Union City Rotary Club - Weekly Bulletin & News

Today, it is always a pleasure to have alumni of the Union City School System on our program, and today is no exception, as Union City Rotary welcomes Tony Bass. Tony is a member of UCHS Graduating Class of 1979, from there he gained his Bachelor of Business Administration - Managing/Marketing from Middle Tennessee State University. Since that time he has steadily climbed the ladder of success, spending 10 years with Kraft Foods, 1984 - 1994, holding various positions during those years. From 1994 - 1998, he was Director of Customer Marketing/Field Marketing Manager for Nabisco foods, in Parsippany, NJ, 1998-99, he was Director, Super Market Industry for American Express, New York, from 1999-2001, Tony was Director of Retail Sales for Kraft Foods, Cranford, NJ., he was promoted to Director of Customer Business Teams for Kraft from 2001-2005, then 2 years as Director of Sales Planning for that same company, he is now Vice President of Sales for Polar Electro, Inc. In Lake Success, NY.

Tony is in town as speaker for the UCHS Top Ten Banquet, which was held last night. He is the son of Doris Bass and the late Henry Bass of Union City. He resides outside of Manhattan, New York in Jersey City, NJ.

Next Week, Union City Rotary holds it’s 29th Annual Rotary Scholarship Day. A day which several Graduating Senior and College Student of Obion County look forward to, with good reason. Union City Rotary has awarded well over $3,587,000, during those years to over 2,700 deserving High School Graduates and College Students.

This year is no exception, as there will be $273,000 awarded to some 240 students from across the county. Every Rotarian, past and present, should be very proud of these accomplishments, as it has been an award winning program for U.C. Rotary for several years.

Although there is a very respectable amount of this money coming from trusts funds and endowments, set up for that purpose, there is also a tremendous amount coming from year-to-year donations from individuals and local businesses.

In the past and present, we have seen the results of these scholarships, as recipients of these funds have come back to our community, or gone on to other places, as doctors, educators, technicians, engineers, business people, and many other professions. It is always gratifying to see the difference it makes in their lives.

Last week, Rotarians were witness to a up-close personal recap of the F4 Tornado, which struck the city of Jackson in Feb. 2008, and virtually destroying large portions the Campus at Union University as it was unfolded by Randy Phillips, Director of Research of that university.

Randy’s description of the events were horrifying to say the least. In his own words, "it was a miracle that no lives were lost in the destruction". He had a picture presentation and description of the events on film from the President of the University, which also included students reliving the very eventful night.

He took us through a scenario of that night, by saying "suddenly your house is destroyed, so are your automobiles, gas and water lines are ruptured, you have no power, some members of your family have minor injuries, some you can’t find, some have major injuries, your personal medications are all lost, and your prescription eye wear can’t be found, you are underdressed because the temperature dropped from the mid 70’s to the low 50’s in a matter of minutes, the shoes on your feet range from flip-flops to hard soles to bare feet, it’s night and you have nowhere to stay and to add insult to injury another storm of equal proportion is on its way, that was Feb. 5, 2008. Now imagine the size of your family is 1200, 51 are injured, we discover that 11 are buried under rubble, and all 51 will be transported to hospitals and treated for varying injuries and will have varying length of stays, of the 11, 7 are critically injured, some under rubble for a total of 5 hours, there is not a single head injury or neck trauma or spinal cord injury, no loss of limbs, no loss of life".

"1200 students all displaced, 41 buildings all receive damage and 80% of residence buildings were totally destroyed. Amazingly within a matter of hours all 1200 students had a place to stay, this came about by several hundred residences in the community, faculty, staff and administration all opened their homes to students that night for as long as they needed to be accommodated , and we carried on", he said.

Coming Attractions

May 14 - Rotary Scholarship Day

May 21 - Mary Marbry, West Tennessee Tourism

May 28 - TBA

June 04 - Verhine Scholarship Program

Birthdays

May 08 - David Russell

Anniversaries

May 07 - Charles and Laura Denaburg

May 11 - Charles and Larrabee Kirkland

You May Not Have Known

American Airlines launched AAdvangtage, the first frequent-flier program, to attract loyal customers in 1981. Although last year’s hit film Up in the Air featured George Clooney as a businessman who becomes the seventh person to reach 10 million frequent-flier miles with the airline - and earn unique privileges - there is no such program in reality!

Eating ice cream in cones became a national fad after being introduced in 1904 in St. Louis. By 1909, an automatic roller was invented, and machines that poured the batter followed, making it easy to mass-produce the cones and further boost their popularity!

Return to Weekly Bulletin News Index page.