Bulletin #7
February 18, 2026

 
 
Club President Ron Auxier
 
The Rotary Club of Saint Joseph met this week at the beautiful Albrecht Kemper Museum of Art.

There was a nice crowd of 30 in attendance today, including guest of Matt Porter, Micah Carter, who works at American Family Don Tolly agency, and has submitted his application for membership to the club. 

Our speaker, Jason Riley, was present as well. 

The lunch spread this week was garden salad with ranch dressing cups, rolls with butter packets available (2 weeks in a row- can we make it 3?), baked potato bar (no nacho cheese, but there was thankfully shredded cheese and sour cream), chicken breasts, and green beans. A solid Spanky & Buckwheat's fare all the way around. 


Tickets have been distributed, along with sponsorship forms and lunch order forms, for the Spaghetti Dinner.

Oakley said that the deadline for lunch orders and sponsorships with logos is March 2, so that we can order the supplies in time and print placemats.

Please also get sponsorship forms with logos and payments turned in as soon as possible.  If you need more tickets, please first turn your money in and then ask Oakley for more.

The dinner tickets are $15 for all you can eat spaghetti, breadsticks, salad, and delicious desserts. Kids are $7, 5 and under are free. Carry-out lunches are $8 each and include a meatball sub, chips, and cookie.

Customers and businesses can purchase tickets for lunch, dinner, and sponsorships online at https://rotary-club-of-st-joseph-east.square.site/
 
 
Black Bowls donations for this quarter (1/1/26 through 3/31/26) go to the Care Portal. which connects churches with people in need to make a difference. Contributions to Black Bowls may be made at meetings with cash or check, or online at our club's Square site. 

Meals on Wheels delivery assignments for 2/19 are Faith Parker with Heather Weddle and Sarah Meierhoffer (solo). 

2/26 will be Josh Middendorf with Bill McCammon and Dana Matt (solo). 

Club's website is: www.stjosepheastsiderotary.org and we are working on a post-merger refresh. Also working on the Facebook page.  
 
Upcoming Key Rotary Dates:
 
  • February 19:  Rotary club fun committee social at the Bunker Club in Savannah (on the square) from 4:30 p.m. to ____? They have indoor golf and a bar. This should be fun.
     
  • February 21:  Work day for the Life Unlimited garden beds district grant project at Spaeth Construction (2021 St. Joseph Avenue)... bring work gloves, all tools provided... Amy assures us that the shop is heated... Bill says that even if you can't make it when we start at 9:30 a.m., come when you can and stay for however long you can, whether an hour or the entire time. Amy Spaeth says to park anywhere you can and enter in the back off of the alley. 
     
  • February 25:  Regular club meeting at the AKMA... speaker is Rotarian Natalie Newville of the St. Joseph Catholic Academy
     
  • March 4:  Regular club meeting at the AKMA... program is the Interact Club from St. Joseph Christian School's 4 Way Test Speech contest 
     
  • Friday, March 6:  43rd Annual Spaghetti Dinner fundraiser at Ashland United Methodist Church- carry out lunches and dine-in or carry out dinners 
     
  • Saturday, March 7:  Sleep in Heavenly Peace lumber cutting and staining work day at MWSU at 9 a.m. 
     
  • March 11:  Regular club meeting at the AKMA... speaker is Past Rotary International Director Elizabeth Usovicz, presenting on the Rotary Peace Fellows program
     
  • March 18:  Regular club meeting at the AKMA... speaker is Tonya Ball presenting about the Care Portal
     
  • March 25:  Regular club meeting at the AKMA... Rotary Blend candle orders and money are due by 3/25 
     
  • Friday, 4/24 and Saturday, 4/25:  District Conference at the Rotary Youth Camp (Shoes for Orphan Souls Roll Call on 4/25)
     
  • Wednesday, 5/6:  Rotary scholarship luncheon for our 5 high school scholarship recipients at Noon at the AKMA
 
District 6040 recently published out 2024-2025 Rotary Foundation Annual Report. Our club utilized 4 different district grants last year! It's worth a read to see what else other clubs did, and the international service that was made possible through the Global Grants (link was broken last week, apologies):

https://rotary6040.org/Stories/2024-2025-district-foundation-report.

 
 
 

Sergeant Ryan Jones collected Happy Bucks today:

  • Ryan Jones was happy about the weather
     
  • Louie DeLeon was happy to be back from the South
     
  • Amy Spaeth had a great trip to Mexico but isn't sure she is happy to be back
     
  • Matt Porter had a great and injury-free ski trip to Breckinridge 
     
  • Kirby Brooner was happy that Ryan was Sergeant today
     
  • Susan Campbell endorsed Amy Spaeth's Mexico trip comments   
     
  • Patricia Williams had a fun trip to Shreveport, LA with family and friends 
     
  • Josh Middendorf and his wife Shannen had a fun date scheme for Valentine's Day; Shannen picked the KC Symphony and Josh selected a Knights of Columbus mouse race- both were fun and mostly classy 
     
  • Jason Riley was happy for the invite to our club today 

Rotarian Janice Keith presented today's member spotlight.

photo

Janice was born in Putnam County (as was Past Rotary International President Ray Klinginsmith), but she moved to St. Joseph around the age of 5. 

A graduate of Lafayette High Schooo, Janice left for New York to be a flight attendant for TWA for 13 years. She later moved back to St. Joseph and served as the Director of Sales for the downtown Holiday Inn (when it was actually nice) for 16 years.

She and her life partner Scott have been together for 16 years, and they have 3 dogs- no children- and 2 nieces. 

Janice currently serves as the Silver and Gold Coordinator for Meierhoffer (the "new Jane Graves"). 

Today's program was presented by Jason Riley, the owner of the St. Joseph Arts Academy.

May be an image of guitar

It's funny how just about everyone in the room had a connection to TWA. Pat Auxier served as a flight attendant in the early years of she and Ron's marriage, and the planes even trained at Rosecrans because the downtown airport's runway was too short. 

To the point, our speaker this week, Jason Riley, once actually had a rock 'n roll tour bus that used to be a Savannah Presbyterian Church bus that was outfitted with TWA seats and that used to transport workers from Savannah to KCI to their jobs with TWA. 

Jason was born in Tarkio and growing up considered a trip to St Joseph to be a trip to "the big city". He attended MWSU. His lifelong dream was to be a professional guitar player, which he now is. 

The St. Joseph Arts Academy provides classes and lessons to over 250 music students and has 20 staff. Jason also serves as a guitar instructor at Benedictine College. 

Music is great for early learning whole-brain development, and Jason is passionate about bringing music education to our community. 

To learn more about the arts academy, please visit https://stjosephartsacademy.com/. 
 
Shoes Cheerleader Amy Spaeth runs a tight ship, and reports that we have 968 shoes so far in the warehouse. She does not count "reported" numbers, just actual ones. So we will have to wait until next time to see if we've actually crossed the threshold of 1,000 pairs. 

Our goal is to exceed 2,000 pairs this year. To that end, we have a special Rotary Blend Candle Fundraiser available for anyone who would like to participate. Members have through 3/25 to turn in their candle orders to Erik. Depending on volume, all candles should be ready by early April. 

To purchase candles or reed diffusers, members may use the order forms or visit our online store here at to order online. 

Members who want to donate to the club to purchase shoes may also do so, or simply bring a few pairs of shoes each week as you are able.