This Week at Rotary
Thursday, July 25, 2024
IN PERSON & ZOOM
For Those Attending in Person
Lunch
11:30 AM START
(Zoom Meeting Opens at 11:45)
(Link Sent Thursday Morning)
AT
Kitchi Gammi Club
Jodi Slick
Founder/CEO, Ecolibrium3
Driving the Renaissance of Lincoln Park
Jodi Slick is the founder and CEO of
Ecolibrium3 and leads the organization’s community resilience and sustainability work. In that role she has been a mover and shaker, helping bring funding and vision that have resulted in the stunning renaissance of the Lincoln Park neighborhood.
Jodi previously founded Common Ground Construction, a green affordable housing social enterprise. She received her Master of Educational Administration and BS in Broad Field Science (Chemistry and Physics) from the University of Wisconsin Superior. She has also completed training with the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University in Social Entrepreneurship. Jodi was named a White House Champion of Change for Building Resilient Communities in 2013.
Highlights from Last Week’s Meeting
By Patra Sevastiades
President Elizabeth Simonson welcomed everyone to the first meeting of Rotary Club 25 in our new location at the Kitchi Gammi Club (“the Kitch”), then led us in the Pledge of Allegiance and the 4-Way Test.
President
Elizabeth Simonson welcomes us to our new meeting location: the Kitchi Gammi Club
Past President Branden Robinson offered the Reflection. He celebrated the 1st Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, embodying freedom of expression. He noted that the Kitchi Gammi Club members built a building to express their values: a beautiful place where ideas could be shared, problems solved, negotiations held, and friendships encouraged. He then challenged us with three questions as we begin a new Rotary year: What will our Club build as evidence of our values? What will we leave behind? What will we change?
President Elizabeth Simonson welcomed our guests—our delightful speaker, Dennis Lamkin, and Stephen Ronstrom, who grew up in Duluth, was a Rotarian in Monroe, Louisiana, and Corpus Christi, Texas, and has returned to Duluth! He was the guest of Jack Seiler.
Dan Maki announced that the previous day, a group of Club 25 Rotarians had gathered to paint a graffiti-scarred retaining wall at St. Ann’s Assisted Living, brightening it with fresh paint. In that effort,
Dan Maki was joined by President
Elizabeth Simonson,
Allison Hanig-Landrus, Jerry Pelofske, Jack Seiler, and Past President
Chana Stocke. Past President
Al Makynen complimented the volunteers for having their service highlighted on WDIO television that evening.
Dan Maki shares the joy Rotarians experienced volunteering at St. Ann’s Assisted Living as painters.
Geiger Yount is seeking volunteers to be greeters at the 30th annual Lake Superior Harvest Festival, sponsored by the Sustainable Farming Association, to be held at Bayfront Festival Park on Saturday, September 7. We have participated as greeters for several years at this family-friendly event showcasing the region’s agricultural bounty. It includes a food court, live music, energy fair, crafts, and more. Sign-up sheets will be on tables this coming week.
Geiger Yount invites YOU to be a volunteer greeter at the Lake Superior Harvest Festival.
President
Elizabeth Simonson introduced
Kim Chick, Director of Membership & Marketing at the Kitch. Kim welcomed us and introduced Dennis Lamkin, our speaker for the day.
Kim Chick, Membership & Marketing Director, introduces our speaker, Dennis Lamkin.
Dennis Lamkin relates the riveting history of the Kitchi Gammi Club.
It was fitting that Dennis spoke about the history of the Kitchi Gammi Club, our Rotary Club’s new meeting location. The Kitch was established in 1883. The club bears the Ojibwe name for Lake Superior. Members first met in the Temple Opera Building on the corner of Superior Street and 2nd Avenue East. When the top four floors were damaged by fire, the club relocated to the nearby Lyceum Building while plans were made and executed to build a new club building. Two homes were torn down at the NE and NW corners of 9th Avenue East and Superior Street; in 1914, the club building was built on the NW corner, and the club parking log was established on the NE corner. Dennis quipped, “Just for the record, I wasn’t here when it was built.”
The Kitch members who built the building in 1914 were among the most esteemed businesspeople in Duluth.
At the time, Duluth was expected to become the next Chicago, perched as it was as the westernmost port of the Great Lakes, a prominent departure point for shipping grain and other agricultural produce from the Midwest and iron from the Mesabi Range to states further east and abroad. The building reflected that dazzling urban vision: the architect of the Kitch was Bertram Goodhue, who designed the famous Flatiron Building in New York City. Lush, high-quality materials were used in the construction and interior and exterior design of the Kitch. Similarly, the Kitch’s landscaping was designed by Olmsted Brothers Landscape Architects. (Frederick Law Olmsted famously designed New York’s Central Park.) The Kitchi Gammi Club is the oldest continuously operating private social club in Minnesota.
The building is notable for its elegant plaster work.
The plaster work allowed the creation of gracious details, such as this logo.
The exterior features gorgeous stonework.
Elegant windows and hardware were imported from England.
President Elizabeth Simonson thanked Dennis for an outstanding presentation. She added that her grandmother, Elizabeth MacFarlane Spencer, once lived in the house where the Kitch’s parking lot now sits! She noted that next week’s speaker is Jodi Slick of Ecolibrium3. Jodi has been a significant participant in the redevelopment of the Lincoln Park neighborhood of Duluth.
“Did I mention that I love this Club?” President Elizabeth Simonson asked.
The 50/50 winner was Bob Reichert, who won $50.
Overheard before the meeting: Alan Anway said that on July 28, he will be married to Judy Sage in “a wedding ceremony that will last 2 minutes.” Congratulations to Alan!
Golden Nuggets of Club 25 History
Rotary Club of Duluth – Chartered July 17, 1911
By Rachel Martin and Jerry Thoreson
Biography of the first president of Club 25 - Edward W. Russell
Charter member and first president of Club 25 was Edward W. Russell worked for the National Cash Register Company located at 425 W. Superior St., now the corporate offices of Maurices.
Edward W. Russell was a Rotary Club of Duluth charter member and first president 1911-1912
Edward W. Russell, the first President of Duluth Rotary Club 25 in 1911, was 41 years old and Sales Agent or Manager of the National Cash Register Co. at 425 W. Superior St. at the time.
NCR was founded in 1884. Edward participated in its aggressive marketing in the early 1900s. By 1914, the company was selling 110,000 machines a year. A 'high tech' company, it shared resources with top-secret code-breaking groups in WW2.
NCR Stock certificate valued at $200. NCR was involved in early computer research in the 1950’s, competing with IBM into the 1980’s. It was bought by AT&T in 1991.
He resided in a rented apartment in a fourplex at 815 E. 1st St. with his wife Nellie and their two children, Grace E. Russell, 12, and Edward W. Russell, Jr., 7.
Russell was born in Illinois. His father's birthplace was Kentucky and his mother's birthplace was Ohio. He and his wife Nellie, who was from Iowa, were married in 1897 in Illinois when he was 27 and she was 23. Their first child, Grace, was also born in Illinois, but their son Edward was born in Minnesota, indicating they moved to this area before 1903.
Russell's Rotary classification in 1911 was Cash Registers, but by 1920 his classification was Rancher, with the work address of 425 W. Superior St. remaining the same.
In 1928, when Russell was 58 years old, he died at his residence at 216 N. 14th Ave. E. His funeral services were held at Crawford's Chapel with Christian Science services being read. Ed W. Russell was buried in Forest Hill Cemetery
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