Stories

An article in the Monday “Messenger” announced that Rotarian Dr. Jesse Ulrich was awarded the prestigious Virgil Lagomarcino Laureate Award by Iowa State University.  The award is given to an individual that graduated from the ISU Education School and has since provided outstanding service to the Education Profession.  Dr. Ulrich has his MA and PHD from ISU.

The Wednesday “Messenger” contained a front page discussion of a recently held Candidate's Forum hosted by the Fort Dodge Growth Alliance.  Rotarian Kuhlman was the Master of Ceremony and Rotarian Miller was a primary participants as she debated her opponent for the November Election.  

Monday's guest speaker was Chaz Allen of the Iowa utility Association, whose primary members are:  Black Hills Energy; Mid American Energy;  iTC; and Alliant Energy, the primary providers of gas and electricity energy for Iowa. Through the half hour discussion we learned that gas and electric availability is quickly becoming the best draw to the Midwest for economic development, replacing the prior major draws of available workforce and 4-lane highways.  In this regard, Iowa has ample supplies of both energy sources and has the lowest electricity rate of any  of the 50 States.  To maintain that record involves a long-range plan combined with input from major industries as to their needs 5, 10, and 20 years into the future.  Other major discussion points were:

• Industrial Development is now following utility transmission lines, such as with the proposed steel plant near Keokuk;
• Ten years ago the Iowa long-range plan was completed.  It is now beginning an update phase that will be submitted to the Iowa Utilities Commission who will use the plan to helps set gas and electric rates.  An accurate plan provides stability, with the example being the last rate increase for Mid American energy was in 2013.  A proposal for adjustment is now before the IUC.
• Data Centers are now upsetting the proverbial “apple cart” of planning because of their large need for energy.  In the Midwest Data Centers should not substantially increase the cost to other consumers because of their needs.  Rather, Data Centers will negotiate their energy costs separately with the example of the case in Cedar Rapids where energy will be purchased by the restart of the Palo Nuclear Plant.  This stability will not be true for the Northeast of the United States where rates are set by alternative schedules.
• There has been much misinformation regarding the sitting of Data Centers through social media.  In reality, economic growth in the economy is critical to the maintaining of utility rates.  The fixed costs of energy is shared through all consumers, and if more businesses are added, any increase is shared between more customers.
• Wind and solar are important to Iowa (63% of Iowa power comes from wind), but recent protests to wind farms may soon limit any potential expansions.  Solar farms are now being sited on non prime agricultural soils to avoid the astigmatism of reducing land for food.  Roof, parking lot, etc. locations will become the norm.
• The bottom line is that Iowa needs to have solar, wind, nuclear, gas, and coal, as they all partner with each other to cover a consistent flow to the transmission grid when natural elements or other interruptions occur to sources of generation feedstock.

The October “Rotary Magazine” is devoted totally to Polio, past, present, and future.  It is fitting that this edition precedes the October 24th World Polio Walk that our club will be a participant.  In the modern era Polio has become a nearly forgotten disease that once affected millions.  It is becoming more difficult to find people who remember the “scourge.”  Therefore, our club will aid Rotary International in providing a worldwide emphasis that Polio still exists and our eradication effort is not quite complete.  To that goal the “Rotary Magazine” highlights recent efforts to immunize children in Pakistan by using both native workers who are assisted by people who carry examples of what Polio can do to the human body and its bones.  As quoted in the magazine RI states that the wild strain of Polio is eliminated in all but two countries - Afghanistan and Pakistan, in an area that is hard to reach and is controlled by traditional Islamic families skeptical of all things western.  But the good news is that last year Pakistan had reduced the number of new cases to 17, and from January to October of this year that number is 3.  Google states in a search that the number in Afghanistan in 2026 is 32.  

Fort Dodge can still count older individuals who have the signs of Polio deformities acquired as children prior to the immunization efforts beginning in 1955.  Your eBulletin editor remembers when a child was diagnosed with Polio in rural Nebraska prior to the vaccines all children were confined to their homes/farms and schools closed until the parents were somewhat assured the virus had left the area.  As a young child it was a very scary time, but the quarantines of my parents kept me from the disease.

Rotarian Meyer appeared in the Wednesday “Messenger” as part of a discussion on estimated funding for EMS services in Webster County.  Original EMS regulations did not include the tax being levied on TIF properties.  A later Legislative amendment as outlined by Representative Meyer said TIF properties are now included, which would provide an approximate increase of $250,000 to the program.

The club's presentation was  how Berlin has recovered from the end of World War II and its partition between East and West from 1945 to the current.  When asked which European city would the presenter visit again, the quick answer was Berlin.  In 1945 the city lay in ruins with 99% of all buildings being damaged in some manner and approximately 60% deemed beyond repair.  From 1945 to 1990 the city was partitioned (approximately 50/50) between the Communist/Socialist East and Capitalist West most notably known as the Berlin Wall - an approximate 97  mile strip of land in most areas one block wide that surrounded West Berliners from their Eastern relatives. Berlin itself was surrounded by East Germany, further complicating Cold War politics.

West Berlin was financially supported by the American Marshall Plan and re-infusion of German capital spirited to Argentina and Switzerland in the last years of the war.  The West Berlin revival became noticeable with the desire to show a sharp contract between Communism and Capitalism.  The Wall was constructed to keep East Berliners from moving to the West.  The Eastern half of Berlin remained relatively undeveloped and a very slow revival - rubble well into the 1990s.  When the Wall was opened in 1990 money flowed to East Berlin because land was cheap and government subsidies helped spur development.  Today, the rapid growth of “awesome” is continuing and many world companies are locating in Berlin.  Some examples given in the presentation were:

• Reconstruction of the Reichstag and the government area along the River Spree, now a focal point for outdoor recreation by the population;
• Redevelopment of the area east of the Brandenburg Gate along Unter der Linden Street in corporate offices and hotels;
• Redevelopment of the area south of the Brandenburg Gate, site of the former German Chancellery (plus Hitler's Bunker) , but now the location of the Holocaust Memorial, the US Embassy, and corporate offices;
• Total reconstruction of the Potsdamer Platz, a former no-man's zone of the Wall but now the location of public infrastructure and sky scrappers of corporation offices;
• Redevelopment of the area around Checkpoint Charlie, but with work still to be done;
• Cold War sites shown were:  Soviet Memorial to 17,000 buried in mass graves, Guernica Bridge, Checkpoint Charlie, Wall Memorial in Northeast Berlin, the use of the Mauer as a long linear park completely surrounding West Berlin, and examples of area still needing work as ownership issues often hinder development.

Editor Note:  This narrative may be expanded by the Editor, who experienced family and work issues to prevent its completion for this publication:

Our guest speaker on September 21st was Tim Wiebel, Vice President of the Manning Rotary Club.  Tim outlined how a small town of 1,300 in West central Iowa faced the farm crisis of the 1980s by coming together and forming a local development partnership of many avenues that now has led to the creation of a World Class Heritage Center, a very vibrant downtown as per the Mainstreet USA example, construction of new housing of many types, renovation and cleaning of existing properties, expanding a municipal utilities program that has since funded/fostered many community projects, construction of a modern hospital/medical complex, implementation of a data center that compliments the community, underground electrical and fiber, further consolidation and construction of a regional school system, and many others.  It is quite a success story that many other communities should follow.

• Mission: Rotary is a service organization comprised of community leaders of various professions dedicated to humanitarian causes locally and throughout the world. Simply put, Rotary is an organization that is out to do "good" in the world. 
• Vision: It is incumbent upon the Fort Dodge Noon Rotary Club and its Board of Directors to be good stewards of available resources.  The club budgets dollars annually.  The budget may fund identified programs.  The club also has a small “Special Fund” available for requests made throughout the year for unbudgeted causes, which the club and Board may want to support. 
• Eligibility for the Special Fund:  Grants must have the support of one or more members of the Fort Dodge Noon Rotary Club. Funds are granted in support of humanitarian causes.  Causes may relate to youth, poverty prevention/intervention, community betterment, health care, human services, and more.  There are many, many good causes.  There are also limited dollars.  Grant awards will not exceed the dollars available in the special fund.   Preference may be given to one-time projects or to programs that are deemed to have sustainability.  For example, grants may be given to a building project to provide some seed money to start an educational program that the schools will fund in the long term.  Collaboration with other funding sources is encouraged.