April 2, 2008 – Students-of-the-month from Brandywine were Kimberly McFadden and Cody Reeves.

Kim is involved in Band, Flag Corps, Chorus, Key Club, Academic Challenge, FBLA and National Honor Society. She has worked for Camp JRA and helped raise funds for the camp and for Lupus, because “I have Lupus.” She is choosing between 5 colleges and will study math.

Cody is a wrestler. In 9th grade he went to districts, 10th and 11th to the county, and in 11th and 12th he was a states qualifier. He has raised funds for gym equipment, worked at a homeless shelter at Christmas time, and helps on the family farm, a small calf/cow operation. He plans to attend Delaware Valley studying business.

From Kutztown students-of-the-month were Mark Whitehouse and Jason Rice. Jason works on the family’s dairy farm, shows cattle, belongs to 4-H and FFA and pulls tractors. Mark is a volunteer fire-fighter with Kutztown and on June 16 will join the Marines.

Mark and Jason participated with 6 other Vo-tech students in the Construction Challenge. In the first set of challenges, they were asked to design and construct on-the-fly. They moved up to regionals. For regionals, they were given a remote-controlled car and a month and a half to soup it up to carry a load of aggregate over bridges. They came in 27th out of 50.

April 9 – Peter Keegan introduced his speaker for the evening, John Scott, an architect and a historical preservationist. Mr. Scott described his analytical study of a plaster bas-relief appearing to date from the 1890’s owned by the NYC school board. He needed to determine its value, and if it had significant value, to preserve it. He traced the origins of the plaster form to a bronze bas-relief door at the Library of Congress begun by Olin Warner and completed by Herbert Adams. The design would have originally been made of clay; then cast in plaster to show the client how it would look after the bronze casting. This plaster bas-relief was in fact painted and dusted with bronze dust to imitate the final product. Later, over the bronze dust, it was painted black, as was popular at one point.

The plaster would have been pressed into sand to form the final mold for the bronze casting. That is why it was still in (almost) one piece.

The plaster bas-relief is now preserved and hanging in the Metropolitan Museum.

April 16 – Patt McCloskey introduced Dr. Andy Vogel, professor of English at KU. He gave an erudite speech titled ‘Henry Ford, John Burroughs and the Automobility of America’. He showed that convincing Americans to invest in the infrastructure of roads was not an easy sell. It occurred through an immense public relations campaign that stretched decades and created a socio-cultural revolution.

Roads were sold as a broadening experience, ‘getting the family into “the blessing of hours of pleasure in God’s great open spaces.”’

The Automobile Club of America and AAA rallied for good roads. The ‘Good Roads Movement’ moved into the political arena with Rep. Brownlow’s highway bill to ‘promote the general welfare’ through a joint state/federal government effort. Magazine and newspaper articles covered rallies and road trips and promoted the joy of leisure travel.

Henry Ford, the great promoter of highways, managed a great coup. He enlisted Thomas Edison, Harvey Firestone and John Burroughs to ‘set off on a series of getaway drives and camping trips that, covered by the press, became events of public curiosity and national significance.’ John Burroughs, the naturalist and friend to John Muir, had been a technophobe. He was persuaded to change his mind through these trips and became, in his way, a spokesman for ‘opening access to nature’ through the automobile. He decided that the pollution of the industrial age was merely the muck out of which flowers blossom, that there would follow from this Iron Age, a Silver Age.

Now our roads are most often a means to ignore the scenery and move merely from point to point. The question now is, how much of this nature that we were seeking are we willing to destroy for our automobiles?

April 23 – Club Assembly:

• Treasurers Report – Operating balance is $19,329.00. The largest expense for the year was the Exchange Programs.
• Mini-Golf -Meet at the Tavern May 14 at 6pm to tee off. The Mini- Golf rain date has been cancelled.
• Camp Edmar Installation is scheduled for June 18.
• June 25 is Reading Phillies - See Dennis Lutz for tickets ($25.00).
• Golf Tournament is Aug. 4 at Golden Oaks. It’s not too early to start on hole sponsors since we won't have Mente this year as a large sponsor.

Announcements –

* Tom Turner has asked to be taken out of the rotation for president.

* We may be getting an Interact Club at KAHS because the Kutztown Kiwanis is folding.

* The Blue Bell club is selling micro-roast coffee online. Proceeds purchase shelter boxes. (bluebellrotary.org).

* Spring Fling, April 30 at Moselem Springs Golf Course. Buffet $35.

* Mini-golf, May 14

* Steak Fry, August 13.

* Reading Phillies, June 25.

Birthdays –

Amy Kohler-Howard – 5/28

Anniversaries –

Peg Grossman – 5/29

Programs –

May 7 - Student of the Month - L. Biehl

May 14 - Indoor mini Golf - J. Springer

May 21 – (Open as of now)

May 28 - K. Snyder

June 4 - ( Open as of now )

June 11 – Dick Wagner

Board Meetings are the First Wednesday of the Month

Kutztown Rotary Club Officers

Avenues of Service

Meetings: Seasons Grille – east end of Kutztown near 222 Bypass; Wednesdays @ 6:30 PM