Newsletter - Archive  Jun 27, 2010

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Tennessee's First Breakfast Club - Charles Crowe - President 2009-10 Rotary Club No. 3878 - Oak Ridge, Tennessee - District 6780 VOTED DISTRICT 6780 BEST ELECTRONIC NEWSLETTER - 2007-2008
Volume 30 - No. 38	Lydia Birk - Breakfast Bytes Editor	June 27, 2010

- REMEMBER - 

 BREAKFAST ROTARY WILL MEET ON JULY 7-

 NO NEWSLETTER NEXT WEEK

Notes from Rotary Meeting - June 23, 2010

submitted by Pat Powell with help from Karen Bridgeman

Time for everyone to pay club dues!

Charles Crowe, Club President, opened the meeting; Jerry Young led members in singing "God Bless America"; Ken Brady led the pledge to the flag; and Keith Craft led the Invocation (#4).

Guests and visitors: 

Jo Iacovino from the Oak Ridge Sunset Club;

Zach Farrar from the Clinton Club;

Dr. Blake Hardin, Charles Crowe's guest;

Cathy Toth introduced Mike Paulus, Oak Ridge National Laboratory;

Martha Hobson introduced her spouse, David;

and our Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar, Brennan Roorda.

Pat Imperato, who chairs the Ambassadorial Scholarship sub-committee of the Foundation Committee, introduced Brennan Roorda, who was successfully nominated by ORBRC to receive a full academic-year Ambassadorial Scholarship from The Rotary Foundation.  

Brennan is a native Oak Ridger. He graduated from ORHS in 2006. He will start his master's program in August at the University of Jordan in diplomacy (a.k.a. applied international relations) before completing his five-year military obligation.  Brennan spent a summer during his West Point education in Jordan working to build a youth athletic program there as part of the peace-making process.  He decided to learn Arabic and consequently choose to enter into the world of diplomacy.  Brennan recently graduated 22^nd in his class of 1,000 cadets from West Point Military Academy.  He has the rank of second lieutenant in the Army.  He will work at the U.S. Embassy in Jordan before beginning his formal school year.

The program he will be participating in Jordon will help him further his personal mission, which is to educate, people, alleviating poverty and promoting health around the world.   This is all in keeping with the mission of Rotary International and will be part of his service obligation to Rotary for the scholarship funding.  He also hopes to broaden his academic knowledge of Arabic with the "street dialect," as opposed to the formal language he has learned in school.

Brennan informed members that the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan is about the size of Maine and has a population of 4.3 million people.   The population of 4.3 million is mostly Arabs who are predominantly located in urban centers.  1.7 million people are identified as being refugees from Palestine and Iraq.   

He is looking forward to interacting with the local Rotary groups in Jordan, especially in their literacy programs (both English and Arabic) and he wants to continue to work with youth groups in building sports programs.

While Brennan promised to keep in touch with ORBRC, our members encouraged him to set up a blog through which we can stay apprised of his activities.  Karen Bridgeman offered to help set up the blog using World Press.   He intends to come home for Christmas and will gladly visit ORBRC at that time.

Thanks to Pat Imperato for this nice review of his comments!

Announcements: 

Charles Crowe announced that Nancy Donsbach will take over for him (he will be away) and all other new officers will assume their jobs in two weeks.

It was announced that Jay Pride has spent 10 weeks in the hospital.  He is finally home recuperating, but needs all of our thoughts and best wishes.

Happy Dollars and Rooster Hardy (and editorial comment) ***: 

Rooster Parker Hardy announced there would be no individual Happy Dollars this morning because of time restraints and because this is his last "hurrah."  He then fined Mike Morris for smoking in a nonsmoking area at the Festival this weekend. 

Rooster Hardy read some very thought provoking questions for which he gave equally insightful answers.  **(It must be noted that good breeding will not permit all of Rooster Hardy's comments to be related this week!)

What Dolly Parton will say when she learns that we're hiring some other "boob" for city mayor - "That's crazy - with me, you get two for the price of one!"

What the ghost of Leslie Groves will say when the Oak Ridge Revitalization effort finds him roaming the halls of the Alexander Inn - "Where the heck is that room service guy?"

What David Mosby will ask when he learns that all of his kids have received traffic camera citations - "Can I get a group discount?"

What the Oak Ridge Charter Commission will declare soon: The Magna Carta needs a re-do and we are up to the task!

Rooster Hardy reported raising $89 in fines this morning!

***Editorial Comment:  Rooster Hardy has done a great job this year - it has taken his time and energy to do research to provide extremely interesting and fun new ways to raise money through fines, happy dollars, and coercions of all types.  He deserves great credit!

Speaker

Emily Jernigan introduced the speaker: Dr. Henry Grissino (Ph.D., University of Arizona; M.A., University of Georgia; B.S., University of Georgia) is an Associate Professor in the Department of Geography at the University of Tennessee and Director of the  Laboratory of Tree-Ring Science.  He studies ecosystem disturbance processes and uses dendrochronology, the science of tree rings, to address changes in these processes both spatially and temporally.   

His presentation was uniquely called "Tree Rings, Stradivarius, and Lincoln's Logs."  How Trees Can Solve Mysteries."  Grissino said that tree rings interpret what trees tell us; they solve mysteries, and teach us the language of trees.  He gave an example of a murder that was committee in Texas and was solved because of what the logs in the cabin absorbed of the body fluids. 

The study of tree rings is a form of forensics - a type of forensics and patterns.  Fat rings usually speak of rain and growth.  Narrow rings tell us about drought or insect attacks.  An example he gave was of a tree stump that died in 1495 which has no bark.  How do scientists know the date?  They use reference chronology from living trees that form patterns.

Grissino spoke of the Stradivarius or Messiah violin at Oxford valued at $17 - 20 million.  It has not been played since 1891 which has led to an assertion that it is a fake.  The Museum of London used wide and narrow rings to date it.  It took three men to do the analysis, but they eventually determined that, indeed, the rings on the violin were from the time of Stradivarius.

Another example he gave was that of a log cabin in Kentucky claimed to be Abe Lincoln's original home and that Abe was born there in 1809. The cabin had 56 stone steps around it as a memorial.  A Chief Historian claimed it was not an original log cabin and, after much research, it did turn out to be an elaborate hoax.  

There is an International Association of Tree Ring Specialists with over 6,000 members and an intensive network within the United States.  Grissino made three interesting points:  there is no evidence of a difference between global and human warming; trees give past information with little predictions; and trees talk by themselves.

He indicated that there are trees that provide little depth of knowledge because they are limited in age - for example, Bradford Pears. 

He suggested that Tulip Poplars should replace native trees.

In response to a question about which trees are lasting, he talked about a pine tree in California which is known to be 4,000 years old.  The oldest hardwoods in Tennessee are cypress trees located in West TN.   In East Tennessee, red cedars known to be 100 years old can be found in the Powell/Norris Dam area.

 

ORBRC's UPCOMING EVENTS
JUNE is ROTARY FELLOWSHIP MONTH
June 30	Annual Club Meeting and New Board
July 7	Jessica Murphy, Ambassadorial Scholar
July 14	District Governor
July 21	Henry Perry and the History of the Blues