Email your photos to share! Oscar did.

 

 

 

Police Chief Susan Manheimer finally got her comeuppance. Or was it getuppance? In either case she and Deputy Fire Chief Ray Iverson rose to the occasion as the Chief yielded his COG Club badge to become a full-fledged Rotarian.

They are a study in contrasts in more ways than stature. Susan finished her COG Club requirements in a torrid six and one-half years; Ray did it in, what?, less than six months? No big deal. We're sure Susan is capable of verbalizing a defense.

Ray, badge 145, has been 28 years a firefighter and moved to San Mateo four years ago, where he says he's very happy with the community, of which, he says, he considers himself both a member and a guardian.

 

 

Alan Talansky, Juan Raigoza and committee are revving up preparations for the annual Fun Run. It's the 20th annual. Unbelievable. They are looking to make it bigger and better with your help. Sign up to sponsor, volunteer, or run.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The SMART program helps 8th-graders set personal and scholastic goals every year through the last year of high school and rewards them with more than $900 each in club funds should they make the leap to college. But it takes work. Chairs Don Leydig, Kristi Spence and committee will start off the newest batch of 8th-graders and have goal-setting meetings with continuing students at 6 p.m. Sept. 16 in the Hillsdale High School cafeteria. Volunteers will meet students and their families. See Don or Kristi to dedicate one evening and, possibly, a couple of sessions with a kid or kids during the year to help the SMART program.

There will be a twist this year. District 5150 Governor Sue Rokaw will attend because she wants to skip the obligatory speechifying and get down to work with district clubs as a way to familiarize herself with them, and them to her.

Meet some bright kids and the Gov. Sept. 16.

 

 

Unfortunately the audio didn't work so there's no recording, but Anne LeClair's carefully-plotted bust of good buddy Barbara Evers, all the way from Austin, Texas, no less, worked perfectly.

These guys are 1-2 in the panoply of first female club members and first female club presidents; they're simply #1s in personal relationships.

Barbara had to advance to the screen to try to decipher PC's (that's President Campbell. We'll see if it sticks) arcane query about the photo of a nicely-furnished interior with mullioned windows showing on a green back yard.

 

 

Surprise! It's The Evers Suite in Anne and Jim's new Austin home. Barbara's been to Spain, Portugal, Colorado, Lake Tahoe and the Russian River since her retirement, but who's complaining?

 

 

Pack up, Barbara. Your room's waiting.

She just got back from Colorado. "In one day I saw pronghorn antelope, Bighorn sheep, a burrowing owl, prairie dogs, a herd of elk swimming across a lake and a red fox. All in one day! We went to Costa Rica and we saw two things. Go figure."

 

 

Speaking of Anne, the point of her move to Texas was to be near her daughter and new family: The news is she's expecting a grandson "at the end of the month," Barbara reports. Which month, we will discover.

 

 

 

 

 

Clarke Funkhouser prolonged his 54th birthday celebration with a PC-PC (no, this is not going to work) of $150. He and wife Julie celebrated with a trip to the city for food and entertainment. Speaking of Julie, Clarke indicates in his directory entry that she was born May 16, 2016, which is either a terrible case of  matri-pedofililium or a clever way of concealing one's age. Suspect it's the latter.

Which reminds me: Update your Directory entries, people! There are some old jobs, bad phone numbers, extinct email addresses and other useless data in there. And please post a photo. We'd like to know who you look like.

 

 

 

 

Steve Parker gets more mic time than Tony Bennett. He and longtime partner Laurie just got hitched, combining their two families of five children each, and they flew to Cabo to celebrate. Hoo ha. That'll be another $150 for the gushing groom.

Just a note to point out that Steve's Directory entry is right up to date! Laurie's right there in black and white.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pleased to welcome guests Svatava Pearce (Angel Riley), Kelsey Anderson (Laura Porter), Wilson Ku (Bob Mendoza) and Des Lyons (Bob Graham). Mr. Graham is also an honorary member of the Pacifica Rotary Club.

 

 

 

Head Coach

San Quentin Prison's 1000 Mile Club

 

When he answered one of the calls Laura Bowman made to members of Marin County's Tamalpa Running Club in 2005 asking for help, Mr. Ruona did not know what to expect when he offered to take a look at San Quentin prison's inmate-runners.

An elite runner himself — he's competed in 78 marathons and 38 ultra-marathons — he was a believer in the "Marathon Mindset," the toughness, focus and determination required to run 26.2 miles as quickly as possible.

But how do you run a marathon at San Quentin? One-hundred, five laps around the exercise yard. Albeit a few, inmates were doing it, overcoming some unique obstacles.

Ruona set a goal of running a marathon that first year, in 2005, but it didn't come off. Two Death Row inmates committed suicide that year and the prison was on lockdown for weeks.

But the best runners began to emerge, among them Ronnie Goodman, in on a 10-year sentence for first-degree burglary. Goodman was already a dedicated runner who ran 20 miles around the yard on a weekend.

From the small group of runners he recruited enough to field 16 runners in the 2008 marathon. One, Ronnie Goodman, finished.

The same the next year.

But competition came. A San Mateo High School grad, Markelle Taylor, an inmate who would serve 18 years for second-degree murder, rose to the top.

Both Goodman and Taylor have served their time and are out now, Taylor having paroled last March 2.

One month later he ran the Boston Marathon and finished in 3:03, an hour off the winning time but pretty good for a 46 year-old.

He's working to bring the time down.

Ruona and the 1000 Mile Club are the subject of a documentary now being filmed by Christine Yoo entitled 26.2 to Life.

 

 

 

Thanks to members who got the meeting under way.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mitch reports that Bill Walters is recovering well and quickly from a stroke, is home and healing.