Merry Christmas Sinatra Style

620th meeting of the Rotary Club of Dixie Sunrise

Singing in Rotary meetings in not uncommon and normally encouraged, but let me be the first to say “thanks” to our club founders who decided that music would not be part of our regular agenda. Simply said, I’m a horrible singer. Thank goodness there are those with great talent that help me look forward to our annual Christmas meeting. This year was no exception as Benjamin Ritter performed a mix of Christmas classics and jazz favorites. Benjamin’s recent experience includes performances with Michael McLean’s Forgotten Carols and upcoming shows will be at Sun River and Las Vegas. His smooth Sinatra like voice set a wonderful spirit and concluded our meetings for 2008 in a perfect way.

Thanks to all who brought gift bags for Meals on Wheels. They were delivered after the meeting. It was also announced that our Rotary Club has decided to make Christmas donations to Dixie Care and Share ($1000), Coins for Kids ($500), and Ted Worthen Hospice ($1000). More information about these donations will be given at our next meeting on January 8.

We also honored Calvin and Maria with a gift for their service to our club during the past year. We eat well thanks to their tireless behind-the-scenes service.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

MORE DRAMA PLEASE!

619th meeting of the Rotary Club of Dixie Sunrise

At the edge or Snow Canyon State Park and in our own backyard lies Tuacahn, one of the country’s top outdoor theaters. This morning, Mike Scott, Chairman of the Tucahnn Foundation, spoke to us about Tuacahn and its newly established Foundation. Mike has over 30 years of investment research for the Puget Sound apartment market and real estate management in Seattle. He and his wife fell in love with the Southern Utah area while visiting Zion National Park in 2002, bought a lot and built a home in Ivins shortly thereafter. While not from a thespian or fund-raising background, Mike’s love for Tuacahn has him actively seeking ways to build long term financial strength for Tuacahn.

Tuacahn was built in 1995 for 23 million dollars, primarily for the purpose of housing the outdoor show “Utah”. After running “Utah” for a number of years they decided to perform Broadway shows like Joseph, Oklahoma, Annie Get Your Gun, The Sound of Music, Beauty and the Beast and last years hit Les Miserables. Over 140,000 visitors attended last year with 100,000 of them not living in St. George and 30,000 coming from outside the state. Tuacahn has become a huge contributor to the area’s tourism and economy, while providing an artistic continuum of professional theater.

The Tuacahn Foundation has been established to support operating needs and build a permanent fund. This will help the theater maintain its status as a world class venue for the performing arts, bringing in wonderful plays, concerts and events. The Foundation has come close to reaching their 2008 goal of raising $450,000 as they currently sit at $430,000. Of course it’s not too late for them to reach their projection. Even more important than funds, the Foundation seeks members that have experience in fundraising or fund management. The current Board has 18 members but would ideally be 30.

This year’s plays and concerts promise to be hits with the rights to perform Annie, Footloose, Aida and concerts from Foreigner, Gladys Knight, Rick Springfield and comedian Brian Regan. Click here for more info.

The Aims of Scouting

Bob Gowans from the local Boy Scouts of America office spoke to us this morning about the purpose of Boy Scouting, whose values and purpose are very similar to those of Rotary. Many were surprised to hear that scouting is not for boys to earn their Eagle Scout, but to learn to become future leaders and good citizens while earning their advancements.

Since its beginning in 1910 there have been over 112,000,000 boy scouts in the United States. Current membership is close to 3 million with nearly 9,000 registered members in Washington County. While most scouts are supported by religious organizations, Rotary's sponsorship of scouting units places in the top 20.

Service is a very important part of scouting as the boys must do service to earn rank advancements. To receive their Eagle Scout a boy must manage and oversee a project helping schools, churches or communities that average around 150 hours. Patricia shared her experience of a scout who took down the fence at her old center, put it back up after refinishing it, bracing it, and adding gates at her new location. Scouting for Food is another project that benefits the community where scouts collect food for local food banks. In our community scouts collected 77,000 pounds of food for Dixie Care and Share. In the early years of scouting scouts were involved in helping their communities and countries. During WWI they grew victory gardens to provide fresh vegetables to families. In WWII scouts raised thousands of dollars selling war bonds and collected tons of clothes. In 1962 they planted 6.2 million trees and topped it by picking up over 1 million tons of liter in 1971.As a service club we can be thankful scouting is actively looking for ways to serve and some of the current scouts are also sure to become future Rotarians.

Are there gangs in Washington County?

Welcome to the 617th meeting of TRC of Dixie Sunrise. Photo above used to protect the identity of our local undercover agents...

All participants of this morning's meeting were educated in what gang activity is present here in Southern Utah. Detective Johnny Heppler of the St. George Police Department did an excellent job teaching us how to recognize a gang member and what the task force does to help keep Southern Utah safe.

"Creativity, resourcefulness and energy come from teamwork."

In August 1997 the heads of the St. George Police Department, Washington County Sheriff's Office, Hurricane Police Department, and Washington County Attorney's Office began the process of forming the Washington County Drug Task Force. A short time later, the gang unit joined this task force.

The Task Force's primary activities include surveillance, serving search warrants, seizing and halting the production of controlled substances and documenting known gang members and suppressing their activities. Several other agencies such as the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), Adult Probation and Parole (AP&P), and the Department of Public Safety (DPS) assist the Task Force with these functions. Intelligence meetings to share knowledge on drug users and dangerous individuals are conducted with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Internal Revenue Service (IRS), Mesquite Drug Task Force, AP&P and local law enforcement agencies.

The Dictionary Project

Did you know that the longest word in the English Language consists of 1,909 letters? It is an enzyme with 267 amino acids. The Goal of the Dictionary Project is to get dictionaries into the hands of every third grader, every year.
Today we delivered dictionaries to third graders in three schools. After a morning ride through Zion National Park, we visited the Orderville Elementary third grade. Then it was OFF ROAD past the Coral Pink Sand dunes, as we took the back way through the Cane Beds toward the twin cities, Colorado City/Hildale. We hand delivering dictionaries to the students at the Masada Charter school, and the students at El Capitan.


Each school had its own unique character, but they all had one thing in common--smiling, happy children with life's promise eagerly written upon their faces. Every kid beamed as he/she received his/her own personal dictionary, each with their name printed inside. Some hugged their books, some quickly thumbed through the dictionary's pages, hungry for the knowledge inside. As they waved goodbye, their heartfelt "Thank You!" made me glad inside that I am a Rotarian.Our early start left us hungry, so we jumped at the chance for the finest hand-crafted Pizza Bombs and premium ice cream to be found anywhere. Craigo's Pizza in Colorado City is worth the drive.

Thanks to Steve and Darrin for putting it all together. Darrin printed Rotary labels with each child's name for the inside of every dictionary. Joe, Naomi, Chantra and little Preston were great company and excellent help. As we drove home, we realized that there are additional students in Colorado City and St George that we can include, so more opportunities to help should be forthcoming.

President Paul Gooch

"Reaching out to those in Need"

The 616th meeting of the Rotary Club of Dixie Sunrise (or the meeting that almost wasn't).

We had the privilege of having Frank Yoder and Patty Hunsaker with the Resource and Reentry Center as our speaking guests this morning. Frank is retired with 20 years military experience, 30 years in business and 50 years in church administration. He has been married for 51 years with 10 children and around 30 grandchildren. Frank has lived in Apple Valley for the past 9 years.

The Resource and Reentry Center has over 30 volunteers helping in different areas, including a number of agencies (DWS, Homeless for the State of Utah, Dove Center, DCFS, AP&P, PCF, Washington County Adult Educating, etc.) They work with those that have been abused, are homeless, in poverty, coming out of prison, from the FLDS church in Colorado City and the Veterans.

Statistics given by 5 county governments:
• Poverty: Population- 195817
Poverty rate 12.7%
Child Poverty Rate 15.2%
• Homeless 201 (Three year avg. 145 in 2007
• PCF Recidivism Rate 82%
• State of Ut. Recidivism Rate 72%
• USA Recidivism Rate 67.5%
• R&RC Recidivism Rate 04%

R&RC Program:
• We give wrap around service:
o Mentoring
o Education
o Employment
o Welfare
o Transitional Housing
o Ethic training
• Life Skills
• Budgeting

R&RC Present figures:
• In Program
o in PCF Or Gunnison 21
o Out 19
o Women 12
o Others 02
Total 54

• In School 02
• Hold Jobs 15
• Housed. assisted by R&RC 05
• In own housing 17
• Stopped Drinking 14
• Stopped Drugs 14

Present and Future Projects:

• Researching for funds to hire personnel
• 54 Apt Transitional housing
• Develop Affordable housing for those transitioning from above units.
• Place one new business in operation per year to place our clients in jobs.
o Safety Consortium-From SLC
o Manufacturing business-Service business
o 100 Bed VA. Nursing home-95 Full time jobs with 19 part time
• 16 million spendable income to community
• 25 million market value when finished
• Approved for Southern Utah.
• Service 100 Clients by Jan 2009

Our Blog Training

It was PLAN B for the 615th meeting of the Rotary Club of Dixie Sunrise. Our planned speaker misread our start time as 7 pm instead of 7 am. Thank goodness Kyle was ready to have blog training.


Kyle Ashby took us through a tour of the Blog and posted this posting during the meeting. Each of the attendees also learned how to register to the site to leave specific comments on different postings.

Souls for Soles, RYLA report

I need your help! (614th meeting)
Hi, my name is Leah Moulton, and I need a lot of help with a service project that I am working on. Recently I attended a RYLA camp in Sundance, Utah, and my group and I decided to do a service program together state-wide. There are eight kids working together, involving their local Rotary Clubs, schools, local business, and their Interact clubs in on this international project.

The name of the program that we are working with is called Soles4Souls. It is an organization that collects men, women, and children's shoes and distributes them to other parts of the world who have never seen shoes. Did you know that over 300 million children have never seen a shoe in their life? What is worse is there over 1.4 billion shoes lie idle in closets all over America. Since I myself have an obsession with shoes, I really began to realize that maybe I don't need all 30 pairs. What my group of fellow young Rotarians and I are trying to do is collect as many possible to help those who really need it.

Soles4Souls is a non-profit organization who has helps MILLIONs of people all over the world. They brought over 250,000 pairs of shoes to Asian tsunami victims in December 2004. Altogether they have donated over 3.3 million pairs of shoes in over 60 countries as estimated in 2004. Imagine what they are doing now.

Now that you've read this, think about all those uncomfortable shoes that are just too small, outdated, or you don't don't like that are lying at hope and haven't been touched for months. Someone in need would love that pair. I need Childrens (1-6), Men, and Women LIGHTLY-USED shoes. Anything from sturdy work boots to the coolest beach sandals anywhere. Every pair you donate may help save an inividual from our global family from disease and will make life much easier.

I will have more collection boxes in more locations soon, but for now you may donate them to this Rotary Club. If you need more information or would like for me to pick up a delivery myself, my number is: 702-510-2317.

Please help others in need!
Thank you, Leah Marie Moulton

New Member Induction

We welcome Trish Sheffield from the Childrens Justice Center back to our club. She is a great Rotarian who is deeply involved serving her community. See this link for more information about her compelling work, or the previous post from her Rotary presentation in our club on 10/09/2008.

Glasses Project

Tonight, the preparation for our Mexico trip got underway. Thanks to Todd for hosting our work project at ALSCO. It was a heady, fashion filled evening--the Heiner family three won the hearts of all the judges...

Dr. Mike Anderson, Photography

Content under construction...

Flashback! Who can solve the mystery of how the "HOG TABLE" got its name?

New Member Induction

Welcome to our two newest members, Annette Wiggins, and Kris Hansen. Annette is a 4th generation Venetian Plasterer. She owns Bella Murus and does high end commercial and residential plaster--the real stuff, using Italian product and methods.

Kris Hansen is a Chiropractic Physician who owns the Advanced Health and Pain Center. Kris is a returning member. We are delighted to have him back and are excited for the new life these two new members breathe into our club.

Natural Healing and Allergies

Thursday, October 16, 2008 (612th meeting)

Today's speaker was former club member and local Chiropractor Kris Hansen. Kris spoke to us about allergy elimination (NAET). He has been aware of this technique for many years and was skeptical of it at first. After leasing office space to a doctor from Salt Lake that came down a few times a month that offered these treatments he became more familiar with allergy elimination. Through his own experimentation he became convinced that the system really does work.

Kris explained that an allergy can be more than the typical symptoms that we think of; anaphylaxis, red puffy eyes, sinus issues, rashes, etc.. Allergies can cause the body to have other serious reactions causing a wide variety of reactions. In some cases the body will reject nutrients, hormones, vitamins or other substances that we are exposed to. In others instances the body will accumulate excessive, and unhealthy, levels of an element because it can not process it properly due to an allergy.

New allergies can be acquired by the body during times of stress, illness, trauma or toxicity due to an overall weakness of the body. Patients can not only be treated for typical allergen causing substances and foods but other conditions such as; anxiety, ADD/ADHD, asthma, autism, insomnia, depression and many more. The treatment itself is based on the proven principals of acupuncture/acupressure.

Kris also announced that he will be rejoining our club. Hopefully, we can keep up this trend of inducting our speakers to increase our membership.


Darrin Hallman
Infinite Solutions, Inc.

New Member Induction

We welcome two new members to our club. Luther Anderson, retired Lutheran Pastor had some temporary changes to his retirement plans. As a member of our club since 1999 who recently left St George, we are glad to have him back for as long as he can stay before his retirement sends him off to colder climes.

Paul Chrisco is an IT specialist with a passion to give back to his community. We are delighted to have him join our club and look forward to getting to know his compelling story. Thanks to Joe and Chantra for filling in for their absentee sponsors.

A Rotarian and his or her pin are never far apart. Whenever Luther forgot his pin in the past, it was because he forgot to get it off him jammies when he dressed for the day. Now he has two...

Children's Justice Center

Our speaker today was Patricia Sheffield the director of the Children’s Justice Center (CJC) and a former member of our club. Patricia has been the director of the CJC for 10 years. The CJC offers a comfortable home like environment in which to conduct interviews with juvenile victims of abuse. The interviews are conducted by law enforcement and child protective services, all interviews are recorded. They typically see 310 children each year. 94% of these cases are alleged victims of sexual abuse, 26% are male and 74% are female. Approximately, 50% of the cases that they see end in a conviction. The bulk of the remaining cases are believed no to be actual abuse but usually misunderstandings. The abuser is almost always someone that is known to the victim and rarely a stranger. Patricia reminded us that by state law we are required report any case of suspected abuse to law enforcement or Child Protective Services.

The Children’s Justice Center recently moved into a new building thanks to many generous contributions from the community.

Patricia also shared criteria to watch for when contributing money to a group. In order to be considered a non-profit organization and for your contribution to be tax deductible the organization must be a 501C3 Corporation, have a current charitable certificate from the state, and be current with their filings to both the state and the federal government.

The highlight of the visit was when Patricia agreed to rejoin our club as a member!

Its a Privilege to be Blind

It was standing room only for the 610th meeting of the Rotary Club of Dixie Sunrise. Former member Larry Stansifer brought a bucket-full of wit, a belly full of laughs, and inspiring insight into his life of blindness. He began by sharing with us that he considered his blindness a privilege. Later in the meeting, when asked why, he explained, almost reverently, how beautiful it was to hear waves lapping against the side of a boat; or how neat it was on a warm spring day in a pastoral setting to hear the sound of a butt splashing as it fell down in a muddy field; or the rare feel of the sun on his face in Seattle.

Larry was diagnosed with bilateral retinal blastomas and lost both eyes as a very young child. He spoke of his privilege of having parents who refused to treat his blindness as a handicap. Recalling the day in Montana when he asked his father, "What is a mountainside?" he told us that his father stopped the truck and told him to "get out and start walking." After hiking a ways uphill, his father yelled to Larry to come back down before his nervous mother "had kittens." He also related the story of being out in a small boat on the ocean with his father when his father asked, "how far do you think it is to the shore?" Larry replied he thought it sounded like about 300 yards. The next thing he heard was a SPLASH and his father yelling back to him, "See you there!"

Larry spent his career as a certified Master Mechanic for BMW and Porche. He described how he hand-made his own gauges so he could feel them, and routinely performed any and every type of mechanic work including engine rebuilds. "Picture this!" he quiped, "A blind guy drilling holes in your $100,000 dollar car to install ski racks. It brings new meaning to 'measure twice, cut once'."

Larry also shared some of the details about life with a guide dog. With deep emotion, he related to us the process the dogs go through from birth and selection, to socialization with 4-H children, to final training by guide dog school.

We had some special guests that made the morning even better. Mike Theuer of Theuer Orthodontics and Annette Wiggins of Bella Murus joined our fun. We were delighted to see retired member Luther Anderson back for a visit. He shared the story of one of his blind parishoners who's guide dog would get up when the sermon was over, but sometimes stood up too early. Without skipping a beat, Larry replied, "In my experience the dogs are very punctual. Your sermon probably went long."

Larry, thanks for making our day brighter!

Paul Chrisco has been proposed as a new member. Call President Gooch or any board member if you want to comment over this next week.

See you then!

President Gooch

The Vial of Life

The 609th meeting of the Rotary Club of Dixie Sunrise welcomed Linda Sappington, Director of the Volunteer Center of Washington County. Linda, who is a member of the St. George Rotary Club, that club’s first female member and first female President, came to share with the club the life saving program “The Vial of Life.” However, before we let her escape back to her office we asked her to share more information on the services of the Volunteer Center of Washington County.

First, her original topic, we learned that the Vial of Life project has now reached into approximately 15,000 homes in Washington County. By completing a simple information sheet, placing it in a “pill vial” and keeping it in your refrigerator – the location of choice since almost all homes have a refrigerator and it could well survive a fire or natural event thus protecting your information - you are able to help emergency personnel treat you in medical crisis. Time is primary in events such as heart attack and stroke and if the EMTs or other emergency responders can quickly read your medical history and drugs you take treatment can begin immediately significantly increasing the chance of survival. The Vial of Life program is sponsored jointly by the Volunteer Center, the Citizen Corps Council and Intermountain Healthcare. We certainly encourage the members of the club and their friends and family to take a few minutes to provide life saving information.

On other notes of the Volunteer Center Linda spoke of a few of the other services for which the Center serves as a clearing house. The Youth Volunteer Corps serves young people in crisis between the ages of 11 and 17. The Court Appointed Community Service Volunteers work with those who do community service as opposed to incarceration. And, those in need of healthcare information can phone the Center for assistance in locating needed services.

We hope Linda will come back to speak with us further on more of the services of her organization. Those of you who missed the meeting today, we missed you! Hope to see you next week.

President Elect Marla Shelby-Drabner