This meeting was called to order at 12 Noon by President Patrick. He led the members in the Pledge of Allegiance & the 4-way test. A moment of silence and reflection followed.
Visiting Rotarians: Lt. Gov. Tony Piño
Guests: Richard Ambrose, guest of John
April is– “Magazine Month”.
There were two pin or name tag fines inflicted today.
Announcements/Sad-Happy-Brag Bucks:
Pat Diem tried to make our meeting today. However, she had a flat tire.
Maggie has survived 49 years of marriage (To the same guy!).
Tony’s Club reports that, their Governors’ ball netted around $140K this year. Hopefully, in the future additional Clubs will be invited to participate & share in the proceeds.
Pam’s happy that her allergies are getting better.
Judy’s happy for Libby’s assistance while away. The doggie survived.
Our Trivia Quiz for the day from our Sgt-at-Arms Mollie:
In 1952, who was proposed as the new (and second) president of Israel?
Before the election, Albert Einstein was spoken to by Abba Eban about the possibility of becoming President. He declined, explaining, "I have neither the natural ability nor the experience to deal with human beings."[1]
Club, District & R.I. News and Business:
So, where and when should we hold our year end party for the induction of our new board of directors? Suggestions are welcome!
Dave has finished up with our participation in the District 5520 Cruise raffle. The funds go to Judy and will be forwarded to R.I. and the ticket stubs are on their way to the District Conference in El Paso.
The Polio Plus bucket made its weekly trip around the room.
During the next Rotary Year, Allan will be taking over from Emily. He announced that a group of asylum seekers will be on their way through Albuquerque and will be stopping at St. Michael’s all angels church. They’re scheduled during May 5th through 8th. A signup sheet was passed around for club volunteers to help out at that location.
RYLA scholarship applications deadline(from our Club to District): 1 May, 2019. Gail is our club’s RYLA contact person. HS juniors are eligible to apply. Boys’ camp 14 to 20 July. Girls’ 20 to 26 July.
There’ll be an RFE group visiting us from Fredericksburg, Texas, with arrival on 15 July and departure on 19 July. The District needs host families for either couples or singles. If you’re interested, let Donna know at pedaceabq@aol.com or 349-8850, or Regina Guest at raeguest65@swcp.com or 792-0942. Once we have volunteer hosts, there’ll be a meeting to discuss and plan the visit. Hosts are responsible for a private bedroom, hopefully a private bath, breakfast each morning, transportation by either themselves or another club member, and possibly some other costs for a few meals and sightseeing. Meal and sightseeing costs will be determined by the hosting group.
Club members provide program speakers for our meetings. Here’s a list for each remaining month of the 2018-2019 Rotary Year: May-Fofo June-Maggie
There’s only one member birthday to celebrate during May: Fofo
Monthly B.D. “Treats” shall be provided by: May-Mollie June-Cheryl
Today’s Program: Paula Paul
Allan introduced author Paula Paul.
Paula Paul was born Paula Griffith on her grandparents’ cotton farm near Shallowater, Texas, in Lubbock County.
Paul, longtime Albuquerque resident, former newspaper reporter and prolific writer of fiction, was born, raised, shaped and fitted out for her future calling in West Texas. In about 35 novels, she has taken readers around the world, from Santa Fe and Albuquerque to Charlottesville, Va., from the eighth-century Europe of Charlemagne to the 18th-century Russia of Catherine the Great, from the Yucatan to frontier Colorado, from 14th-century Italy to Victorian England. She has written gothics, children’s books, young adult novels, historical fiction, cozy mysteries and literary novels, under her own name and pseudonyms such as Catherine Monroe and Paula Carter.
Her most recent book, “The Mind of a Deviant Woman,” published this past summer, is a fictional account of the disturbingly real eugenics movement, which, supported by a 1927 U.S. Supreme Court decision, called for the sterilization of “undesirable” women such as epileptics, prostitutes, criminals or unwed mothers. She got the idea from a book about famous American court cases.
“The themes and plots vary in each book,” she said. “But they all have a sense of place, purpose and personality.”
Sometimes, Paul actually sets her fiction – such as the novels “Crazy Quilt” (2005) and “Inherited Sins” (2008) – in West Texas. When that happens, her writing makes it seem as if she never left. Take, for example, the following sentence from her short story “Divine Intervention,” which appeared in the 2002 anthology “Hot Biscuits.”
“The wind had given up all its moisture swooping across the Sonoran Desert on its way to the panhandle of Texas where it had come for its mission of drying out the grass and the skin of the women and of turning the blades of the windmill on the Chapman ranch.”
She got her start as a writer working for the Morton Tribune, a weekly newspaper, during the summers between her student years at Eastern New Mexico University in Portales. She also worked for a year and a half at the Portales News Tribune, doing everything from reading copy and reporting to taking photographs and writing editorials.
She earned a journalism degree at ENMU and met Kenneth Paul there. After marrying, they settled in Albuquerque in 1961. Kenneth worked 40 years as a computer analyst at Sandia National Laboratories, and Paula worked as a reporter at The Albuquerque Tribune from 1961 to 1963 and again from 1981 to 1987.
“My plan was always that I was going to work for a newspaper and then I was going to quit and write books,” she said.
Her first attempt at fiction was a young adult novel that was never published. “It was horrible,” she said.
In the 1970s, she clicked with “Inn of the Clowns” and “The Wail of La Llorona,” gothic suspense novels, both of which are set in New Mexico and were published by Avalon.
Since then she has been published by Random House, HarperCollins and Dutton, among others.
Her most successful books have been the five Dr. Alexandra Gladstone novels published by Berkley Books between 2002 and 2016.
Like many of the protagonists in Paul’s fiction, Alexandra Gladstone is a woman of keen intelligence and die-hard persistence who overcomes extreme obstacles to achieve her goals. In Gladstone’s case the goal is practicing medicine in Victorian England, something almost unheard of for women at the time.
The Gladstone books are mysteries in which Alexandra gets involved in and solves murders. In 2015’s “Medium Dead,” Queen Victoria herself is a suspect in a killing. Paul enjoyed writing the series and said she may send Alexandra off into new adventures in the future.
But “When It Rains,” a novel that is with her agent now, is about racial tensions in 1950s West Texas. Paul grew up in the segregation-era and has vivid and unsettling memories of that time. To some degree, the novel is an attempt to deal with that.
“It just feels like there is some unfinished business,” she said. “I was so much in the middle of it.”
Paul is the mother of a son and a daughter and the grandmother of six. She is pleased with a writing career that has brought her recognition from the likes of the Texas Library Association and New Mexico Press Women. But she is not yet satisfied.
Paul is already thinking about the next novel she intends to write. “It’s in the embryonic stages,” she said. “It’ll be based on a boarding house in Anton, Texas, which was run by my mother’s grandparents in the early 1920s, mostly for railroad employees.”
In appreciation of today’s program, President Patrick presented Ms. Paul with a packet of Fofo’s lemonade mix, in support of Fofo’s Haiti projects.
There being no additional Rotary business, our meeting concluded at 1:00 PM.
Programs, Happenings and Stuff & Such:
2-5 May District Conference- El Paso, TX
3-4 May The New Mexico Mission Of Mercy (dental) takes place in Las Cruces this year
5 May Ramadan begins at sundown
5-8 May We work at St. Michaels All Angels Church.
7 May Board Meeting at 10:30 AM
7 May Regular Meeting- Markus Gottschlich, Executive Director at the NM Jazz Workshop
12 May Mother’s Day
14 May Regular Meeting- Tracey Whitney, president of the Musicians’ Association of Albuquerque.
21 May Regular Meeting- Rev. Christopher Eyrich is an ordained Anglican pastor. Director of Chaplains and Volunteers for the Lovelace Medical Center.
24 May We work at the Silver Horizons warehouse- 9A to Noon.
27 May Memorial Day
28 May Regular Meeting- Dress for Success Power Walk
4 June Board Meeting at 10:30 AM
4 June Regular Meeting-
11 June King Kamehameha Day
11 June Regular Meeting-
16 June Father’s Day
18 June Regular Meeting-
25 June Regular Meeting-
28 June CCI’s Canines Golf Classic
Thanks to our members for assisting in setting up & striking Club equipment used to run our meeting.