Posted by Charles Rehberg
North Notes
Spokane North Rotary Club Bulletin
June 3, 2019
Rotary calendar:
            June 7: Rotary Serves: Beginning at 4 p.m. at A.M. Cannon Park, 1115 N. Elm, members and guests help in booths, joining West Central Community Center’s Neighbor Day program.
 
            June 10: Rotary Connect: Begins at 4:30 p.m. at Tempus Cellars, 8 N. Post.
 
            June 17: Lunch meeting, noon, at Nectar’s. Two Saling scholarship winners invited.
 
            June 24: Club’s annual dinner and installation of officers, 6 p.m., will at the Kalispel Golf and Country Club’s 1898 Restaurant.
 
            Sept. 20: Club fund-raising wine tasting and dinner at Kalispel Golf and Country Club.
 
Briefly:
            In memorium: The club sadly notes the sudden passing of former member Jim Hoffman, a long-time provost and geology teacher and chairman at Eastern Washington University.  A wonderful conversationalist and an expert in wines and vineyards, Jim joined Rotary in 1992.  He died May 16 at age 77 while vacationing in Hawaii.
 
            Holmes help, cont.: Next Friday’s Golden Heroes program at Holmes Elementary will feature the “Ron and Ron Show.”
Ron Noble will join Ron Schurra in presenting the awards during the June 13, 1:30 p.m. session at the school’s last honors program for the last school year.
  Several members have stepped up, but a few sign-ups are still needed for various Holmes duties during the year, said program coordinator Sandy Fink.
 
            Saling scholar honored
 
            Perla Ramirez-Martinez of Rogers High was honored at the June 3 luncheon as one of three Saling Scholarship winners.  Each scholarship is for $1,500.
 
            Scholarship coordinator Brian Hipperson talked about Jerry Saling’s love for education and for carefully managing education funding while Saling was in the House and Senate in the Washington Legislature.  Hipperson said Saling pushed so hard for the Riverpoint area downtown that the area “should be called Jerry’s Yard.”
 
            President-elect Melinda Keberle presented the scholarship to Perla, noting she is the first member of her family to go to college.  Perla also attends Spokane Falls Community College and plans to major in math at EWU.  Saling, by the way, had been president of SFCC.
 
            Melinda quoted from Perla’s scholarship application, saying, “even if you’re an immigrant, you can still make the difference and get an education if you work hard for it.”
 
            In her application, Perla said the scholarship “means a lot to me because it’s only my mom working at Taco Bell.  And with this it can help her, so she doesn’t have to pay so much.”
 
            Two faculty staff members from Rogers joined Perla at the meeting.
 
            The other Saling Scholar winners, Samuel Milsap of Rogers and Myah Rodriguez-Bates of North Central, have been invited to the June 17 club meeting at Nectar. 
 
The ‘Connections’ are getting closer
           
            Connections were many as the club got an update June 3 on the Sister Cities Garden in Riverfront Park.
 
            Spokane Sister Cities Association past-presidents Jenifer Priest and Chuck Rehberg borrowed the admonition of Rotary International’s effort to end polio – “we are this close” – showing how close to finishing the sculpture garden in Riverfront.
 
            The garden will occupy a half-acre space at the juncture of the Howard Street Promenade and the Havermale Promenade, about 100 yards north of the Rotary Fountain.
 
            “Connections” was selected to stress the many partnerships among cultural, educational and business international relationships in Sister Cities International.
 
            Spokane-North has been a long and generous partner in the process of building the garden, which is on the former site of the Japanese Pavilion in the Expo ’74 World’s Fair.
 
            The idea for the garden followed the 2005 Sister Cities International Conference.  That meeting drew 1,000 participants, including about 100 college-age students who were asked to produce a legacy project from the conference.
 
            The leading idea was an Asian-style rock walk reflexology path.
 
             Using back-lot space at Mukogawa’s campus, the students combined with a Spokane-North “dirty hands” project to build a dozen 4-X-4-foot concrete panels embedded with rock designs and one with old golf balls.   Six of the panels are planned for the Riverfront garden site.
 
            Spokane Sister City Societies were challenged to produce sculptures on their own.
 
           Meanwhile, the garden centerpiece will include a round 30-foot diameter plaza connected with distinctive curved concrete pathways paved with blue glass to display the waters.
 
           The Spokane-Limerick city connection will be an Irish harp, sculpted by Sister Paula Turnbull, a noted local artist who finished the harp shortly before her passing two years ago at age 97.
 
            The Spokane-Japanese partnership will feature an elaborate lighthouse from the bay in Nishinomiya, which is an Osaka suburb.  The replica lighthouse will be 11-feet high, half the actual version.
 
            The Spokane-Jecheon, South Korean project will feature tall posts atop swans or geese, a national symbol.
 
            Discussions are continuing on projects for Sister City affiliates with Jilin, China and Cagli, Italy.
 
            Spokane’s Sister City sculpture will be a 5-foot tall Kokanee created by local artist Melissa Cole.
 
            Priest showed how the waters from the various Sister Cities among the bays and rivers connect globally.
 
            Rehberg said the many connections continue.  He said both Rotary and Sister Cities International are international in scope, with many shared personal discussions and projects in their own organizations.
 
            As the 75th anniversary of D-Day is noted, Rehberg said he had an opportunity to meet Mary Jean Eisenhower, grand-daughter of Dwight D. Eisenhower.  She said Ike, on the eve of the huge battle, was distressed by how many servicemen would die the next day.  She said Ike wanted to find alternatives to war and to find ways to work together again internationally.
 
            The result was the people-to-people organization and Sister Cities partnership.
 
            As the Connections Garden  plans were formed, generous donors five years ago cleared the rocky site and provided soil and reseeding.  But plans stayed dormant five years as the revitalized Riverfront plans continued and the garden site was used for various park projects.
 
            Meanwhile, fund-raising continued with the nearly $250,000 project.  Spokane-North generously donated $5,000 and Club 21 added $2,500.  Spokane-South will consider some possible funding after a presentation May 31.
 
            Priest said several projects remain.  Some $15,000 remains, but another $15,000 or more is still needed to complete the first phase of the garden.
 
            Rehberg said it is important to have Sister Cities and Rotary in the garden because the space might be the most important international element left in the park of the former World’s Fair.
 
            He said Connections will show the nearly six-decade partnerships legacy of Spokane’s Sister Cities.  But the garden and the park also hopes to inspire service in younger generations like GU’s new Rotaract Club, a joint effort with our club and the South Rotary club.        
 
The bulletin producers:
            Bulletin editors: Chuck Rehberg and Sandy Fink
            Photos: Sandy Fink and Eric Johnson