Flag Salute & Invocation by Stan Dyer
Visiting Rotarians: None
Guests: Jon Vanderyacht (?), Patrick Drum (Saturna Capital), Alan Artman’s father in law, Debby K's grandson Noel, John from MB Theatre.
 
Announcements
 
Fellowship event: Jim Haupt will be having a Rotary Fellowship wine event 5:30-8pm, TODAY Wednesday April 27th. The event will be hosted by a wine buyer from Italy, will feature Italian wines and appetizers, Bellwether Hotel owner Andre Molnar will be there.
President Bill Geyer announced the recipients of our Major Capital projects funding.  The BBRC board had interviewed four final candidates, and decided on awarding two of them.  Lydia Place (Emily O’Connor and Shultzie Willows) and DVSAS (Karen Burke) were each awarded $25,000.  Both organizations will use our funds to remodel and expand housing facilities for at-need women and homeless women with children (Lydia Place).  Bill said we will also look for opportunities for provide at cost materials and in-kind contributions. The club will also work with the other two candidates (NWYS and Skookum Kids) to look for other opportunities to provide support on a volunteer or in-kind basis.
 
Business Bucket
Michael Tilley’s company, Minuteman Press, was recently recognized by the Chamber of Commerce!
 
Student of the Month:  Nick Caples introduced SOM Serena Allendorfer.  She is a great student who is active in the community.  Serena decided to attend UW next year.  She moved to Bellingham two years ago.  Her counselor Arimis Johnson thanked our club for its involvement at Squalicum, and then talked about the many accomplishments of Serena and her volunteerism.
 
Bucks in the Bay
  • Glen Groenig went to Maui recently with wife;
  • Bill Gorman missed meetings road trip to Las Vegas, auto accident that ended without injury;
  • John Templeton had good week, kudos to Windermere and its work with Lydia Place, heading to NYC next week to see daughter perform off-Broadway;
  • Andy Clay went to San Francisco attended Goldman Environmental Awards ceremony;
  • Alan Artman kudos to his father in law for getting him into Rotary many years ago in Alabama;
  • Bob Tull is on the board of a fabulous organization called Artist Trust https://www.artisttrust.org/, there will be an event this coming Friday at Firehouse if you are interested to find out more;
  • Karen Burke will be heading up to Squamish BC to see son graduate from Quest College!
  • Brent Walker back from Hawaii;
  • Debbie and (grandson) Noah Kiene, said they recently went to Grand Canyon with extended family, trip included a helicopter ride over the canyon - 37th wedding anniversary!
  • Terry Myers plug for sister Tonja’s play next week!
  • Curtis Dye saw musical Million Dollar Trio with Gio last week;
  • Eddie contributed $100 to the bucket!
  • Tresha Dutton;
  • Aaron Lemperes went to Hawaii;
  • Harte Dressler for relatively quiet tax season
  • Dannon Traxler wants to get a group to go see Tonja’s play if anyone else is interested!
  • Doug Wight recently spend some time down in the desert, bought some clubs, kudos to Lydia Place, and he just bought a storage unit from Scott Walker;
  • Steve Kimberly’s relative passed away recently at age 101;
Program
Curtis Dye introduced Andy Bunn Professor of Environmental Science.  Professor Bunn has taken several summer trip over the past few years to Northeastern Siberia tundra with WWU (and other) students, to participate in a joint research project with eight other US and Russian universities.  The research project is called the Polaris Project, and its guiding scientific theme is the transport and transformations of carbon and nutrients as they move along the Kolyma River from terrestrial uplands downstream into to the Arctic Ocean. This is a central scientific issue as scientists struggle to understand a rapidly changing Arctic. They live on a barge, and start the summer high up in the river and slowly float down the river (up) into the Arctic Sea.  The tundra in the Arctic has a huge, deep layer of carbon dirt that has been sealed up for tens of thousands of years because it is frozen.  But over the past few years the permafrost is melting quickly.
 
Mammoth-tundra ecosystem:  During last ice age N. America was mostly under ice, but from Europe across Siberian Asia tall the way to China was frozen grasslands with a dense eco-habitat including big mammals like the mammoth. Over millions of years thes created layer upon layer of carbon material (dead plants and animals becoming carbon rich soil).
The Polaris Project follows the carbon through the waterways, the river water becoming more and more cloudy yellow with dissolved carbon. 
 
Results of work: They are finding that the land and waterways are transporting this recently released “thawing tundra” carbon (from the ice age era mammoth ecosystem) is flowing out into rivers and then into Arctic Ocean and getting eaten by microorganisms and then released into atmosphere.
 
He is proud of his students and their intellectual journeys and become better human beings.
 
Respectfully submitted, 
Stowe Talbot