Happy Tuesday, Rotarians.

Need to Know:

1. Activity for our Romance Raffle is rolling. Our 3^rd Annual Romance Raffle will be held on Friday, February 12, 2016. ****Tickets are now available!!!!**** They are $140.00 per couple again this year. Checks should be made out to “Romance Raffle”. Please turn your money in as soon as possible.

****Please solicit sponsors for the event! If the donated item is a gift certificate/card, please turn it in with the sponsorship form. Otherwise you may hang on to the donated item until we are ready to set up for the event or contact me to discuss drop off/pickup of donated items. We need items for the live and silent auctions or cash donations to pay event expenses. If possible, I would like all sponsorship information by Wednesday, February 10^th.

2. Upcoming speakers: February 9^th, Marshfield Superintendent Alan Thomas will be speaking to us again; On February 16^th, a representative from RYLA will be discussing the Rotary Youth Leadership Academy.
3. Our next board meeting will be Wednesday, February 10th at noon. It will be held at Southern Missouri Bank. All members are welcome.
4. On February 6^th from 6-8 PM, Kiwanis are holding a Dads & Divas Event.
5. We will be having two new fundraisers this Spring/Summer and we are looking for people to help organize them. We will be doing Marshfield’s first “Color Run” as a joint project with Marshfield Schools. It is tentatively scheduled for May 21, 2016. Adam Blanch is heading up this fundraiser committee. We will also be doing an ATV raffle this summer. Debbie Wiese is heading this fundraiser committee. Naturally we will all need to get involved later in selling tickets, working events, etc; but Adam and Debbie need help in planning these projects, so please contact them to get involved.
6. Go ahead and put this on your calendar now: the Marshfield Easter Egg Hunt will be held on Saturday, March 12, 2016, with a rain date of March 19^th.
7. Leslie Thomas reported that the Niangua Interact Club would be sponsoring an Easter Egg Hunt for Niangua kids on Friday, March 18^th at 1:00 PM at Niangua Schools. It would be nice to see several Rotarians there to support our Interactors.

Meeting Recap

Amy Wilkerson brought Marshfield Assistant-Superintendent David Stewart as her guest today.

We “sang” to Joe Daugherty for his birthday.

Congrats to Misty Troyer and family! Misty gave birth to a baby boy this week.

Our speaker today was one of our newest club members – Sara Herren. Sara spoke to us about opportunities to promote tourism here in Marshfield and the surrounding area. Marshfield has a tourism center at the RV Park by I-44. There is space available for local businesses and organizations to have brochures and promotional items. There is a big push to do more to promote Marshfield’s connection to Route 66, as that is a big draw for local visitors to the tourism center.

Sara, Stan Whitehurst and other local officials recently attended a tourism workshop at MSU. As a graduate project, students have undertaken a tourism development project for Webster and Wright Counties called “Hometown Highway”. The project is designed to promote “day trips” around Wright and Webster Counties. There may not be one single destination that will attract out of towners but by linking various destinations and businesses under the “Hometown Highway” umbrella, tourism to the area should increase. This project is still in the early stages, so you will be hearing more about Hometown Highway in the upcoming year.

Final Thoughts

The classic song “Route 66” has been covered by a wide range of artists from Nat King Cole to The Rolling Stones. This version by Missouri’s own Chuck Berry is one of my favorites.

https://youtu.be/tg2EbJy-9dc

I saw this video today and it was so ridiculous I had to share it, although it has nothing to do with our topic today or our club.

https://youtu.be/HSQklvzNNDY

Marshfield Rotary Club: Raising the bar through leadership, giving and education.

Yours in Rotary Service,

Kristin Grace Krebs