Program from PRVC Rotary Meeting Oct 21,2009

Ed and Kelley Rifilato of Bayfield presented our program Wednesday, October 21, 2009.

Ed is the Head Football Coach for the Fort Lewis Skyhawks. Kelley coaches the Bayfield girls volleyball team.

Ed started out in Los Angeles, went through college and became a police officer. At one time in his life, he decided helping other people would be his life mission, so he got into coaching, thinking of the life long effect that his coaches had on him. Starting out in Las Cruces, Ed worked his way up the coaching ladder, high school, to College assistant to head coach. He and Kelley met at The University of Idaho, then went to Louisville for a coaching job. Then to Fort Lewis.

Coaches are mentors, preachers, parents, and literally everything to young football players. Boys brains don’t come in till about 25 (ask the insurance companies), and guiding young athletes through these years is what a coach does. His job is to instill morals, integrity, communication skills and still get the team to win the games. A coach must be intimate with each of his players, and be thinking 4 steps ahead. Trust is the most important tool between coach and player.

Annually The Fort starts out with 100 players. Coach Rifilato has only one assistant, so recruiting the best upstanding young players is key. He can get good football out of a quality kid. Do the math: 2 coaches, 100 kids: big job!!!

Kelley is a past Olympic volleyball player. She thoroughly understands her sport. Her teams from Bayfield High School are ranked #3 in 3A in Colorado, and have already whipped the two ranked ahead of Bayfield. At tournaments, the Bayfield girls are always matched against the larger schools, to get the experience… And they win. They’ve beaten both the top ranked 5A girls teams at tourneys this year.

The bigger schools teams are always sized larger… players are all around six feet, but the smaller Bayfield girls are able to git er done!

“Pink Digs” raised over $26,000 this year to help in the war against breast cancer. Kelley was one of the organizers.

Ed and Kelley moved from Durango to Bayfield because Bayfield is a better place to live. Great to have them!

Gleefully presented by your PRVC Rotary PR Team.

Visit our web site: prvcrotary@blogspot.com. Bye now.

October 14 Program & Newsletter

Thanks to Rotarian Dean Hill, our new District 10 JTR (Bayfield) School District Superintendent.
An interesting subject: flu, and especially swine flu.

Statistics are now being kept to monitor different infections going through the schools. This is a new concept, tracking fever illnesses versus non-fever stay at home illnesses, where and when they happen, and looking for patterns. The object is to be able to monitor and control infections. In the future the District will have a better handle on student down time.

H1N1 flu is improperly called the "swine flu." It is a stay at home flu, that makes a person hard sick for a week, then two weeks feeling weak. Vaccines are being distributed right now. Health providers get shot first, then pregnancies, then at risk kids, then school children. Then the rest of us. The first shots are thymerasol nasal inhalers (limited to ages 4 thru 49). When those run out it's in the arm baby. The vaccine will be free to schools. The rest of us get to pay, probably about $30.

Other flu strains are still out there lurking, so get the regular flu shot also.

Dialogue is the best way to get the word out to avoid panic. Of course it's ok to keep your kid out of school and let him go to the mall(joke). Catch whatever it is at the mall and bring it home. Civil discourse is the way to pass on knowledge about H1N1. This is being done, and our help is appreciated.

Interesting note: Europeans are not alarmed at all… H1N1 seems to affect kids most, and the Europeans care more about the impact on adults.

Other news: due to Don's past conservative money management, the District is in good financial shape. The future looks cloudy due to future economic strains. The District is focusing on non productive expenses now like habitual annual field trips with no learning involved. And the 4 day school week doesn't seem to work (Cortez experiment). Seems mostly because parents then also have to take the day off to shepherd their kids… Which dominoes to parents taking kids to private 5 day schools, with the schools losing tax revenue by losing census.

Dean is from an old time La Plata County family, from about the 1860s. His grand parents started and owned Elmore's Store. Dean was raised as a dairyman.

First Newsletter:

This weekly dissertation is to become a newsletter/bulletin. We'll start with the first step, and stumble along hopefully one foot in front of the other. One step will include developing a format and a template into which we can insert articles, photos, etc. Isn't it exciting starting something absolutely from scratch. Wheeeeee. Of course we're going to screw up, and of course we will improve. It'll be a good ride, I promise.

This week, we'd like you to help us have a name: some that may not work are "The Bladder," "The Fishwrap," "The Round file," and others you can dredge up to get your imagination raging. One I like is "The Meridian Effect." Which is whatever it is that makes tornadoes, hurricanes, toilet bowls and T-posts spin counter-clockwise North of the Equator (next time you drive in a T-post note that during the first two or three whacks the darn thing tries to spin counter-clockwise). Why I like the name: It is rotational; think Rotary. Get it?! And it's International. It's everywhere. You'll think of us every time you see something spin. You'll probably start stirring your coffee to match the meridian effect. And lastly does the sugar stir in quicker with or against the meridian effect?????

Article:

Thanks Carole McWilliams!!! Great article on our Polio Awareness Day, October 24. President Katie has been setting out donation jars all over the valley. Thanks Katie. And remember we'll be ringing bells Saturday the 24th. Ring out Polio!!!

Another Article:

Our web page: prvcrotary.blogspot.com now has a page entitled : "Scrapbook." Katie will be training Carole and Ottie on putting files into/onto the scrapbook just like a regular scrapbook like we're all used to. My first will be pictures from our first Christmas gift exchange. Remember Roy in that hat: "if I'm under this hat it must be a Christmas party that I'm at." What a hoot!

Another Article:

We encourage articles from our members!!! They have to be less offensive than my articles. Try to avoid politics and religion. Humor is encouraged. Everything goes: happiest things, show and tell, family bragging, visions, future plans. anything. Why not??? We're Rotary, and we are interested. And we are interesting.
Gleefully brought to you by your PR Committee. Yippee!