UPCOMING FIXTURES
Tue, Aug 18 - Mitch Jagoe, Chico Youth Rugby
Thur, Aug 20 - Programs Committee Meeting (get your ideas to Glen Eaton)
Tue, Aug 25 - Greg Blake, CUSD Superintendent
Tue, Sept 1 - Dr. Joan Schumann, Northern California Literacy
Sept 11-13 - Almanor Weekend
Sat, Nov 14 - Surf & Turf Dinner (Club Work Day)
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→ Click here for the Master List of Upcoming Events ←
THE STARTING LINEUP
- Team in Charge: Germany Rugby Black Eagles!
- Reporter: Robb Lightfoot
- Microphones: Sima Saboury & Rick Nielsen
- Thought of the Day: Ken “Red Badge” Chase
TEAM REPORT
Kevin Ahlswede reported for the Germany Black Eagles alongside co-captains Mark Pierce and Kareem Abouzeid, and led with a confession: he vacations the first part of July every year, so the team got off to a late start.
One meeting and one scrum in, they've got shirts mostly ordered, socials on the calendar, and giving projects lined up. He also produced a pair of official Black Eagles coffee mugs as thank-yous, which the room approved of considerably more than the late start.
President Beau on the Black Eagles:
Germany's rugby side ran into the same turn-of-the-century timing as everyone else — their first match was in 1899, and by 1900 they had taken silver at the Olympics. The World Wars brought the lull that hit every European program. They now play in the European league and sit 35th in the world rankings.
VISITING SIDES
- Rex Moseley, Rotary Club of Oroville
- Rob & Pam Andrew - Norman, Oklahoma
- Shannon McGovern, Rotary Club of Stockton
IN THE GRANDSTAND
- Dean Fender, guest of Kiley Patterson
- Michael Avdeev, guest of Devin Potter
- Sean McCreary, guest of Pat Conroy
FROM THE SIDELINE
Strength Coach & Captain Phil Aviles reported that the first month of Beau's year came out of the gate with more team activity than anyone expected.
You should have already received this month's survey email — if not, check your spam folder. Be sure to fill out the survey, because the reporting is how the points get counted.
August team match-ups are shown here.
The August monthly challenge is a blood drive: three points per person who donates, plus another three points per person you recruit — spouse, family, friend, colleague — as long as you're the one driving it.
Click the QR code here
Note: the donation itself goes through Vitalant, but you have to book through the club's group so Chico Rotary gets the credit.
Use this QR Code!
Remember: Melanie “Maddog” Bassett is taking time off August 27 through September 10.
President Beau urged members to get anything you need to her before or after, so nobody has to bug her mid-vacation.
Bill Chance confirmed Almanor Weekend is still on for the 11th through the 13th and spots are filling up, though not yet full.
If you want in, see Bill, Trish Dunlap, or Kathy Chance!
PAUL HARRIS FELLOW
Les Heringer presented the club's newest Paul Harris Fellow, pausing first to credit Charlotte Hall for the job she's doing with the program.
The biography covered a lot of ground: parents who moved to Chico in 1963 with four other families to 
start the neighborhood church, Pleasant Valley High School, the U.S. Army, nearly a decade working for elected officials in Sacramento, developing apartments in S.F. and chico, and a mask manufacturing company launched in Chico during COVID.
He now serves Butte County farmers and well owners as General Manager of the 100,000-acre Tuscan Water District, and moved back to Chico in 2005 to raise his three children near family. Congratulations, Tovey Giezentanner.
Surf & Turf, November 14, Saturday, 5:00 PM at the Silver Dollar Fairgrounds — same date and structure as last year, same band, same food.
Tables have been simplified to two tiers: $1,500 for the basics and $3,000 for VIP service.
Alex DuBose and Rental Guys return as title sponsor for a second year.
Evan Markey heads up sponsorships — he has the whole package in PDF form to forward to prospects.
Jeni Moore is running the event.
And, finally…back by popular demand!
RUGBY KIT BAG
August 4 was National Chocolate Chip Cookie Day, and President Beau had a dozen cookies for the winning raffle ticket.
The winner: Kevin Moretti, which triggered an immediate migration of members toward his table.
He was wearing his pin, so the club's $40 donation went where he asked — the Chico Community Food Locker.
TRIBUTES
Royal Hawkley - our first Tribute of the day - was asked what the room didn't know about him, and he pointed to the Butte Humane Society — donations, adoption days, spay-and-neuter days. He does not keep an animal in the house, or outside it, but he thinks it's a fine thing that other people do, and that they take care of them.
Royal also shared a little about his family: The woman in yellow at the center is Royal's mother; she is 98. His late father is beside her. The two of them had two boys — Royal and his brother Reg — and the picture is what happened next: four generations, roughly 62 people, gathered at Shasta Lake for a family reunion, with a fifth generation on the books and one branch of the family that couldn't m
ake the drive.
Royal counted the crowd himself and ran out of fingers and toes.
Beau also asked whether he planned to turn the heat down anytime soon; Royal, whose classification is construction, heating, and air conditioning, said no. It's good for business. Royal was recognized with eight bells.
President Elect Dan Andreasen followed, freshly back from nine days in Barcelona with his wife and still working through the jet lag — they landed Saturday.
Rotary International holds its convention in Barcelona next year, and Beau asked whether he'd scouted it. Zero time devoted, Dan said — somebody else had the steering wheel and he was tagging along.
The knee is holding. He put in something like 12,000 steps a day in Barcelona, and the left knee that had been giving him swelling is better than it's ever been — not as fast as he and Pat Conroy would like, but better.
The homecoming was busier than the trip: they landed, slept nine hours, got breakfast, drove to Wheatland, and picked up a new female Boston Terrier.
Asked what he's proudest of, he went for the marriage — 41 years together, 37 of them married — only to be told that Tom Lando had already claimed that one. So he went further: two sons, two daughters-in-law, and four grandchildren, all of whom his wife gets to spoil and he gets to pay for. Then the one most of the room didn't know — ten years as president of Chico Jaguars youth football, in which stretch the program was voted the winningest and best-run in the North State. Dan was recognized with twelve bells.
MATCH OF THE DAY
Linda Zorn introduced Rob Bishop as a Chico State graduate coming home — Chico is where he met his wife, started his family, and started coaching. He'd arrived a 6'5" high school player with more belief than jump shot, and of all the coaches his parents drove him to see, exactly one sat down with him: Puck Smith at Chico State. He came anyway, and never left.
The numbers he's proudest of aren't wins. Every Butte team finished above a 3.0, 49 athletes posted a 4.0, and about two-thirds move on to a four-year school. His baseball team has mulched planter boxes at Rotary Centennial Park and helped build the Boys & Girls Club court. When a stem-cell donor group visited last spring, all 200 athletes raised a hand and swabbed — nobody looked around first.
Athletics, he closed, is the one area left where parents can't fix failure for their kids. "I'll hire an athlete nine times out of ten." Butte has the only football game in town, he noted — Homecoming against Modesto is Saturday, September 26, with the Hall of Fame back the night before. Beau sent him off with a donation to the Chico Community Food Locker in his name.
Photographer: Fritz Schulenburg
