Operating Officer and manager of the Human Resources Consulting Division. She is a cum laude graduate of WKU. Vickie is a 1968 graduate of Halls High School in Knoxville where her dad was head baseball coach at UT. Vickie has been married to her husband Robert for 24 years and they have 2 boys and 2 girls and 5 grandchildren including 3 girls and 2 boys. Vickie enjoys hiking, camping, canoing, kayaking, white water rafting, photography, scrapbooking, crocheting and doing counted cross stitch. Oh yes, she is the founder of OAA - Over Achievers Anonymous. It is like any other 12 step program. In this program step one is to do something extremely well, step two is to do it even better, step 3 . . . .

Mayor LeRoy Underwood

I think LeRoy's mayorship is an honorary title in the retirement complex where he lives. Well at 96 he deserves all the accolades he can get. LeRoy was born March 24, 1911 in Temple Hill, Barren County, Kentucky. He started his working life as a school teacher but decided civil service employment was better so he took the test then walked a mail route in Glasgow for thirty years. The exercise didn't do him any harm despite having a mild heart attack in 1957 that slowed him down for awhile. LeRoy couldn't immediately recall what year his wife Margaret died and they had a daughter who has also died. LeRoy says he has four grandchildren and he enjoys woodworking.

Is Patty Alford's Halo Showing?

Patty is a military brat. She was born at Tyndall Field Air Force base in Panama City, Florida. She tells me she went to 16 different schools including four first grades. "You learn to make friends in a hurry." She graduated from Mt. Olive High School near the Goldsboro, North Carolina AFB in 1972. Patty got her B.A. in social work from Western in 1991 and finished her Masters there in 2005. She has been Executive Director of Girls, Inc. since 1996. Coincidentally she became our club's Sergeant at Arms around that time. Patty has been married to her husband Joe for 27 years and they have one daughter and two granddaughters. Patty says her granddaughters got her into scrap booking and she loves to read especially non-fiction and select magazines.

Cliff Long is a good Tax Accountant

Cliff has been keeping me out of trouble with the IRS for a long time and for that I'm grateful. He's worked at Holland CPAs since 1981 shortly after graduating from WKU in 1980. He's a BG High Purple and in the last class to graduate from the old Center Street Campus in 1970. He and wife Marlene have been married 34 years and have two boys Bobby and Chris in their early 30's. Cliff enjoys fishing for crappie on Barren River Reservoir. In addition to having been in Rotary since 1991 he's Past President and advisory board member of Girls, Inc. He graduated in 1989 from Leadership Bowling Green. Cliff's Dad, Bob, served our club for 37 years as Club Secretary. They are one of only a handful of parent-child members in our club. I consider Bob and Cliff some of the salt of our community. God bless'em.

TV Man Ed Groves

Ed graduated from Nashville's John Overton High School in 1967. He later married his high school sweetheart Donna and they've been married 38 years. They have a son and a daughter and 3 grandsons. Ed manages the local NBC and CBS affiliates at WNKY. He moved to Bowling Green in February of '03. In 1974 he started out in sales at Channel 2 in Nashville and was there 8 years. This was followed by stints in Chattanooga, Columbus, GA, Little Rock, Augusta, GA, back to Columbus, GA then to Johnson City, TN, to Charleston, WVA, and finally to Missoula, Montana before coming to B.G. Early on he spent 6 years in the Army Airborne Reserves and jumped out of perfectly good planes. Nowadays he gets his kicks by riding a Harley in the summertime and playing golf. Ed says he got involved with Rotary first in Johnson City in 1997. We're delighted to have him as part of our club and community. I see Ed frequently at the gym when I work out and he is an inspiration.

When it Counts call Kevin

Four of our members work at J.C. Holland CPAs. Kevin Counts is a Financial Planner there. He is a 1986 graduate of Bowling Green High School with a BA and MBA from WKU. He's involved with Junior Achievement and enjoys golf and fishing. Kevin and his wife Tanya just celebrated their eleventh wedding anniversary and have two lovely daughters Rebecca 8 and Rachel 4. Vickie Elrod provided the glamour photos of the Holland people.

In Coming President - Mac Jefferson

Mac is serving as Director of Club Service this year and as such will succeed Alex Downing next year as president. He was born September 5, 1972 and graduated from Bowling Green High School in 1990. Mac went on to get his degree from the University of the South in 1994. He married his wife Kyla on September 2, 2000 and they have three daughters ages 5, 3, and almost 2. Mac says the oldest is taking dance lessons and he's looking forward to them getting old enough to start soccer. Mac is a financial consultant at Hilliard Lyons and a lifelong member of Christ Episcopal. Mac is active with the Salvation Army's Kettle drive and helped our Rotary Club build a Habitat house some years ago when Larry Pack was president.

Danny Howell - this is your Bio

Danny Howell and his trademark smile! Danny always seems to be in a good mood. He and Tom Baird are best buddy's and have been taking canoing trips together to Canada's Quetico Provencial Park in Western Ontario for the last several years. Danny has been in Rotary since 1972 and has worked for Scott Tobaco Company for 41 years. He was born August 5, 1943 and married Dru on January 31, 1964. They have a son David and a daughter Neill. Danny says they have four grandchildren and one on the way.

A Fun Program on Notable Kentuckians

Dr. Jim Claypool is History Professor Emeritus from Northern Kentucky University and came to us through the auspices of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Jim says he was with Northern Kentucky University when it started on a hill overlooking Covington as a Community College. At one point he served as Dean. My wife was there too in the beginning and was homecoming queen one year. At that time many students went on to UK to finish their degree and that's where we met. But back to Jim's presentation. He had numbered sheets with historical quotes and club members in turn would stand and read their quote. Jim would elaborate and took us through many interesting and informative personages. We all had a blast doing this and Jim said he regretted we ran out of time before he could highlight Diane Sawyer (her step-dad was a professor of mine in Medical School), George Clooney, et. al. Thank you Dr. Jim and program chair Shannon Morgan for inviting him.