Next Meeting - Tuesday, May 6. Our speaker will be Madison Alderman Michael Schumacher, speaking on city issues. Certainly there are enough of those for several programs, so this should be interesting. SAL AL-ASHKAR is the Program Host.

At our last meeting, Pres. DON NEVIASER opened the meeting, JIM SCHUTZ led the song, and Padre DALE MUELLER gave the invocation. There were no guests, but CRAIG KLAAS, who is transferring to our Club from another Lions Club, was with us.

We did have a distinguished visitor - District Governor ROLLIE MANTHE, who paid us a special visit to present the International President’s Certificate of Appreciation to PP SAL AL-ASHKAR, in recognition of his devoted work on our Diabetes Awareness program for the District. There are only a couple of these recognitions in each District per year, and SAL has worked long and hard on this project. It’s not often that the DG comes in person to present one, either. Pres. DON also thanked SAL for his public service in running for the County Board in his district. Qualified candidates are in short supply.

The TailTwister had decreed Water Appreciation Day, which turned out to be another fee related to our drinking water. However, he did fill a few coffee cups gratis, which is more than the City will do.

Educator and consultant retired Prof. George Kliminski was our speaker, and he gave us an update on the conditions in our schools and the makeup of the student body. Wisconsin mostly uses the ACT test to qualify for college, and scores pretty well, particularly in the small towns. However, urban high schools graduate only 50-60% of their students. Nearly 40% of Madison School District students are below the poverty level, and as many as 15-20% of them have special needs of one kind or another. Four-year-old kindergarten is necessary because so many children are not developing necessary learning skills in their homes. He commented that older people (must have been looking at the Editor) were not current on schools - driving past a school and looking at the houses in the neighborhood isn’t typical of what’s going on inside. In earlier days, the students were much alike, but now they are very different. On the one hand, the State revenue caps limit the amount schools can receive per student, per year, and on the other the law requires each school district to offer a minimum 3.5% raise each year, which in some cases is more in itself than the caps allow. He also commented that more educational programs were needed for people over age 20-25, who needed to upgrade their skills to meet the needs of the current economy. An informative, if not particularly encouraging, program.

The first returns are in from our Rose Day sale. We sold about 550 bouquets this year, about 50 less than last year, but thankfully had almost none left over. Profits should be $6000, plus. Tremendous thanks are due to JODIE BURMESTER and DON NEVIASER, who took over the management of the sale at the last moment and did a remarkable job of keeping it going, and MELISSA NOVINSKI, who ran the sales depot and got the orders out, and is now in charge of getting the money in.

Lions who worked on the delivery process were MELISSA ABBOTT, SAL and KAREN AL-ASHKAR, LINDA BERGREN, JIM BRADLEY, STEVE BRIGGS, JODI BURMESTER, CRAIG BUTLER, JAN CICHOCKI, SCOTT GROVER, JERRY HODDINOTT, JOHN JENSON, CHARLIE and Trish LIBERTY, JERRY MILLER, ED NEESE, DON NEVIASER, HAL OTTERBACK, WALT PRIDHAM, ROSS ROYSTER, TERRY SCHAR, JIM SCHUTZ, TOM and MARIAN STEVENS, DAN STOUDT, PHIL STOWITTS and MICHELLE VETTERKIND. Your Editor claims some kind of a record - driving from one delivery to the next, in about a mile, he negotiated 9 speed bumps. In Nakoma, no less. Good thing RICH MATZELLE’s not still driving his Porsche thru there! Our Lion service got an unexpected boost when one flower recipient produced a bag of used eyeglasses for us, too.

Please turn in all money from Rose Day to MELISSA NOVINSKI as soon as possible, or sooner. The quicker we can wrap this up the better off everyone will be. The dollars don’t translate into Lion service until they’re in the bank!