EXTRA EXTRA Read All About Our March 19 Meeting

Our group stood to sing Happy Birthday to LeRoy Underwood who will turn 97 this coming Monday March 24. Surely he is one of the oldest active members in Rotary in the USA. Happy Birthday LeRoy and thank you Carroll Hildreth for leading the song. (Alex appointed Carroll as our official song leader, good move Alex.)

Charles Hardcastle introduced our newest member, John Wade. John is a transfer member who will be working with Goodwill. I'll do an interview and add a photo in an upcoming blog.

Dr. Larry Pack has been in charge of this month's programs and they have been outstanding. We've had history profs from Western talk about 20th Century Presidents. We've heard about TR, FDR, and yesterday about Ike. Dr. Richard Stone did a superb job and introduced a lot of interesting facts about Ike that I had never heard. I had read Eisenhower's biography years ago and my youngest brother is named Dwight David Embry after Ike so I was already a huge fan. My Dad was a WWII vet and idolized Ike. Next week's program is on Reagan by Dr. Jack Thacker It should be a great program.

Do You Want to Be on TV? Call Janette Boehman

Janette is a Springfield, Kentucky girl who graduated from Washington County High School in 1975. She earned her degree from WKU in public relations and marketing in 1980 then practiced her trade in Florida for a couple of years. She and her husband owned Royal Barn Florists for seven years before she went back into sales working successively for Jr. Foods, Boise Cascade and now for WBKO for the last eleven years. My son Kenny worked with Janette and Dave Thomas at WBKO and holds both in high regard. Janette is one of seven children. Her husband's name is Brian and she has two daughters and one 8 month granddaughter.
She enjoys singing in the church choir and sketching. I told Janette that a really good sales person is hard to find. From all the reports I've heard she's a great one.

Lee Masonry Man Paul Mysinger

Paul is originally from California's Bay Area and graduated from Deanza High School in 1978. In 1982 he graduated from Fresno State in Criminal Justice. He worked retail as a security manager then was a claims manager for Farmer's Insurance. He worked here in Bowling Green as a builder for eight years. For the last six years he's been the Safety Director of Lee Masonry. He and his wife Kellie moved to BG in 1994. His in laws were living here at the time. Paul and Kellie liked what they saw when they viisted and made the move. They have no regrets. Paul enjoys fishing, woodworking, and home projects. I guess you could call him our club's Danny Lipford.

PK Shaun Ayres

PK for the uninitiated stands for Preacher's Kid. Shaun moved around a bit in his youth but mostly grew up in Michigan. He graduated though from Northside High School in Warner Robins, Georgia. He and I along with Travis Keller are graduates of Florida College in Tampa. He finished his Bachelors Degree from Western in Mass Communications in 2000. He and his wife Katrina were married the previous year and I was shanghaied by his mother-in-law to attend the wedding. She knew virtually no one in town and I knew neither the bride nor the groom. Since then Shaun and I have become good friends. He is a member of a generation that we desperately need to get involved with Rotary.

Well in their eight years of marriage Shaun and Katrina have rewarded their parents with a fine looking young man named Caden who is now 17 months old. I haven't seen Caden for awhile but the last time I saw him I thought he looked a lot like Shaun.

Shaun is a big sports fan and loves to follow the St. Louis Cardinals, the Titans, Michigan, and both WKU and UK basketball. Oh yes I almost forgot to mention that Shaun has a real job, he is the District Manager for Kelly Services.

Retail Man Jerald Manning

As the General Manager of the local Macy's store Jerald comes to Rotary pretty dressed up. Today though I caught him in casual clothes. He is still wearing his trade mark smile. Jerald grew up in B.G. and considers himself a Purple but his family moved to Louisville his Senior year of High School so he graduated from Seneca in 1964. He returned that year to Western and soon afterwards took a job with Castner Knott that landed him in Nashville for the next 23 years. He eventually came back to BG to manage the store here and since then he has remained in the same job but the store has become Famous Barr and now Macy's.

Jerald and his wife Jane have two girls and one 18 month old granddaughter. Jerald enjoys playing golf and yard work.