District Governor International President
Larry Boyd Dong Kurn Lee
Brentwood, Tennessee Seoul, Korea
Rotary 2008-09
Make Dreams Real
June 5, 2009
Today, marks the eighth anniversary of the Verhine Estate Scholarship Program for Union City Rotary. We want to welcome the recipients of these scholarships today and wish them well in their various ventures.
This program began in 2002, with a generous endowment presented to Rotary from the Verhines, to be used by Graduates of Union City High School who have completed at least one year of higher education at one of our colleges or universities.
This program has, in the last eight years, handed out $ 821,000 in scholarship money, and this years total is 165,000 being distributed to 120 such students, helping further their educations.
In other youth news, we have 2 Students from Obion County participating in the 2009 Rotary International Youth Exchange Program. Heather Simpson, Granddaughter of Pat Rowe, who just graduated from Union City High School is exchanging with Mary Anna Nogueria of Sao Paulo, Brazil She left for Sao Paulo June 2, 2009 and will be in Brazil until July 10 in which Mary Anna will travel with Heather back to Union City. Mary Anna, 17 years of age, will stay here until August 22.
The other student is Chelsea Boyd, daughter of Bead and Cindy Boyd, a senior at Obion County Central High School, is exchanging with Stephennie Grown of Wolveiga Netherlands. They are both born in October 1991 so are close in age. Chelsea will leave Memphis June 27 and will return to Memphis with Stephennie on July 22. Stephennie will stay through August 16.
Next Week,
Rotarians will get a history lesson, as Newell Graham, takes the post of speaker at Fridays meeting. Newell will fill us in on the first 100 years of Union City Coca Cola.
He will talk about the long history of the business, the changes which have come about since his family purchased the business, including the picking up of some labels and the dropping of some of the ways the refreshing product has been contained over the years.
Newell is a third generation owner of the business, and his son, Richard Newell, Jr. is fourth generation, and he says that his granddaughters could be the fifth generation.
Union City Coca Cola has a long history of supporting local athletics, such as, you can’t go to an athletic field in this area without seeing the large Coca Cola Scoreboards, these have been furnished since before the Electronic Scoreboards came into existence. Or you can’t talk to anyone who has been coaching in the area for very long without hearing them mention the continued support that the Union City Coca Cola Company has furnished.
Hardy M. Graham died in 2007, so owners at the present time are are Cora Lee, Hardy P. and Newell Graham.
Last Week, Jenifer Hart, Mental Health Therapist from Baptist Memorial Hospital here in Union City, paid a visit and presented a powerful presentation on the subject of controlling stress in our daily lives.
She used a slide presentation pointing out several ways to control stress in our daily living. She said that stress comes from many different sources, such as money, work, family, stock market, aging, retirement, relationships, politics and even the old adage of road rage.
"There are many ways to control stress" she said, such as a person should stop and think before reacting to any given situation. She offered several other ways to help control stress in the form of deep breathing, putting yourself in a comfortable surrounding, such as imagine you are at the beach listening to the sounds of the water, the sand beneath your feet, watching sailboats float silently by and just relaxing.
She also said that some stress is healthy, such as being able to come through some kind of trauma with no damage and your mind will relax, just by being lucky enough to come through these things.
Jenifer also pointed out that some stress is self inflected, such as putting yourself in situations where you set some unrealistic expectations or goals for yourself and also expecting things to go your way when you know from the beginning this is not going to happen.
She said that stress can not only cause you mental anguish, but can also cause physical illness, and when these things happen, there are a couple of things you should consider, such as talking to a councilor or in some cases, just remember the "Serenity Prayer".
Coming Attraction
June 12 - Newell Graham, First 100 Years of U.C. Coca Cola
June 19 - TBA
June 26 - New Officer Installation
Birthdays
June 08 - Shea Riley, III
June 11 - David Johnson
Anniversaries
2009 Union City Rotary
Tour Group Participants & Itinerary
It’s the start of a milestone year in their lives, and eight Union City high School members of the Class of 2010 are kicking it off with a whirlwind trip abroad, courtesy of the Union City Rotary Club.
Will Arnold, Chambry Callicott, Katey Crews, Kayla Eason, Paige Fisher, Katelyn Ray, Whitney Smith and Andrew Speed will leave Union City on the morning of June 19 to travel with their chaperones, UCHS assistant principal Jacob Cross and his wife, Emily, to the Memphis airport, where they will board a flight late that afternoon for London, via Minneapolis-St. Paul. Arriving about noon (Big Ben Time) on Saturday, the group will have the rest of the day and all day Sunday to explore the city, but they must be up early on the first Monday of their trip to board a Cosmos tour bus that will take them to a ferry bound across the English Channel for Calais, France.
It’s on to Brussels, then, where they will see the sights and spend the night before joining their fellow bus mates who will have come together from a variety of English-speaking countries around the globe to explore Europe.
Tuesday’s adventure will include a Rhine River cruise in Germany and an overnight in Frankfurt. Wednesday will be spent in a land of fairy-tale castles and breathtaking scenery as the group proceeds on their "Continental-hop" to Innsbruck, Austria. Then on Thursday, students have already marked their travel maps to head through the famed Brenner Pass and on to Venice, Italy. A never-to-be-forgotten "gondola glide" through the city’s fascinating waterways will signal the end to another busy day.
Juliet may have existed only in Shakespeare’s imagination, but the site of what "might have been" in Verona, Italy, is on the students’ list of things to see Friday - just a short week after leaving home but already six countries removed. On Friday afternoon, the bus will travel across yet another border and deposit the travelers in Lake Lucerne, Switzerland.
On Saturday, the group will be back in France, and this time they will be headed for some extended visitation, beginning with an overnight in the village of Dole. Come Sunday morning, it will be time to greet the "City of Light," also known as Paris.
Following a special city-oversight that wraps up the tour guide’s commitment, the group will be taking in Paris on their own - with plans made in advance state-side through the rest of the day, into Monday and on Tuesday morning.
Then, come Tuesday afternoon, it will be time to head home, with a stopover at the airport in Amsterdam (making the total of countries "visited" eight) and an arrival in Memphis just in time for supper on June 30.
And it’s all free, including a variety of side trips in London and Paris and several of the overnight locations, courtesy of Union City Rotary Club. The group will be well-outfitted with matching Rotary shirts to wear - coming and going -; special backpacks with Rotary’s insignia shining through; and new passport, currency, identification and flight ticket holders.
The group has completed the application process which included interviews with a Rotary committee; has researched the countries they will be visiting; has learned something about currencies, customs, safety, packing, photography and "playing well with others" and they are raring to go. We know they will represent Union City Rotary Club well and will come home with fascinating stories to tell.
