Inspiring leaders with passion to serve humanity; strengthening youth for tomorrow's leadership and enhancing lives in our world.
Thursday June 1, 2023
Today, President Theresa Slominski led our meeting. John Osterman led our song and Theresa had our prayer and shared about Rotary and Peace from the rotary book in the cabinet.
Attending
Dirk Barrett, Terry Bizal, Melanie Clemons, Julie Fish, Molly Hanson, Katie Harstad, Mark Kuyava, Tove Lichty, Angela Nies, Cal Portner, Pete Reiner, Debbi Rydberg, Theresa Slominski, Nicole Wojcik, Bill Yueill, honorary Glen Ertel, Bob Maxwell, John Osterman, Bruce Tyler and Stewart Wilson
Marv Sorvala had our program today, but wasn’t able to be with us so Cal Portner introduced us to Justin Femrite. Here is the intro:
Justin Femrite has served as the City of Elk River’s Public Works Director and Chief Engineer since 2018. He was originally the city’s consulting engineer and was hired full-time as our City Engineer in 2010. As director he oversees city engineering/project management, streets, parks, building and stormwater system maintenance, and the wastewater treatment operation.
Chief Femrite (he loves to be called that, much to the chagrin of the police chief, has many accomplishments in his nearly 13 years with the city. He was the principal city project manager for the $12 million public works expansion project, $17 million Wastewater Treatment Plant upgrade project, and numerous public infrastructure projects. He developed and implemented the city franchise fee and pavement management program which significantly decreased property owner costs and property taxes and virtually eliminated public infrastructure property tax assessments, spearheaded the plan and acquired grant funding to silence train horns at all Elk River Rail Road Crossings, was instrumental in the planning and development for the acquisition of our $157 million Corridors of Commerce Grant which has now brought you temporary pain and hardship traveling along the highway 169 corridor.
While these massive accomplishments get a lot of attention, in his career field and his career, there are so many things you never see which are even more vital, which may be some of Justin’s greatest accomplishments. Public asset management, trail and mobility improvements, private utility connections, intersection enhancements, stormwater program development, landfill leachate disposal, mining, traffic, and development studies are things we take for granted as we flush our toilets, drive to the grocery store, or enjoy our property.
Justin grew up in St. Clair, MN near Mankato, and earned his Bachelor of Civil Engineering from the Harvard of the West, the University of Minnesota. He’s from a family of engineers and like many of his family began his career with Bolten & Menk. His father is one of the earliest employees at BMI, badge #4?
He’s a member of the American Public Works Association, American Society of Civil Engineers, and City Engineers Association of Minnesota, serving as president in 2020.
He and his wife Jen own a home and gravel pit in Elk River, and have two sons, Carter is a rising sophomore and proud NDSU Bison, Blake, the basketball star, is a rising senior at Spectrum High School. I think they also have a dog.
Justin thanked us for the invite. He has been with Elk River for 13 years and nothing would have been accomplished without the city council, our elected officials and city staff. Nothing happens without any of them. Justin talked about the Franchise Fee that began in 2013 and how it changed the way they collect on road updates. He also spoke about the waste water facility upgrade in 2015. It is a state of the art facility. He passed out key tags with a QR code on it that leads to an award winning video, created by their creative and dedicated staff. Net on to Highway 169 Redefine project and told us about the way things are going and that they are on time and he is impressed with the whole operation. The two intersections under construction should be done on time, November 1st. Upcoming project could be Highway 10, to redo Highway 10 from the 101 bridge to Ramsey, MN. They have submitted for funding consideration. Theresa thanked Justin!
Announcements
-Mark your calendars - Monday, June 12th at 6 pm at Aegir for an After Taste Meeting.
- Rotarians – please remember to get your tickets and money turned in to your managers. Managers – please remember to get your tickets and money turned in toTreasurer Neil Gagnon.
-Debbi Rydberg told us to save the date for August 5 from 10 am to 2 pm. She is in need of 4 to 5 volunteers, can be rotarians and their family or friends! She needs help to host a table and collect lithium batteries during the event. The event is called Elk River ElectriFUNCATION & EV Test Drive Event. It is an educational event sponsored by the Initiative Foundation, City of Elk River, Sherburne County and the Elk River Area Chamber of Commerce.
-Card Draw was an ace of clubs and Stewart had the match. It is a fairly new game so he only won 4 dollars and 4 dollars goes to the Rotary Foundation!
Happy Bucks
-Pete Reiner had a somber happy buck for the Memorial Day Ceremony by the river. It is a beautiful location and was well attended! During the ceremony, an eagle flew over!
-Tove Lichty was happy that last weekend she and Adam stayed home, went for walks and her brother came to town and she was able to visit with him.
-Nicole Wojcik was happy for Memorial Day weekend’s great weather at the camper and happy to have gone to a Janet Jackson concert!
-Cal Portner was happy for some MN Twins tickets he has that he is taking family and friends to! He was also happy to be going to a cabin with a friend this weekend and next week he will travel to Spokane to see an air force friend.
-Katie Harstad was excited for having memorial day weekend! She has some time off and plans to relax and have some mental health time!
-Debbi Rydberg was happy to be seeing her son and daughter in law and to meet her new grand kitten!
- Thresa Slominski was happy for the great weather at the cabin with two boat rides. She was also happy her daughter could join them!
-Mark Kuyava was happy for a fishing trip last weekend with a friend up north! It was nice to get away and he is sure his wife enjoyed his absence also!
Together we recited the 4 Way Test!
Thursday May 25, 2023
Today our meeting was led by President Theresa Slominski. John Osterman led us in song!
Attending
Terry Bizal, Julie Fish, Neil Gagnon, Molly Hanson, Heather Kliewer, Bonnie Koste, Mark Kuyava, Tove Lichty, Dr. Laura Mullennex, Angela Nies, Cal Portner, Kat Sarff, Theresa Slominski, Marv Sorvala, Nicole Wojcik, Bill Yueill, honoraries Dave Anderson, Glen Ertel, Bob Maxwell, John Osterman, Bruce Tyler and Stewart Wilson
Guest: John Houlton, First Bank Elk River – stopped by to give us a giant Thank You for the Taste of Elk River event! It hugely impacts his banking business! This was the biggest crowd they have ever hosted @ 205 paying people!
Luke Mehelich, son of visiting and past Elk River Rotary, Cathy Mehelich, also a past River Clean up attendee!
Visiting Rotarian: Cathy Mehelich, St. Cloud Rotary
Cathy told us about their large fundraiser – Summertime by George, which is a concert series held on Lake George in St. Cloud. It is a bring your own chair music event. The St. Cloud Rotary club raises over $100,000 during their summer concert series.
Program
Our program was arranged by Kat Sarff with the Sherburne County Area United Way. She introduced us to Carol McNaughton-Commers with RSVP program. They are also known as Ameri-Corp Seniors of Greater St. Cloud Community and they serve Benton, Sherburne, Stearns and Wright Counties. They foster volunteer engagement for 55+ to impact lives and strengthen the community. They celebrate 50 years of existence this year! She shared some tracked stats for 2022 – 971 active volunteers; 95,007 hours served; 136 organizations served! She shared a lot of information with us about their program from birthday bags, to intergenerational projects they hold. They have 3 locations – Wright County Justice Center, Sherburne County Government Center and Whitney Senior Center. For more information, Carol can be reached 763-765-3036 or her cell 763-635-4505 or carole.mcnaughton-commers@ci.stcloud.mn.us
Announcements
-Taste of Elk River is complete! Teams – please gather your ticket sales information! Sellers, please get your unsold and sold tickets and money to your team managers. Team Managers – please get your information gathered and turned into Treasurer Neil Gagnon! Bob Maxwell reports that the online ticket sales ended at 195 regular tickets and 76 private tasting room tickets. Silent Auction is around $4180 for sales! Thanks to all for the event! A wrap up meeting will be held soon!
-Happy Birthday song was sung to Heather Kliewer who picked the backwards version . . . and an I.O.U.!
-Bill Yueill and his wife will celebrate their 61st wedding anniversary! Congratulations!
-Card draw was a 2 of clubs and there was not a match!
Happy Bucks
-Heather Kliewer was $3 happy. It is her grandparents anniversary on her birthday; she leaves tomorrow for Idaho Falls to see her son, then on to Denver to see grand kids. She was also very happy to pay happy bucks for two very important people in the room – Angela Nies and Theresa Slominski who assisted with the Silent Auction and kept her calm and were a great back up team for her sanity!
-Bill Yueill was happy for his 61st anniversary!
-Visiting Rotarian Cathy Mehelich was happy to be here as a guest; had a great time at the Taste of Elk River; Luke her son is here so she had to brag as he is a 3 year college student studying biology and working; and her daughter Kate will graduate from Becker high school! And it is her 27th wedding anniversary!
-Bruce Tyler was happy to be traveling with his wife, to Taiwan to visit their son, daughter in law and grand kids from July 17 – August 5!
-Nicole Wojcik was happy for attending a fancy wedding Friday evening; funeral for her friend was a beautiful service; mom is back from Africa!
-Theresa Slominski was thankful for the Taste of Elk River and everyone’s hard work! Her daughter will be at the lake this weekend and her backyard tree project clean up is done and although her husband was participating in No Mow May, she broke down when he was out of town and mowed the lawn because it was driving her crazy!
Together we recited the 4 Way Test!
Thursday May 11, 2023
Today our meeting was led by President Theresa Slominski. Our song of “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” was led by John Osterman!
Attending
Dirk Barrett, Terry Bizal, Julie Fish, Neil Gagnon, Katie Harstad, Heather Kliewer, Bonnie Koste, Mark Kuyava, Tove Lichty, Dr. Laura Mullennex, Cal Portner, Pete Reiner, Debbi Rydberg, Theresa Slominski, Marv Sorvala, David Vinje, Nicole Wojcik, Bill Yueill, honorary Dave Anderson, Glen Ertel, Bob Maxwell, John Osterman, Bruce Tyler and Stewart Wilson
We had a few guests!
-Joe Stremcha, transferring rotarian
-Melanie Clemens, applied for membership
-Alan Sakry, past Elk River rotarian
Today our program was to wrap up the Taste of Elk River pre-planning! Our leader, Dirk Barrett reminded us to all show up at the fair grounds after our noon meeting today as there are a lot of things to do to prepare for our event. Set up tables, table coverings on tables, set out buckets, chips, vendor table tent signs, signage, caution tape and more! Debbi Rydberg sent out an email to all members with the sign up roster attached. We are in need of dry erase markers and Debbi Rydberg has those for us to use. Next year, it is suggested that we have our own Venmo account for payments. Cal Portner, commissioner, led us in a trivia game. Bruce Tyler, the Drug Despot had on a nice shirt today and had no comments as he is hoping to keep his shirt in tact! Team Manager for the Cocoa Crispers, Nicole Wojcik shared a story about the movie the Sand Lot; Mark Kuyava had a blogger update and the blogger has disappeared! John Osterman reports in that his team is working hard and they have wonderful numbers coming in. The Fighting Burbott have won the past 2 years in a row and are looking for a 3rd year in a row of victory!
Announcements
-Neil Gagnon attended the ERHS scholarship night last night. Julie Fish, Bonnie Koste, and Neil Gagnon are attending the Ivan Sand School night on Tuesday, June 6th at 7 pm. Feel free to join them!
-Theresa received an email from her friend in Rwanda. They are starting up a Rotary club there and she is wondering how we can help them. They are also experiencing severe flooding and over 600 families are displaced and many people are missing. Our board of directors will have a discussion to see if we can come up with an idea. If you have an idea, please share it with Theresa.
-Theresa received a new Paul Harris Fellow pin and called up Stewart Wilson to present it to him. Theresa shared some words about Paul Harris and what it means to be a Fellow! Stewart shared that Rotary is his favorite to donate to. He also enjoys the friendship and fellowship in our local club and also enjoys all that Rotary does internationally. He encourages us to all give at rotary.org.
-Happy Birthday song was sung to both Stewart Wilson and Debbi Rydberg!
-Card Draw was a 6 of clubs and Theresa Slominski had the match! She wins half the pot and the other half goes to our Paul Harris Fellow budget!
Happy Bucks
Nicole Wojcik was happy about her step son’s visit and his departure back to Wyoming. She was happy that she and her daughter were able to attend the Luke Combs concert. A happy buck for a wedding she will attend tomorrow and a very sad buck for the communities loss of Chad Lundquist who was her neighbor in the past, who died by suicide last weekend!
-Julie Fish also had a sad for Chad buck; was happy for Stewart Wilson being awesome and setting a great example and happy for the morning Taste of Elk River shower from Tom McNair who resides in heaven!
-Bruce Tyler had a happy buck to be leaving here today with his shirt in tact!
-Alan Sakry was happy to be here, had a good luck buck for the Taste of Elk River and told us that he and his wife may be moving back to Elk River!
-Marv Sorvala had a happy buck because he heard Theresa Slominski’s voice on the radio on BOB FM telling about the Taste of Elk River!
-Tove Lichty had a happy buck for a podcast done by Kat Sarff and John Osterman for the United Way to create awareness. She was also happy for a weekend in South Dakota where she was able to watch her 4 and 6 year old nieces dance in their recitals! It was great!
-Bob Maxwell was happy to tell us that as of now, we have 182 regular tickets and 65 private tasting room tickets sold on line! Lots of sales over the past two days! (At time of meeting...)
-Katie Harstad is happy to refer to this week as hell week as she has a lot of things going on with work, Rotary, Lions and her family!
-Melanie Clemons was happy for her sone doing facebook live as a 16 year old and opening up about mental health with Thumbs Up!
Together we recited the 4 Way Test and off to the fair grounds we went!
Thursday May 11, 2023
Theresa Slominski led our meeting today.
Guests -Rob Rydberg, guest and husband of Debbi Rydberg
-Joe Stremcha, guest of Cal Portner, new staff member at the City of Elk River and soon to be an Elk River Rotarian via transfer from another club!
-Melanie Clemons and Sydney Archer with Kiser Construction, guest of John Osterman and also soon, Melanie will be an Elk River Rotarian!
-Denny Purdue, SPIRE Credit Union, guest of John Osterman
-Laura Lefebvre, guest of Debbi Rydberg
Attending
Dirk Barrett, Terry Bizal, Julie Fish, Neil Gagnon, Katie Harstad, Heather Kliewer, Bonnie Koste, Mark Kuyava, Tove Lichty, Cal Portner, Pete Reiner, Debbi Rydberg, Theresa Slominski, Marv Sorvala, Dave Vinje, Nicole Wojcik, Bill Yueill, honoraries Dave Anderson, Glen Ertel, Bob Maxwell, John Osterman, Bruce Tyler, Stewart Wilson
We welcomed back from Florida Stewart Wilson!
Program John Houlton with First Bank Elk River was our speaker today and the subject was wine! He brought samples to share with us and explained the differences between white wine and red wine where the grape is fermented in the skin. Wine is an agricultural product so soil, weather, the time of harvest and the crop treatment become the wine! Wine growers are farmers. It is epicurean so it is food! In the 70’s there wasn’t a wine culture quite like there is today! The US stands toe to toe with the world in our wine culture. John explained why Napa Valley has the perfect conditions for wine farming. Air also ages the wine, so he suggests that waiting for 15 minutes before taking a drink of the wine is a great idea! The samples shared will be available in the private tasting tent on Thursday at our Taste of Elk River event! Be sure to stop by and check it out!
Taste of Elk River -John Osterman needs some help with the ice and the water coming from Cub Foods. Heather Kliewer volunteered the use of the freezer at CAER for the ice.
-Debbi Rydberg told us to keep an eye out in our email boxes for the sign up sheet.
-Katie Harstad, food vendor coordinator, reports that in 2022 we had 9 food vendors and this year, we have 11! Great job to the go getters . . . You know who you are!
-Cal Portner, Commissioner for our ticket sales teams, led us off with some baseball trivia. He called up Bruce Tyler, the Drug Despot who had an assistant who passed around a urine sample cup to everyone! Bruce went around the room with his radar hand and he was irritating Cal Portner because he was taking so long and Cal went up to Bruce and ripped his shirt off of him! Lol! Cal then went on with more trivia and called on each of the team managers to give their report. Terry Bizal went first and reported in with Glen Ertel with a grand slam and that he received more tickets today from our ticket master, Neil Gagnon. Mark Kuyava shared yet another fabulous blog and John Osterman told of a team member that is at 25 in ticket sales! Nicole Wojcik shared the Abbott and Costello “Who’s on First” bit and reports Katie Harstad is killing it with 27 ticket sales! Cal then told us about the song from 1908, “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” and how it came to be and about the 2016 time when Bill Murray sang it impersonating Daffy Duck!
-Card Game - a 7 of clubs was pulled and there was not a winner!
Happy Bucks
-Julie Fish was happy for a new “great” #28. It is a boy, Grant Mark, 7# 4 oz. and her 8th great nephew in a row!
-Marv Sorvala was happy to tell us of a purchase of a second home in Clearwater, Florida at On Top of the World! They will leave for there in October!
-Melanie Clemons, one of our guests, had a happy thank you to John Osterman for inviting her today and for him being the voice on their business commercial for Kiser Construction that plays at the St. Michael Movie Theatre!
-Nicole Wojcik was happy that it was her husband’s 52 birthday!
Theresa thanked us for coming and together we recited the 4 Way Test!
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Cathy told us about their large fundraiser – Summertime by George, which is a concert series held on Lake George in St. Cloud. It is a bring your own chair music event. The St. Cloud Rotary club raises over $100,000 during their summer concert series.
Ameri-Corp Seniors of Greater St. Cloud Community and they serve Benton, Sherburne, Stearns and Wright Counties. They foster volunteer engagement for 55+ to impact lives and strengthen the community. They celebrate 50 years of existence this year! She shared some tracked stats for 2022 – 971 active volunteers; 95,007 hours served; 136 organizations served! She shared a lot of information with us about their program from birthday bags, to intergenerational projects they hold. They have 3 locations – Wright County Justice Center, Sherburne County Government Center and Whitney Senior Center. For more information, Carol can be reached 763-765-3036 or her cell 763-635-4505 or 
