Blair Rotary Newsletter

Aebleskiver breakfast is scheduled for Sunday April 26th. Please reserve this date and plan to help out. This is one of our major fund raisers for the year and we need everyone's help.

Reminder: attendance should be at least 60%, if you can't make a meeting you can do a make-up on the web at the following address: http://www.rotaryeclub7890.org/makeup.htm

Lindsey Wittry, daughter of Robert and Victoria Wittry, was recently honored as the Blair Rotary Student of the Month. Lindsey has been involved in the following activities: Nebraska Girls State; Freshman Mentor; Social Skills Mentor; Student Senate; 12 Plays and Musicals; Mentor of Drama Club, Drama club Secretary; International Order of Thespians; Concert Choir; Concert Band; Pep Band; Jazz Band; Speech Team; District Speech Finalist; Mock Trial; French Club; French Club Treasurer; Twelfth Night Actress; Emcee for Homecoming and Pops Concert; Tennis Team; Track Team and Fine Arts Student of the Week. Academically Lindsey has achieved a GPA of 4.0, is in the top 15% of her graduation class, is a member of the National Honor Society and has been on the honor roll for seven consecutive semesters. Lindsey plans to attend UNO and major in Psychology. As a Blair Rotary Student of the Month, Lindsey will receive a $300 educational scholarship next fall.

Carolyn Kruger, a senior at Dana College, and Carey Ellison, an admissions counselor at Dana talked about Facebook. Facebook is a free-access social networking website that is operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. Users can join networks organized by city, workplace, school, and region to connect and interact with other people. People can also add friends and send them messages, and update their personal profiles to notify friends about themselves. The website's name refers to the paper facebooks depicting members of a campus community that some US Colleges and preparatory schools give to incoming students, faculty, and staff as a way to get to know other people on campus.

Mark Zuckerberg founded Facebook with fellow computer science major students and his roommates Dustin Moskowitz and Chris Hughes while he was a student at Harvard University Website membership was initially limited to Harvard students, but was expanded to other colleges in the Boston area, the Ivy League, and Stanford University. It later expanded further to include any university student, then high school students, and, finally, to anyone aged 13 and over. The website currently has more than 175 million active users worldwide. Facebook recently surpassed MySpace in amount of visitors, making Facebook the most popular social network, followed by MySpace and Twitter. (Information on Facebook from Wikepedia.com).

Carolyn walked through the process to set up a Facebook account. Generally the process is rather simple if a person follows the directions on the Facebook website (www.facebook.com). During the setup process an individual establishes a profile which identifies interests, schools attended and activities which may later be used to identify potential friends or be used in target marketing. Carolyn recommends that users should be careful to restrict the access of personal information and other postings on the site.

What new partnership was recently created between Rotary International and Dolly Parton?

On March 6th, country music legend Dolly Parton and Rotary International announced a collaborative relationship to begin a new chapter in promoting early childhood reading. Under the agreement, Rotary clubs in Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States are encouraged to support the Dollywood Foundation's Imagination Library, which provides a book each month to children from birth until age five.

Local Rotary club participation could include promoting the program within the community, helping to identify and register the children, and paying for the books and mailings. Citing its impressive role in the polio eradication effort, Parton is proud to have Rotary on her foundation's side, she says. "This partnership is a marriage made in heaven," says Parton. "Rotary does such good work around the world. This is a big deal for us. We feel proud and honored to be working with such a prestigious organization."

Thought of the Week

"Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there." Will Rogers