June 22, 2007

Asheboro Rotary Lite: No Music and Half the Members! I’m not sure where everyone was (the Summer Solstice was yesterday, so maybe they’re all at the Beach?) but the crowd was pretty thin at Asheboro Rotary today. I’m told by the Powers That Be that our average attendance lately has been 60% or less– which is not that great. Are you all making up at the Wednesday club?

At the Scribe Table, in lieu of music, the talk was about motion pictures. It started off as a critique of Foster Hughes’ selections at the Sunset Theater film series. Then Phil Shore began talking about What He Would Have Chosen (as Phil’s favorite is Bob Hope’s deathless classic Paleface, I for one am OK with Foster continuing to choose); and the conversation shifted to the American Film Institute’s “100 Best” list, just revised on CBS last Wednesday on its 10th anniversary. Citizen Kane is still #1, and Paleface is nowhere to be found. But there are some significant changes, particularly in the rankings. To Kill A Mockingbird moved up; Gone With the Wind moved down; and newcomers like Lord of the Rings found a spot. To see the new list, and compare it to the old one, check out http://www.afi.com/tvevents/100years/movies.aspx or to compare the old list and the new list, see the Wikipedia entry http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AFI%27s_100_Years…_100_Movies_%2810th_Anniversary_Edition%29 .

After Prithi’s gong started the meeting, Owen George led the 4WT, Prithi the Pledge, and Phil Shore chanted the Prayer (Cantor Shore? Who knew? Oi!) . It’s almost the end of the year, so we’re breaking in some new help at the back table. Neal Griffin and Rebecca Redding were keeping track of people, and a wounded Talmadge Baker was minding the money. Rebecca introduced the visitors: Rachel Hayes, guest of Elizabeth Cox; Robin Breedlove, publisher of Liberty’s News, with Owen; and from the Randolph Club, Archie Odell and Susan Milner.

Next Week is Prithi’s Last Responsibility (Past-Presidents everywhere know your relief, Dr. Hanspal!), and we’ll swear in some new officers. On June 28th there will be a Family of Rotary Picnic at Guilford College, after which they’ll enjoy an Eastern Music Festival concert. Details are found on the district website.

Vegetarian Times: Water is the most valuable resource on earth, and much more water is required to bring animals to market than agriculture. One pound of wheat requires 60 pounds of water, while 1 pound of meat requires 5-6,000 pounds of water. Run-off waste from feed lots is a primary source of water pollution; and one large chicken processing plant uses as much water per day as the entire City of Asheboro.

Owen George, the chairman of the Environment Committee, actually brought us two programs today.

First he introduced Lily Kuo, our Ambassadorial Scholar leaving for Taiwan next Thursday. Lily was the beneficiary of the $26,000 scholarship donated to District 7690 by District 3460 after Owen’s Group Study Exchange trip last year. Lily is part of a Chinese-American family but she is the only member of her family who was actually born in the USA. Her two brothers and parents run a furniture manufacturing business, and she just graduated from UNC-CH; she wanted a scholarship to study English Romantic Poets in the Lake District, but now is glad that fate directed her into this trip to her ancestral homeland. She’ll reside in Taichung for a year and attend Tung Hai University, the best in the region. Lily spoke about the difficulty of saying goodbye and the uncertainty of the future (something Your Scribe certainly has done a lot of thinking about this week since putting Roman on the plane for Russia), and we’ll look forward to keeping up with her on her Blog.

Owen then introduced Kim Markham, Owner of Asheboro Recycling Center, and the man responsible for the City of Asheboro’s new curbside recycling program.

After 14 years with Energizer, Kim purchased Asheboro Recycling in 2002 from Tim Schwarz, and since then has expanded the business considerably.  In 2002 he recycled 1.2 million pounds of metal, worth about $650,000 in sales, and employed 3 people.  In 2006 he recycled 7.1 million pounds of metal, cardboard and plastic, had sales of $3.4 million, and employed 20 people.   That included 1.6 million pounds of cardboard, the equivalent of 13, 812 trees; and 411,000 pounds of aluminum , representing 13 million beverage cans (Mike Miller said he was certain, knowing Asheboro so well, that they were ALL soda cans.  For sure.)

Kim aims to have Asheboro’s curbside recycling program going by September 1st.  To handle the volume of material, he has built a new 33,000 square foot facility in south Asheboro,  which is a type of “MuRF”- a Materials Recovery Facility.  Asheboro residents will be required to separate trash from the recycling, so this will be different from the High Point program which several years ago started with a “Dirty MuRF”- a facility where workers had to sort the recyclables from the garbage.  Kim designed the facility and purchased used equipment based on the City’s 2005 garbage collection statistics.  He estimates that he’ll recycle 8% of that 2005 total- if it gets up to 20%, he’ll need more equipment.

The city will provide households and businesses with a new 90 gallon recycling container, and one of the two pick up days each week will become Recycling Pick-Up Day.  As part of the regular garbage program city workers will bring the material to the “Clean MuRF” and Kim’s workers will sort through the single stream of commingled material- paper, plastic, glass, wood, fiber, whatever- separating and classifying it.  Kim expects to add 10-12 part-time employees to do this work.

Kim estimates that newspaper will be 60% of the material recovered at first.  He will continue to buy aluminum cans (but he’ll happily pull them out of the recycle bins) since 1-12 ounce can is worth 1.5 cents in scrap value.  32 make a pound, so he pays 52 cents per pound for aluminum cans.  Plastic bottles are harder- he’ll take plastic containers where the mouth is smaller than the body- butter tubs and tupperware are unwanted guests which can contaminate the higher grade plastic (Kim and Mary Joan Pugh exchanged knowing shakes of the head over the HDP vs. LDPE plastic controversy– it was over the heads of the rest of us!)  He also doesn’t want antifreeze jugs or paint cans- take the to GARCO!  He doesn’t want plastic grocery bags, but he won’t trash them.  They’re hard to recycle, and it takes a bunch to make one bale (Your Scribe has a least a bale stuff in a cabinet- as far as I can tell, no grocery store or Walmart accepts them back any more.  They are an environmental nightmare:  they don’t even ask ‘paper or plastic?’ anymore, but we need to demand paper bags!)  TV, computer and electronic equipment he accepts at ARC now, but he’ll be creating a separate corporation for that soon.  He charges $6-7 to recycle a TV or VDT; CPUs he takes for free, given the gold, silver and copper in the circuit boards.

July 19th is the Grand Opening of the new ARC MuRF.  Visitors are welcome all day (AVS will be catering hot dogs for lunch, and Snider Farms will be catering dinner).  The Chamber of Commerce will host a Business After Hours there in the evening, which will kick off the Chamber’s 2007-8 membership campaign.  Everyone is invited to attend and tour the new facility.

Watch This Space

for some Words of Wisdom from Tar Wheel Editor-in-Chief Cooper Thornton, who attended the meeting on June 16, 2007, and will be favoring us with a report.  Mac was in Morehead City at the time, giving Roman one last taste of the beach.  He’s home in Russia now, and his mother doesn’t mind the sunburn.

June 8, 2007

It was graduation day in Asheboro, so many of the club were sweltering on the football field in the 90+ degree heat, while the rest of us ate chicken in the AC at AVS. At the Scribe Table Richard Garkalns and Phil Shore argued over movie song trivia (Phil has a shocking depth of knowledge, there), and Steve Cofer and Owen George discussed the state of Chinese skyscraper architecture.  

Foster Hughes led the Four Way Test; Prithi the Pledge, Everett Thomas the Prayer. H.R. Gallimore welcomed Miss Nikki, god-daughter of Elizabeth Mitchell; Jeannine Thompson, of Bakersfield, CA and soon to be permanently Asheboro; Sheriff Maynard Reid, of the Randolph Club; and Roman Bogdanov, once and future resident of Orenburg, Russia. H.R. congratulated Roman on graduating from Eastern Randolph High School last night (Thursday June 7^th)  and had his diploma along to prove it. Roman will be returning to Russia on Tuesday morning, June 19^th, and yes, Your Scribe has been told by virtually everyone that he can look forward to some Empty Nest Angst soon thereafter. [It has been an honor and a privilege to be entrusted with such a wonderful boy for the past 10 months, and I’ve learned lots about being a parent. I wish it could continue, but Uncle Sam wants him to leave, and his mother Tatyana wants him back!]  

The inaugural meeting of H.R. and his committee chairs will take place next Wednesday night at ReMax. Next week’s program is the responsibility of Gale Thomas and the Food Committee. Volunteers are needed to drive Elizabeth Cox home after the meetings. Prithi has received our Gold Club Medallion which will soon go up on our banner. Carole Gilliam, he announced, donated her corneas for implantation in two patients who now have the gift of sight, thanks to her. And Prithi read a note from Rose Patterson, thanking the club for the wreath sent in honor of Hassell.

Vegetarian Times: Only 3 weeks left, Prithi announced to general acclaim. There are ethical reasons to be vegetarian, he says. Other creatures have feelings just like ours. Many people refuse to eat meat out of empathy, in a desire to save other fellow creatures from suffering.

Foster Hughes introduced Copperhead Head Honchos Aaron Pugh and William Davison for our program. Thanks to Pugh Lubricants for picking up the paychecks for these guys and letting them manage a baseball team, to boot! Aaron announced that for the first time since the beginning of the Copperheads, there are no Pughs actually playing on the team (they’ve all aged out). But they’ve recruited players from all over- 18 different schools, 13 different states from coast to coast. (We already met Jonathan last week, the Duke player who lives with Jaci Betts. William says he must have scared all the other ACC prospects away.) Six more players from 3 more states will arrive next week. There are 10 freshmen, 8 sophomores and 8 juniors on the team- making it one of the oldest teams ever (seniors aren’t eligible, and most juniors are tired of playing and want to take a break in the summer).

Dusty Blake is the head coach. A native of Troy, Dusty is 26, graduated from ASU and is currently the pitching coach at Catawba College. Jonathan Reeder, a recent ASU grad, is his assistant. The team’s best MLB prospects are Chris Taylor of UNC-C, a good hitter; and Cody Vincent, of St. Bonaventure, a pitcher. Players must have at least a 2.3 GPA, be in good academic standing, play on their school’s baseball team, and have at least 1 year of college eligibility remaining.

William’s job is to work with sponsors to develop attendance. Chamber Night is Wednesday June 14^th: George Gusler says this will be the bigger than the 4^th of July (when the City’s fireworks show draws a big crowd). Harley Davidson night is June 22; Little League night is July 24, when players in uniform get in free. The most elaborate promotion is set for Father’s Day, June 17^th, when the Copperheads play the Military All-Star Team. The Black Daggers jump team will start the game by parachuting into the stadium (they got rained out last summer when they were scheduled).

Though the team’s big loss last night might not predict much for the post-season, the Tournament this year is set for Florence, SC, and the All-Star Game will be in Columbia. William thanked all the host families for the team, as well as the volunteers who staff the games- they couldn’t do without them!

June 1, 2007

Ben Morgan led the Four Way Test; Prithi led the Pledge, and Everett Thomas led the Prayer.

H.R. Gallimore welcomed guests Janine Thomas, visiting once again from the Bakersfield, CA, club (she’s set to soon be more Asheboro than Bakersfield); Jonathan Forman, with Jaci Betts; Roman Bogdanov, finished with Eastern Randolph and admiring the Rotary buffet with Your Scribe; and visiting Randolph Rotarians Susan Milner, Tom Pugh and Vickie Gallimore.

With no student guests, Jaci introduced Jonathan, who is living with her this summer as a Copperhead host family. Jonathan is from Lafayette, LA., and attends Duke University. He’s the only Copperhead this year from any ACC school.

H.R. thanked Everett Padgett and a host of district governors, past, present and future, for creating his crash course (5 hours) in PETS (Presidential Effectiveness Training Seminar). Pat Kilpatrick announced that he’d be giving away free potted Cleome plants to good homes after the meeting (they disappeared quickly).

Vegetarian Times: World animal farms generate 18% more greenhouse gases than all transport systems combined. Increasing animal pastures along the equator are a source of deforestation and loss of the rain forest ecosystem. One ton of paper, recycled, saves 17 trees and 7,000 gallons of water. 28 billion gallons of water are used just to make the paper wasted in junk mail. Prithi says: Save the Environment- Become a Vegetarian!!

Ben Morgan and the Fellowship Committee were responsible for the program. He asked questions of the Club to see how well we know our fellow members. Who is the oldest regular member? (Dan Thomas or Barron Mills- toss up). Who is the newest member ? (Tom Hansen). How many Rotary clubs are there in North Carolina? (more than 250) Who is the District Governor (Mitzi Ellis) Who is the District Governor Elect (David McCoy, I think—Your Scribe has looked the district website www.rotary7690.org from stem to stern looking for the answer, which is nowhere logically posted. Phil Morris- why not just LIST the officers on the front page?) What was the last song Joy played (Tomorrow, from Annie).

Correct answers to any of these questions received lovely gifts such as a tube of hand sanitizer, partially-used Brylcream, plastic razors Cooper Thornton no longer needs, given his shaggy beard, and a can of Spam. (Rebecca Redding advised Prithi, if he wants to create more vegetarians, give away more Spam!)

 

May 25, 2007

A quiet start to this Friday’s meeting, as Joy was otherwise engaged and the piano was silent. A good time to remember past masters (“mistresses” sounds misleading, somehow) of the ivories Rose Patterson (come back Rose, when you get life sorted out, post-Hassell), and Pearl Humble (despite her delicate names, the Iron Maiden of the Piano). Few of those of us who grew up in Asheboro in the 1960s could avoid the three local empresses of the keyboards: Miss Swaim (did anyone ever dare call her ‘Louise’?), Jessie Williamson (who lived on Shamrock and catered to that side of town), and Pearl Humble, who not controlled both the piano and the organ each Sunday at First Baptist Church but serenaded both the Rotary and the Kiwanis clubs. Pearl started out teaching music at Franklinville School in the 1930s, living in the hotel for single teachers called the “Teacherage,” and giving piano lessons on the side. Untold hordes of grade schoolers stumbling along the path toward musical literacy (including Your Scribe) passed through her house on Park Street, conveniently located halfway between Park Street School on the north, and the Junior High and High School on the south. So provide your own musical accompaniment, and we’ll start the meeting.

Your Scribe started things off with the Four Way Test, already being present on the High Table as the sole representative of the Club Bulletin Committee. [As this season’s winner of Survivor: Tar Wheel, I’d like to point out that the prize not only ISN’T a million dollars, it actually costs something in time and effort to get this baby birthed each week, or quadrennially, depending; and it sure would be nice if some more writers would buddy up to the edge of the cliff with me.]

Phil Shore took over the prayer, and steered us Toward the Light. H. R. Gallimore introduced guests Candice Garrett, with James Gouty; Jennifer Smith, with Michael; Susan Milner and Maynard Reid of the Randolph Club (Sheriff Reid travelling with Captain Mark Brady, who was outed by HR as packing heat in the meeting so the High Sheriff didn’t have to).

What may be our last official AHS Student Guests for this school year were James Anthony Duncan Jr., and Rebecca Woodcock. Anthony lives with his Great-grandmother Lera Flowers; he plays drums in the band and in his “free” time. He plans to attend NCSU and study architecture, after which he’d like to live in New York City. Rebecca is the daughter of Richard and Janet Woodcock, and plans to attend UNC-G, studying hospitality and tourism with a minor in business, and wants to become and “Event Planner” here in the Triad.

Prithi announced that H.R. Gallimore will assume the post of President of Asheboro Rotary come this July 1, in the stead of late, lamented Carole Gilliam. Kathy Homiller was officially next in line, but the impending arrival of her adopted daughter from Vietnam means that she’ll have more than enough responsibility for the next year, and will stay in the rotation for 2008-09.  H.R. asked the club for its support, particularly supporting him in rapidly getting up to speed in the next month. He’ll be attending a special PETS course this week in Greensboro.

Owen George announced that Keith Crisco is in China on a Zoo Society tour, and that Owen’s Liberty-based newspaper has an article this week on Keith. Stan Beck received $1600 from the club over the past few weeks for Boys and Girls Club.

Vegetarian Times: you’ll hear people say a vegetarian diet is incomplete because it doesn’t supply enough protein. Prithi says this is a myth. People don’t really need to eat all 9 essential amino acids. Any deficiencies are made up for by the body’s ability to make certain enzymes and amino acids, and store most others. Eating a good balanced diet is all that is needed.

Your scribe introduced the program, Benjamin Briggs, the Chairman of the Guilford County Historic Properties Commission http://gcms0004.co.guilford.nc.us/departments/historic/home.htm and the Executive Director of Preservation Greensboro Incorporated http://www.downtowngreensboro.org/citylight/point.php?id=1090 based in the historic Blandwood Mansion http://www.blandwood.org/ . Benjamin graudated from NC State and has a Masters degree from Boston University; he is a good North Carolina Quaker, raised in High Point and attended the Westtown School in Pennsylvania. He lives in his ancestral 1843 home on Penny Road in High Point, and is the author of the soon-to-be-forthcoming book High Point Architecture.

Since we in Randolph County don’t have the benefit of any historic preservation organizations, Benjamin spoke to us about the value provided to Greensboro and Guilford County since 1980, when its joint city-bounty historic properties commission was created. Guilford County has 84 officially-designated historic properties, known as “landmarks.” Applications are voluntary, and the carrot is that designated properties receive a 50% property tax deferral (comparable to the way Randolph County handles “farm-deferred” taxes). The stick is that listed properties are monitored, and if they are altered inappropriately or neglected, the deferred tax can be imposed. It is a LOCAL designation under N.C.G.S. 160A-400.1, et.seq.., and affects only county property taxes. It is NOT the National Register, which limits only local, state and federal government actions. Landmark properties are accepted based on cultural, historical, architectural and archaeological criteria, and represent a broad spectrum of social, cultural and historical values.

Historic Preservation promotes community pride and a sense of place, allowing citizens to become aware of their roots. The challenge is to protect the properties from conflicting uses, demolition by neglect, and changing land values. The tax deferral is designed to promote maintenance and upkeep of the Landmark, with changes approved (or not) through a design review process after the owner submits a “Certificate of Appropriateness.” If some future owner ever seeks to demolish the Landmark, the Commission has the ability to issue a Delay of Demolition stay for up to 365 days, in order to find alternatives. Since 1980 only two Guilford Landmarks have been lost: the Ireland House, in Greensboro, to fire; and the Benbow House, in Oak Ridge, to inappropriate alterations. For the others, designation has promoted reuse and improvement. For example, the Pinedale School in southeast Guilford, built in 1909, was abandoned and had a value of $40,000 when designated in 2004. After restoration, the 2007 property tax value today is $135,000- a 300% increase in value. In other projects such as Tomlinson Market Square in High Point and the L. Richardson Hospital and Wafco Mills in Greensboro, state and federal tax credits have extended the value of improvements [see http://www.nationaltrust.org/rehab_tax_credits/ ]. There is no evidence that Landmark designation affects marketability of the property, and lots of evidence that it directly results in higher sales prices. For more information on North Carolina historic properties commissions, see http://www.hpo.dcr.state.nc.us/localdes.htm and http://www.cmhpf.org/homehlcdisc.htm . For more preservation resources, see http://www.nationaltrust.org/ .