Today, we welcome four ladies, from our area, including, Teresa Vinson, Melanie Nicks, Amy Harris and Lyda Rice. These Ladies in some way are all associated with the process of dealing with the advancements of treatment and early detection of breast cancer.

Teresa Vinson is the contact for the breast cancer awareness group and associated with Baptist Memorial Hospital here in Union City.

Melanie Nicks is a mammography technologist at the hospital. Melanie will discuss technological advancements in detecting breast cancer, including the digital technology which patients have access to for their treatment. Melanie and her husband Stacey have three children: Stevie, Josh, and Abbi.

Amy Harris is a nurse practitioner with Integrity Oncology. She received her degree from Vanderbilt University School of Nursing and has been practicing with Dr. Margaret Gore, oncologist, for the past seven years. Amy will share statistics and discuss the importance of treating cancer patients locally. She has two children, Kizer and Wilson.

Lyda is familiar to all of us as a local business person, she has been the owner of the Fashion Network UpScale ReSale & Outlet Designer Apparel in Union City for 20 years, and has been involved in many community projects through the years. Lyda is a survivor of breast cancer, and will be discussing the importance of early detection of breast cancer.

Next week, in keeping with the upcoming Veterans Day Holiday, Sergeant First Class Keith Dunning, Recruiter for the Tennessee National Guard her in Union City, and our newest member here at Union City Rotary will be on hand as our speaker.

Keith has been the National Guards Recruiter for the past 5 years, his area includes Obion County and a portion of Weakley County. Keith grew up in Gleason where he attended school and had about as normal of a childhood as one could want. Music was a constant thing in his family passed from his Grandfather to his Father and then on to him. Music has been a major part of his life and still is to this day. He plays 3 instruments, drums, bass guitar and piano.

After graduation he began playing in local establishments and worked in a factory environment. After a few years of doing this he decided the military was where he wanted to be, joining the Navy and spending 9 years there, he was honorably discharge and settled in Martin. He went to work for MTD and also held a position at Rent-A-Center. He joined the National Guard in 2004 and was assigned as the Recruiter here in U.C.

Last week, was very entertaining, as Kevin McMillan, new Head Coach of the UTM girls basketball program visited and entertained as well as informed us of the advancements he has going on and is planning for that program in the near future.

We mention entertaining, because as I watched the audience, he had 99% of Rotarians hanging on his every word. This guy could make it as a public speaker if his basketball career ever comes to an end. He was very relaxed and made everyone else feel the same, he made you feel as if you had known him all your life, and you were sitting in your living room carrying on a conversation with him.

Coach McMillan touched briefly on some of his early career jobs, including a surprise appointment as Head Coach at Millington, TN. Also he shared some his experiences, being a head girls coach, and his wife also being a head girls coach and some of the conflicts he had to live through going heads-up with her on the basketball court.

Kevin, as mentioned, is in his first year as the coach of a team which has struggled over the past years, and expressed his appreciation to the athletic department at UTM for their cooperation in seeing that he has gotten everything he has asked for since taking over the position. He said he has asked for more training equipment, which has been purchased, and the department has let him have pretty much a free hand in recruiting, which he said is staying in West Tennessee as much as possible. He would not go into much detail as far as the recruits he has coming to campus because of NCAA rules, but he was very happy with the way things were progressing, he said.

He also gave us a brief insight on upcoming scheduling he is working on which includes some very impressive opponents.

Nov. 06 - Sgt. Keith Dunning, Recruiter Tennessee National Guard

Nov. 13 - Shane Sisco & Eddie Suiter, Boys and Girls Basketball Coach,U.C. High School

Nov. 20 - Lyle LaRue, OCCHS Girls Basketball Coach

According to current records, no Union City Rotarian was born during the up-coming week.

Nov. 03 - John and Kristen Miles

Nov. 04 - Ralph and Patricia Moore