April 29, 2011
Today, with the upcoming series of events surrounding the Home Town Walk of Hope, Lorraine Gossiett, co-founder of Obion County Hometown Walk of Hope, is our guest speaker. She will be discussing how and why the organization was created, how funds are raised and distributed in our county, highlighting how lives are being changed and hope is being restored to local patients who are fighting this dreaded disease. Under her guidance, as co-chairman, the local organization has raised and distributed 1.3 million dollars in the past 10 years
Lorainne was born in Moundsville, West Virginia. She attended West Virginia University where she received her Bachelor’s Degree in Education. She received her Master’s Degree in Education and Exercise Physiology from the University of Akron in Akron, Ohio. Moving to Obion County in 1993, she began working for Baptist Memorial Hospital in 1994 as their Fitness and Wellness Coordinator. She also managed the hospital’s fitness and wellness center, Health Quest, served as the Coordinator of Industrial Services, worked in the areas of Marketing and Public Relations, and co-founded the O.C. Hometown Walk of Hope in 2001.
She is a member of U.C. Second Baptist Church where she teaches Sunday school and participates in the choir. She also writes Bible Studies and is a Christian motivational speaker at area churches. She has two sons, both in college, Tommy a first year law student at UT Knoxville and Stevie, a freshman at UTM, studying to be a teacher and coach.
Thursday, May 5th,
after having to be canceled last year due to poor track conditions, the Union City Rotary Relays are back on schedule. There will be participants from all over West Tennessee and Western Kentucky here for the event. Randy Barnes has spent many hours organizing and getting everything ready and everyone assigned to events. He is stressing the importance of each chairman of events and scorekeepers to check in with him early in case there are any changes or updates that need to be passed along.
Due to the event, there will be No Meeting of Union City Rotary next Friday.
In Two weeks, May 13th, the annual Rotary Scholarship Banquet will be held at the First Baptist Church’s Family Life Center.
Since 1982, Union City Rotary has awarded over $4,124,000, and helped over 3,000 students in their quest for higher education. This year a total of $130,000, which exceeds last year’s total by about $2,000 will be handed out to 119 students out of a total of 191, applicants (62%) from our three high schools in the county. On June 3rd, the Verhine Scholarships will benefit 104 Union City Students to a whopping $140,000, bringing this year’s two program total to $270,000.
A big "Thank You" goes out to our Scholarship Committee for their relentless job of screening all applicants and having to say no to some. The committee is chaired by Roger Williams and includes Steve Vaughn, Richard Graham, Gary Houston, Bob Regen, Ron Green, Clint Joyner, Barry Keathley, Al Creswell, Dave Schlager and Jim Douglas.
Last week, Christina Brown, Director of Development with KIPP Memphis visited and brought with her a presentation of that organization, which enlightened the audience on the fundamentals of KIPP, and the students it serves.
She presented a short film clip describing the benefits and motivation the organization promotes in order to bring underserved students in grades 5-8 to a level of being able to compete in college and the demanding world beyond. The film also contained testimonials from former students who have benefited from the program and how it had helped them move up and on to a better life.
After the inspiring clip, Christina went into some detail about why and how she got into the program, saying that while in school at William and Mary she witnessed some of these same people and how most of them were just as capable of learning as she was, but only 1 in 10 graduated from college, due to not having the motivation from parents or peers to encourage them.
After getting herself involved in Memphis she said "I wish I could say that every day was enjoyable, but I have to say it just isn’t". "What I have observed is most of my lower performing students and mainly my higher performers really want to learn", she said.
She again mentioned some of the problems the students at that age are capable of getting themselves into comes from having no responsibilities and no encouragement from home. Recognizing these problems, the school several of them, which has helped lead the school to becoming the highest performing school in the program.
Her program ended by explaining the geographical area which the many KIPP program schools cover, being in metropolitan areas as well as rural and remote areas.Memoriam
Former Member
Dr. Alfred M. Creswell
1923 - 2011
Coming Attractions
Thursday, May 05 - Rotary Relays
May 06 - No Meeting
May 13 - Rotary Scholarship Banquet
May 20 - Jo Ann Speer
May 27 - Roy Herron - TN Legislative Update
June 03 - Verhine Scholarship Banquet
June 10 - TBA
here is no meeting of Union City Rotary next week, birthdays and anniversaries are listed accordingly.
Birthdays
May 02 - John Warner
May 03 - Kyle Baggett
Anniversaries
April 30 - Sam and Kim Bradberry
April 30 - John and Jane Hale
May 02 - David, Jr. and Heard Critchlow
May 07 - Charles and Laura Denaburg
May 11 - Charles and Larrabee Kirkland
