SPOKES VOL. LXIV NO. 43 May 15, 2018
Mark Odland and Bob Straits were our greeters this foggy spring morning!
President Renner opened our meeting with the “America the Beautiful” and Art Ayers offered our invocation.
Guests:
Our guests this morning were our speakers, Mick Middaugh and Nick Culp.
Spotlight:
No Spotlight this morning.
Music:
Bob Boerma was our song leader this morning. He got a bit of a surprise when “Fingers” Gruber played “America the Beautiful” again before he convinced Dotty to move to our songs of the day. The first of those was “Down by the Old Mill Stream”, a less than upbeat number from 1908 written by Tell Taylor. Once we muddied that song, we moved on to, as Korky Ingersoll so aptly put it, a tribute to the upcoming royal wedding, “For Me and My Gal” a 1917 classic. We finished strong, with “Sing a Song to Rotary”
Announcements:
- Bob Straits announced that while the club investigates the various possibilities for a major project, we are going to invest our project money into a series of layered CD’s so we receive some interest on our money while we plan.
- Next Thursdays’ Speakers Series featuring WMU grad, SW Michigan native and former Mayor of Detroit Dennis Archer will be help at Listiak Auditorium, beginning at 7:30 PM
- Jim Davis will miss a couple of meetings due to some relatively minor surgery. Please keep him in your thoughts.
- The annual Lory’s Place Run, Walk and Rock fundraiser will take place on Saturday. Join at your level of expertise (there are a number of rocking chairs still available).
50/50
Scott Mark had the lucky ticket but drew the Ace, so went back to his table penniless. He did, however, find it in his heart to draw Bob Boerma’s number for the $2 prize.
Fines:
- Art Ayers celebrated two grandson’s birthdays this week.
- Don Hixon’s daughter celebrated a significant birthday this week (21?).
- Jerry Portman is celebrating 34 years of marriage this week.
- Richard Swanson now has a 12 year old granddaughter.
- Tom Renner’s daughter Suzie celebrated a birthday this week with her dear high school friend, Bob Boerma’s daughter Janet.
- Jeff Melvin’s father is celebrating 84 years of life this week while Jeff has reached the 60th level in the game of life this week.
- Ton Fleming celebrates a granddaughter’s birthday this week.
- All of the birthdays were celebrated with a well done Ludington style version of the birthday song.
- Jerry Portman celebrated the life of his son Paul.
- Nick Culp celebrates the birth of a new daughter last month, their first.
- Ted Weber was pleased to note that paving of Black River Street is scheduled to occur this week, giving him a paved street for the first time in months.
- Tom Rummel was charged for his son’s picture in the paper this week.
- Tom Ruesink celebrated a successful car show this weekend.
Melinda Gruber introduced our speakers from Entergy Corporation, former state legislature Mick Middaugh and Governmental Relations Officer Nick Culp.
Nick’s presentation began with a brief review of hoe nuclear power works and the specifics of the Palisades plant.
He also dove into the history of Entergy and their connection to nuclear power in the eastern half of the nation.Nuclear power, once one of the most efficient ways to generate electricity has now been undercut by other forms of power, especially natural gas.
When Entergy bought Palisades, which started producing power in 1971, from Consumers Power in 2007, Consumers agreed to purchase all of the power from the plant – enough for more than 800,000 homes – from Entergy.Currently Entergy is paid $56 per kilowatt hour for power from the plant and they can buy it from other sources for about half that.
The plan is to decommission the plant beginning in 2022.Entergy has set aside 460 million dollars for the decommissioning and security costs.
Melinda thanked Mick and Nick for their informative presentation and provided them with our speaker’s gift.
We closed our meeting with the Four Way Test.
Next week’s program: A Caring Community with Susan Trabucchi, Director of We Care
Next week’s Greeters: Richard Swanson and Nick Tuit.
Editarian: Dene Hadden