Stories

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Karen Patterson, the Librarian has the book fair set up in her library where each student in the school comes through the fair and picks out a book to take home as their very own. Our Rotary Club volunteers attend the book fair from 9:00 am – 2:00 pm each day and have short conversations with each student about reading and why they picked out that particular book. 

 

 

 

Peter Scott introduced speaker, Veronica Rodriguez and noted that after all these years she is the first Webb Elementary graduate to ever join Rotary! Her list of accomplishments is amazing!

 

Thank you Social Chair Diane Patrick for organizing this awesome evening, and thank you Tony Rutigliano for allowing us to take over your beautiful facility. Great wine, food and service all evening!

 

 

Veronica was a sixth grader at Webb Elementary in 1999 and graduated from Bowie High School in 2005. With the assistance of the $750 scholarship, she went on to attend college at Brookhaven Community College in Dallas and two years later she attended the University of Texas at Dallas (UTD) and earned a Bachelor of Science degree in International Political Economy.

 

 

Kurt Bartley introduced our speaker for the day, Mayor Jeff Williams. Williams complimented our club on our services and spoke about the recent energy outages and ERCOT. He showed us the storm recovery website: arlingtontx.gov/ stormrecovery.org. Here, one can learn about where to go to receive help with food, shelter, storage, insurance questions, and help with pipe damage. Williams mentioned that we didn’t open stadiums for warming centers because there was no guarantee that those places wouldn’t have a power outage. He was thankful to all those city workers who helped deliver water to hospitals and other rescue services, plus the workers at vaccination centers. City workers also helped apartment complexes with out-of-state owners deal with water/pipe problems. He was also thankful to our community for keeping us all informed about the state of our water, and the number for help is 817-459-6777.

 

 

 

Centennial Committee members Susie (Club President), Val (committee chair), Victoria (our president nominee), Hal Thurow (historian) and Kurt (our president elect) met recently to review some great club historical facts. The photo below shows our original Rotary International Charter. Also, shown in the photo above are Victoria and Hal are holding two bound volumes of our weekly newsletters that date back to 1947. We will be celebrating a rich history of community service in 2023.

 

 

 

 

Staring this Friday, volunteers from club pack food bags and load food into cars from 8:00-11:30. The 4th Friday of each month will be a Arlington Charities Community Service activity for at least the next few months according to Club President Susie McAlister.

 

 

 

The noon meeting will be highlighted by a challenge to raise funds to End Polio Now. If you are not a member, but would like to participate in this wonderful virtual meeting, contact Peter Smith or Randy Hendricks for access credentials.

 

Emmett truly believes and lives his company motto of “Everyone deserves a beautiful home”. A third generation painter, Emmett knew that this is what he wanted to be doing.

 

Emmett is married to Audra Rodriguez, a Human Resources professional. They have been married for 9-years and are raising a nephew, Zachariah, and two fur babies Benjamin and Francisco.