Harpoon Notes for December 13, 2017 By Ed Hoffman A soothing musical prelude wafted through the Anderson Room as members and guests amiably discussed the current news, politics, our speaker’s topic, or nothing in particular. One thing was certain, though: everybody was happy in such company. Jody Tull deSalis came forward for the Inspiration. “There’s […]

Christie Bacon grew up in Ann Arbor (Go Blue! Go Rats!), then moved to Chicago to begin her professional career, where she earned an MS in Public Service Management from DePaul University. She lived in Chicago for ten years, working for several organizations, including Business Partners: The Chamber for Uptown and the American Bar Association. […]

BOB MULL The United Way of Washtenaw County selected Bob as its 2017 Volunteer of the Year. Bob started helping people with taxes in 2010 and first organized a tax clinic at United Way in 2012. Since then, he has been an integral part of United Way of Washtenaw County’s VITA (Volunteer Income Tax Assistance) […]

As part of his recent visit to the Honolulu club, Ian Bund was given a handout with the eight principles of the Rotary Code of Conduct. Even though it is printed in each Rotarian magazine along with the Four-way Test, our Motto and the Object of Rotary, he thought it was worth repeating here: As […]

Nine hardy Rotarians and guests braved the blizzard to meet at The Session Room on Jackson Road, Ann Arbor, on the afternoon of December 13, 2017. As shown in the picture, attending were (from left) Joan Knoertzer, Karen Driggs, Fernando Ortiz (guest at noon meeting of Dallas Dort), Ruthie Ackenhusen, Steve Pierce, John Ackenhusen, Annie […]

by Peter Brown Ken Wilson kind of fell into his business by doing something he enjoyed and was good at. Ken was working at a cell-phone company in his hometown of Youngstown when he started doing drawings for employees’ birthday cards. Then his boss asked him to put together a map of the company’s coverage […]

By Ashish Sarkar Recently, you heard Endowment Chair, Norm Herbert, tell us how your generous donations to our club’s endowment help us make a difference in lives of people here locally and around the world. Now, I’d like to explain how our club takes some of those funds and leverages them with the help of […]

After our peace conference in February 2017, Bev Sieford challenged us: What Will YOU Do for Peace? Taking up that challenge, the Rotary Club of Ann Arbor joined the Rotary Club of West Bloomfield, to honor Holocaust Survivor Martin Lowenberg, with our Distinguished Service Award. Martin has traveled all over the state of Michigan, the […]

Tom Strode opened the proceedings with a lovely piano prelude, followed by the “The Star-Spangled Banner.” A packed Anderson Room rose swiftly to belt out a particularly fine rendition of our national anthem. Inspiration Ruthie Ackenhusen came to the podium and delivered an emotional recital of the poem, “Just a Common Soldier,” A. Lawrence Vaincourt’s […]

Past President Collyer Smith writes: 2016-2017 was another banner year for the Rotary Club of Ann Arbor in serving our community- whether our community is here in Ann Arbor, or elsewhere, like El Salvador, or Sierre Leonne. We allocated over $245,000 for scholarships, community grants, international projects and celebrated our 100th anniversary with the opening […]