Joe Taylor Steps Down

We are going to miss seeing Joe Taylor at the head table. After a little over eleven years Joe has decided to let someone else take over the job of club treasurer. Joe has done a fabulous job and outgoing President Alex Downing gave Joe a gift in recognition of his service. The treasurer's work goes unnoticed if done well and Joe's tenure has gone well. Our club is on sound financial ground thanks in large part to Joe's leadership and guidance. Thank you Joe for a job well done from all of us.

The Golden Proportion, True or False?

Janet Smith spoke about the Golden Proportion at our June 25th meeting. Janet knows a good deal about the ratio of 618:382. She did her Doctoral Dissertation on it. It is a ratio that recurs in nature, art, music, and countless other places. It is sometimes represented by the Greek Letter Phi and has been known for a very long period of time. Janet says that Euclid talked about it in 300 B.C. but it was known well before that. She had a Power Point presentation and showed several examples of it in art, nature, and music. She said some composers seemed to have a predilection for it. She cited Debussey as one of her favorites and one that seemed to compose in a way that incorporated it. The beautiful design of the chambered Nautilus is a good example of it in nature. One of the comments that struck me was Janet's comment that they have found that breaks in a teaching session (such as a piano lesson that Janet does professionally) or in the intermission of a concert seem to go better if the break comes about 2/3's of the way in rather than at the center. Great job Janet and thanks for all the effort you put into such an excellent presentation.

Dan Cherry Talks About Recent Vietnam Trip

General Dan Cherry (USAF Retired) talked to us Wednesday June 4 about the beginnings of the Air Heritage Museum he and a group of fellow Rotarians have been working on here in Bowling Green. They started four years ago by locating his old Phantom Jet in Ohio. The small town that owned it was prepared to see it leave. With local support the jet was brought back to B.G. and made to look beautiful taking on its war time camouflage paint scheme. The museum is building a beautiful outdoor display of military aircraft at the Basil Griffin Park on Three Spirngs Road. Phantom 550 is parked there now. The museum will be a tribute to several aviation pioneers and heroes from this area. In connection with the museum and through many convaluted steps Dan was invited to return Vietnam to meet on National Television the North Vietnamese pilot he had shot down in the war. The biggest show on Vietnam TV is similar to our old This is Your Life program here. The producer is U.S. educated and was able to find the 62 year old pilot Dan shot down 38 years ago. Dan had a Power Point presentation that documented their meeting. He said he had many misgivings about the whole deal but spoke with Vietnam Veteran groups here and the U.S. Embassy before making the decision to go. It was the biggest thing in Vietnam the week he was there. The show is the number one show on TV. I don't have a photo of the reunion but will try to get one and put it on our blog. The reunion was terrific and Dan found the man to be a true gentleman. We were all enthralled to hear about the emotional reunion. We heard about Dan's gift of Maker's Mark, the pilot's invitation for Dan and his entourage to come to his house in Hanoi for dinner, Dan's being there for the grandson's first birthday celebration, and the guided tour of Hanoi by the pilot including the Hanoi Hilton. The museum hopes to bring the pilot to Bowling Green and members of our club were begging Dan to be certain to bring him to Rotary for all of us to meet him. Listen, when you miss programs this good you've missed a lot.

Nelson Rue's Reflections

Dr. Nelson Rue is venerable in our club. He is a 77 year old retired general surgeon, U of L Class of 1956. Many of us or a family member have been patients of Dr. Rue. I worked up on Hospital Hill in the ER in 1975 just after graduating from Medical School, U of L Class of 1973, and Nelson bailed me out of many difficult situations. I think members newer to the community may know Nelson for his frequent anecdotes. Often after our speaker finishes with his or her presentation Nelson will have a post script. His wealth of experiences gives him a vast encyclopedia of personal knowledge to draw from. Well we love him for it and we all looked forward to his "Reflections" at our meeting on Wednesday May 28. Program Chair Margaret Curtis seen here sitting with Nelson is to be commended for calling on Nelson for the program. I sat up my video camera and taped the whole presentation for posterity. Anyway Nelson's talk was the bookend to a paper he had written in High School in 1948. He wrote then about television's role in education. His teacher gave him an A++ for it and he still had the note praising his achievement. Nelson reviewed the last sixty years of TV with some seriousness and a lot of humor. Thank you Nelson for a delightful program and for many years of service to our community. God bless.

Homage to Dr. J.N. McCormack

Our Wednesday 21 May 08 presentation was by me, Dr. Ken Embry. I also am the blog editor so I guess I can brag on my presentation as much as I want. Actually I want to thank this month's Program Chair, Margaret Curtis for inviting me to speak. I wanted to say something about medical history in Kentucky and in my research came across the name of a Bowling Green physician Dr. Joseph Nathaniel McCormack who lived from 1847 until 1922. He came to prominence following his courageous service to Yellow Fever patients here in Bowling Green during the epidemic of 1878. Dr. Lucas Blackburn who became Kentucky's Governor following his heroic service during this and previous Yellow Fever epidemics ends up appointing Dr. McCormack to the State Board of Health in December of 1878. Dr. McCormack becomes Commissioner of Health in 1883 and holds that post until he retires in 1912. His son Arthur succeeds his father and Dr. Joseph wins a term as a Democrat member of Kentucky's House of Representatives from Bowling Green. John Ellis in his book Medicine in Kentucky says "No two men have had an impact on the American medical profession and its institutions comparable to that of two Kentuckians, one a physician [Dr. J.N. McCormack] and the other a schoolteacher [Abraham Flexner]." I gave only a brief summary of the ways in which Dr. McCormack was so influential in changing the practice of medicine in Kentucky and the nation for the better. We owe him so much yet after all these years his name is virtually forgotten and I lamented that there is no memorial to him of any kind in this his home town. The audience was very attentive and many were asking what should be done to correct this oversight.

Dynamic Allison Noffsinger Speaks

Program chair Margaret Curtis is shown here with our speaker for the May 14 program. Allison Noffsinger graduated from Western last Saturday. She is on her way to Tel Aviv as a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar from her home Rotary District in Starkville, Mississippi. While she has never been to our club before she said she is no stranger to Rotary and felt very comfortable speaking to our group. She had spent a year in Arequipa, Peru as a Rotary exchange student while she was in high school.
Alli reviewed her home town and state of Mississippi. She said if you ask a Mississippian what are their biggest cities they'd tell you Memphis, Birmingham, and New Orleans. She said many Peruvians did not realize that there was a state called Mississippi and wondered if she lived on a boat. When she came home from Peru she came directly to Western, her Dad's alma mater, and was still thinking in Spanish. Fortunately she met several people on campus from South America and could continue her use of the language.
Now Alli has been sponsored by her home Rotary District, 6820, and the Starkville Club and will be an Ambassadorial Scholar in Tel Aviv. She is wanting to learn both Hebrew and Arabic while in country. Alli says she recently attended an orientation program for Ambassadorial Scholars and they emphasized that they did not want bookworms. Rather the program wants individuals who will get to know the people of their host country and both glean from their culture as well as share insights into our own.
Rotary and the United States of America could not have chosen a better person to represent us. Shalom Alli and thank you for sharing your story with us. Thank you Margaret for inviting her. I have next week's program and Alli's will be a tough act to follow.

New Member L.R. Kennon

L.R. is a forty-four year old Western Grad and manager of a local staffing service, Randstad. He spent his early years in Archer City, Texas but moved with his parents to Campbellsville and graduated from Taylor County High School in 1981. He earned his B.A. from Western in Communications in 1991 and his M.A. there in 1993. L.R. and his wife Janetta have two girls, ages 8 and 12. He tells me that he enjoys reading and astronomy.