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Russell Hampton
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Aug 13, 2019
Vocational Talks
Aug 20, 2019
100 Black Men
Aug 27, 2019
Sep 10, 2019
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Bill Osborne
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Prayer.

O God, whose summer schedule never includes vacation from your sovereign surveillance over us in daily life, we are comforted by that know-ledge. We are challenged in response to not abandon our own attention to the responsibilities of which we are stewards.

 

Grant your blessings to us as we partake gratefully of the gift of food and share fully in table fellowship. Then go with us as we go out to meet the opportun-ities for service awaiting us in places unknown at this moment. Amen.

Birthdays And Anniversaries.

Birthdays:

  • None
Wedding Anniversaries:
  • Bill & Leslie McDonald        August 13
  • Mike & Shirley Farrell August 15
  • Steve & Beth Orlansky       August 16
  • Luther & Ginnie Munford    August 18
Membership Anniversaries:
  • Hugh Johnson                21 years, August 18
     
August 6, Club Meeting Presentation

Rotary Club of North Jackson Vice President, President-Elect, Lee Carney presented photos from her June trip to the 2019 Rotary International Convention in Hamburg, Germany to the Club at its August 6, 2019, meeting. She is shown in the following photo with Past President and current Club Administrative Secretary/Treasurer Don Roberts who introduced her presentation. Thanks to both for what they do for our Club.

 

New Members

Rotary Club of North Jackson new members Rita Sun (right) & Eric Sokolosky (center) are shown in the following photo with Club President Greg Campbell (left)at the Club’s August 6, 2019 meeting. Both Ms. Sun and Mr. Sokolosky joined the Club in July. We welcome them and are delighted to have them as new members.

Stories
Paul Harris Fellow Recognition
 

North Jackson Rotarians Stephen Stenmark and Bill Osborne we’re recognized as Paul Harris Fellows at the Rotary Club of North Jackson’s July 30, 2019, meeting. Judy Lyons, Club Foundation Director presented the awards.

 

The Paul Harris Fellow award recognizes Rotarians who have contributed, or have contributed in their name, $1,000 to the Rotary Foundation. Rotary created the Paul Harris award in 1957 to recognize people who made significant financial contributions to Rotary. The first Paul Harris awards in 1957 were for 1946 gifts to Rotary. In 2006, the one-millionth Paul Harris Fellow was recognized.

 

Rotarians Osborne (left) and Stenmark (center) are shown holding their Paul Harris Certificates with Rotarian Lyons in the following photo. We congratulate them for achieving this distinction.  

 

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Art for All-Mississippi

 

Tom Harmon, Executive Director of Art for All- Mississippi spoke to the Rotary Club of North Jackson at the Club’s July 30, 2019, meeting. Mr. Harmon, who is retired from the U.S. Army, discussed the history, mission, and activities of Art for All-Mississippi. The Mission of Art for All - Mississippi is to provide art opportunities for persons with disabilities. The organization was founded by Jean Kennedy Smith as a program of the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC in Starkville, MS as Very Special Arts. Over time the name evolved to VSA Arts and ultimately to its current name Art for All - Mississippi. The mission remains unchanged. The organization has an art studio in the Mississippi Arts Center at the corner of Lamar and Pascagoula in downtown Jackson. This studio provides opportunities for persons with disabilities to develop their art skills. He introduced some of their clients on a first name basis and showed and distributed some of their work. Mr. Harmon also discussed that Art for All is developing a new program with the Flowood YMCA to expand their activities to Rankin County and a Community Art Group in Vicksburg to support persons with disabilities and the elderly. Each of these new programs will provide a studio and a gallery for the clients’ work He emphasized that Art for All fits the mission of the YMCA and that the new Vicksburg center will provide marketing opportunities with river cruise tourists.

 

We thank Mr. Harmon for his work on behalf of the elderly and the disabled in the art field. He (right) is shown in the following photo with Chuck Galey (left) who is an Artist in Residence at the Jackson Art Studio and with Rotarian Larry Anderson who introduced Mr. Harmon and the program.

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Eric Sokolosky Inducted into Rotary Club of North Jackson
 

Eric Sokolsky was inducted into membership in the Rotary Club of North Jackson at the Club’s July 23, 2019, meeting.

Eric is Vice President- Sales for Employee Administrative Services Inc. (EASI)  which provides payroll, time, and attendance services. He has been with his company for 4 years.

Eric is married. He and his wife Lisa have lived in the metro area for the past 39 years, currently residing in Madison. They are parents of one daughter and have 3 grandchildren.

We welcome Eric into our Cub. He (center) is shown in the following photo with his proposer Lori Greer(left) and his sponsor Past President Don Roberts.

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Assistant U. S. Attorney Speaks to Rotary Club of North Jackson
John A. Meynardie, Assistant U. S. Attorney, Criminal Division, Southern District of Mississippi, spoke to the Rotary Club of North Jackson at the Club's July 23, 2019, meeting. The subject of his talk was the Opioid Epidemic in Mississippi. He said that in 2018, the U.S. Center for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) estimated that in the U.S. there is one opioid death every 8 minutes and that opioid overdoses are the leading cause of death from injuries in the US. The primary causes of those deaths are heroin and prescription opioids plus fentanyl. He said that the term opioid arises from the fact that opium poppies are the original source of opioid pain killers that act on the opiate receptors in the human brain. The primary drugs being abused today are heroin, oxycodone, and hydrocodone. Fentanyl is an impurity in the drugs.
 
According to Mr. Meynardie, the common misconception in the public is that prescribed opioids are "safe" because they are from a doctor. HIstorically physicians prescribed 30-day supplies of the drugs following surgery or injuries as pain killers. Recent studies have shown that a person who takes the prescribed pain-killers for 30-days has a 1 in 4 chance of becoming addicted and that if a person is taking these medicines without a doctor's supervision the addiction chances increase immensely. The properties of these drugs are such that the longer you take them and the more you take, the more your chances of becoming addicted increase. As the costs of drugs increases, addicts seek cheaper alternatives; i.e., heroin. Mr. Meynardie cited that 75-80% of heroin users began with pain pills. For high school seniors, the most abused medicines are pain pills such as oxycodone and hydrocodone. the sources of those pills are relatives or friends. He cited an example of a football quarterback who was injured and prescribed pain pills. He followed a familiar track until 4 years later he died of a heroin overdose.
 
Data show that Mississippi has more painkiller prescriptions than most other states with in excess of 100 painkiller prescription per 100 people, but that the number of prescriptions in both our state and the nation has decreased since the epidemic was identified. Another cause of the deaths is counterfeit pills that have become available from the black market. The risks of these pills are: 
  • they come from an unknown source,
  • they may contain an unsafe active ingredient, and
  • they may contain harmful/toxic ingredients such as fentanyl which Mr. Meynardie calls a "Game Changer."
Fentanyl is many times more potent than heroin or prescribed opioids. He cited that 1 milligram of fentanyl is lethal.
 
Another contributing factor to the abuse of illicit opioid pills is the wide availability of pill presses and binding agents in the U.S. The DOJ is currently investigating pill press manufacturers. Many of the black market pills sold as opioids contain no oxycodone but do contain significant amounts of heroin and fentanyl.  In 2015, the overdose deaths were primarily due to heroin and fentanyl. The following slide provided by Mr. Meynardie shows the changes in the causes of US Overdose death causes in the 2000-2015 period. It is interesting to note the increase in the fentanyl and fentanyl analog deaths from essentially zero to over 20,000 deaths annually or about 2 per hour.
 
 
We thank Mr. Meynardie for his very informative presentation and for his service to our country. He (right) is shown in the following photo with Club Past President Mike Dawkins (center) who introduced him and with Daren LaMarca (left) of the Jackson U.S. Attorney's office. 
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Rita Sun Inducted into Rotary Club of North Jackson
Huiming “Rita” Sun was inducted into the Rotary Club of North Jackson at the club's July 16, 2019, meeting by Club President Greg Campbell. She was proposed for membership by Uriel Pineda and sponsored by Past President Don Roberts.

Rita is the owner of Wealth Management LLC and her office is located in the Mississippi Farm Bureau Building on Ridgewood Road in Northeast Jackson. Born and educated in China, she came to Mississippi College in 2008 to study and obtain her Master of Business Administration degree. Rita is a Charted Financial Analyst (CFA®) and a member of The CFA® Society of Mississippi. She is married and lives in Clinton with her husband, Xiao Luo, and their two children, Joshua and Joanna.
 
We welcome Rita to our club.
Lake Okhissa Project
 

North Jackson Rotarian and Architect Jack Allin and businessman and lawyer Wade Creekmore spoke to the Rotary Club of North Jackson about the Lake Okhissa Project of the Scenic Rivers Development Alliance in Franklin County, Mississippi at the Club’s July 16 meeting. The project features a lodge and 1,000 person conference center on the lake which was built on US Forest Service land.  The spring-fed lake features crystal-clear water. The concept includes the possibility of a golf course in addition to water-based sports. 

 

Mr. Creekmore discussed Meadville and Franklin County where he spent much of his career. He focused on the excellent school system and the town’s Chess Club, the Southwest Mississippi Chess Foundation, that has taught chess to a large number of Franklin County residents and successfully competed in tournaments nationwide winning many club and individual awards.

 

Mr. Allin discussed the Lake Okhissa project in detail. The following is an architect’s rendition of the lodge as seen from Lake Okhissa.

 

The next photo is a rendition of the expected view of the lake as seen from the over the lodge’s swimming pool.

 

We thank Messrs. Creekmore and Allin for their presentation and for their work on behalf of the citizens of Franklin County. They are shown following their presentation with Club President Greg Campbell (left).

 

Read more...
 This week’s Rotary Foundation Thought is about Building a Better Future through stories from the August 6, 2019, Rotary Voices Blog.
 

The power of story to build a better future

Posted on 

Kiran Singh Sirah (middle with sunglasses) and other Rotary Peace Fellows at the Rotary Peace Symposium in Hamburg, Germany. Photo by Monika Lozinska/Rotary International.

By Kiran Singh Sirah, Rotary Peace Fellow and president of the International Storytelling Center

Earlier this year, I had the privilege of visiting Hamburg, Germany, to present a series of talks at the Rotary International Convention and Peace Symposium. I always look forward to the symposiums and the chance to reconnect with other Rotary Peace Fellows. The event underscored for me how much better it is to hear people’s stories in real life, in person, as opposed to on the news.

That’s not a new idea – in fact it informs all the work we do for our annual National Storytelling Festival (known as the largest and most prestigious storytelling gathering in the world) – but it’s an important one. The first session I led focused on connecting storytelling and peacebuilding, and how the stories we share today help us envision a better tomorrow. Together, we’re all shaping the story of our future world.

Stories build relationships

Stories are also an important tool we use to build relationships with one another – to understand people who come from places we don’t necessarily know very well, and to keep our own homes alive in our memories when we’re far away. In the session, I invited everyone to share their own stories of what had brought them to the event.

In Hamburg, I shared a room with my friend Eduardo Costa, a Brazilian peace activist who grew up in the Amazon rainforest. He’s an economist who has encouraged me to think about my own work on a global scale. He and his family are currently living in Canada, where he’s finishing his PhD in peace and conflict studies. If he were to return to his home country, he would be very concerned about the risks that currently face indigenous leaders and environmental activists. The risks he has to worry about are much more common worldwide than you might imagine.

Another colleague of mine who works for human rights was recently imprisoned and threatened. But it’s not all bad news. On the other side of the spectrum, a Jewish American who lived in Ramallah (in Palestine), a predominantly Muslim city, talked to me about how the community where she lived felt like the safest place in the world. Her community protected her from harassment and other forms of hassle. That’s not likely what you would see on TV.

On Sunday, our free day, a group of us decided to take a ferry trip. I set off with Yuri (who’s from Israel), Sandra (who’s Brazilian), and Anne, a Danish woman who’s living in Berlin. Anne has been working with Syrian refugees, teaching them how to code. Melissa, who also works with refugees, came along, as did Merlin, who works in Somalia. I was pleased to catch up with Jessica Trijsburg, who I knew from our time as students at the University of North Carolina. Now she lives in Australia, and is ISC’s partner for the videogame that we’re currently developing.

Late night in Hamburg

Later that night, my head still buzzing with the day’s activity, I was unable to sleep. I wandered outside and over to the Turkish café directly opposite from the place I was staying. I was in the mood for a kebab. Even though it was after midnight, there was still plenty of activity on the downtown streets of Hamburg. The shops were still open, and people were coming out of the dance clubs. Old men were smoking cigarettes and chatting intently on the city benches. I sat outside at the one tiny table that was available outside the café near two other men. It reminded me of central London. It felt like home.

A Ghanaian man who grew up in London overheard me speaking English and struck up a conversation with me and a younger Egyptian man who was sipping tea with a friend (who was busy on his cell phone). We talked about where we were from and how long we had been in Germany. The Egyptian man told us that he was in process of seeking political asylum. The Ghanaian man got very excited when I explained what I was doing there in Hamburg presenting at the peace symposium. He even asked me to talk about it so he could share it via a Snapchat video he made on his phone. Somewhere out there, there’s a video of that moment!

I’m proud to represent an organization that works hard to connect people through story. It’s important to help people to realize that home is more than just a physical place or location, but something that goes much deeper into our personal stories, hopes, and dreams. In this recognition, we help create a future that opens up again with peace and understanding – and that is something to celebrate.