MEETING RECAP
The Case of the Missing Puffins
By Gayle SeldenSunday, December 15, 2024
Share:PermalinkEmail this Page
The Case of the Missing Puffins
Gayle Selden
The December 13th meeting of the Rotary Club of Lakewood was in one of our alternative locations, the grill room down in the basement of the Tacoma Country and Golf Club. As I descended the stairs I was greeted by Chuck Hellar as the solo person working a desk. I was rather late to the meeting so I missed our Paul Harris desk person and anyone else who may have been there.
I have really had a more pressing issue on my mind then making the meeting on time. I have been infrequent to the meetings as of late. I’ve had some other pressing obligations. And I have had such worry—a worry that has been weighing on me since the first time I noticed an imposter stuffed bird at a Rotary meeting. It was the last Friday in August when I noticed Phyllis Stone carrying a black stuffed bird that was referred to as a Puffin. But that was no puffin I had seen before. My curiosity had been peaked. When did our old puffins become replaced with this new pretender?
In 1977, President Elect Mel Neighbors created the name for the newest members of our Lakewood Rotary group. New members for one year are referred to as Puffins and in more recent years those new members have carried a stuffed Puffin to meetings until the next new person is inducted into the club. In the year of President Mary Horn there were so many members being inducted the stuffed puffin was flying around barely spending any time with new inductees. Seeing that as a problem I donated a stuffed Puffin that was from the collection of Ted Weir. This second puffin was smaller than the original, a little sun faded and had a clear plastic collar. And now it seems both of those puffins are missing in action.
President Carl Bronkema called the meeting to order and welcomed all of us. He introduced Philip Lindholm for the invocation and Jim Merritt, visiting Rotarian from Tacoma 8, to lead the pledge of Allegiance. Carl then thanked Connie Coleman-Lacadie for working the Paul Harris desk and Chuck Hellar for being the Sargent at Arms. Tom George, James Osundwa and Rob Erb seemed to handle the set up quite well. Phil Eng was “phileng” in as a photographer. Myself, Gayle Selden, took up the duties as a scribe/investigative reporter.
Kris Kaufman introduced a guest but said their name before he was close enough to the microphone. Welcome whomever you were! Kamarie Wilson introduced neighbor Craig Guppy who attended our last Rotary on Tap at Mis Tres Amigos after seeing it on Facebook. Assistant Chief Ryan McGrady joined Chief Jim Sharp. Visiting Rotarians included aforementioned Jim Merritt and Marshall Meyer from Clover Park Rotary and our speaker of the day.
President Bronkema spent a lot of time on Zoomers today greeting many on the screen. He gave extra ribbing to John Caufield whose Boston Bruins has lost to the Kraken the evening before. John gave $100 for the mention of Boston.
Wendy McGowen had a full sunshine report mentioning Marie Neiditz’ lovely service, Jan Gee who is recovering from surgery, Wynn Hoffman who is recovering from surgery, Sharon Rediske who is recovering from surgery and Liz Heath who is recovering from surgery. Donna Phillips broke her wrist but no surgery was reported. Also mentioned was Bill Price who is fully blind and suffering with Lewy Body dementia. Pat Price did mention they are expecting their first great grandchild.
Greg Rediske led us in Birthday and Anniversary Celebrations. Best line was a zinger to John Korsmo celebrating 34 years of being a Rotarian and coming back to a meeting after 34 weeks away. Birthdays in attendance included Chuck Hellar, Phillip Lindholm, Jim Sharp, Becky Wiggins and Dwight Williams. Greg asked some questions that were part of the Christmas Dinner program. We learned more about Frosty, Gene Autry and Chestnuts. We also learned the reindeer in Jingle Bells is not named Bob.
Tori Murphy was given her blue badge for completing all the requirements for full membership. Including attending a board meeting. Which is wonderful as she is slated to be one of our newest board members.
President Carl then called up Greg Rediske, John Lowney, Tori Murphy, Don Anderson, Dwight Williams and Barlow Buescher. He asked us to vote to approve them. He asked for a motion and then a second. A confused bulletin writer asked for a point of clarification as to the understanding that there is a two week wait from board announcement to vote.
The Mandela effect is a phenomenon in which people collectively misremember facts, events, or other details in a consistent manner. And apparently the announcement of a new board slate and a two week wait that many of us thought existed is one of those Mandela effects. According to our by-laws in Article III Section II it is written “Not less than two months prior to the date of the election, the president shall appoint one nominating committee co-chaired by the two immediate past presidents who shall name additional members as they see fit. At a regular meeting not less than one month prior to the election, the presiding officer shall ask for nominations by members of the club for president-elect, secretary, treasurer and three members of the Board of Directors. The nominations made shall be placed on a ballot, in alphabetical order, under each office, and shall be voted by voice vote, or if necessary, by written ballot. The nominating committee will provide a slate of nominees to the Board and Officers prior to a formal club announcement and vote.” So, the word prior has turned into two weeks in many Lakewood Rotarian heads.
We had clarification that Barlow Buescher will be President Elect, Greg Rediske will be Secretary, John Lowney will be Treasurer and Tori Murphy, Mark Silva and Don Anderson will be directors. The was moved and voted in the affirmative! Thank you so much to these members for serving on the Board. Also thank you to Tom George, Carl Bronkema, Connie Coleman-Lacadie, Dwight Williams and James Osundwa for continuing their service.
President Carl and Mark Herr will be starting their Saturday morning at the Wreathes Across America event. Other members will be spending their Saturday delivering bikes to kids in the community. Bill thanked Greg Rediske and Leeanna Albretch for their work getting us ready for the delivery. Gayle Selden reminded members about the break bag delivery on Monday morning at the Clover Park Axillary Center at 9219 Lakewood Drive. 1000 bags delivered in 120 minutes. Lots of volunteer activities in this week before.
Bill Potter also thanked those who participated in the Lakewood Holiday Parade and helped us advertise the Dolly Parton Imagination Library.
President Carl then called John Korsmo out to fine him. Carl had no reason so John stood there. Until Carl suggested $5 per missed meeting. In an unlikely move, John offered his own information. He is proud to have both kids working in the company. Son Beau is engaged. And John did admit he might’ve missed a President or two so he donated $100 for Carl and $100 for Mary Horn.
Charles Herberle was in the room and donated $100 in honor of the upcoming Puffin Roast. Wendy McGowen paid $100 in honor of her daughter’s genetic research on Orange Cats and the arhgag36 gene.
Steve Saafield gave all a lesson in text news verses call news in explaining it would be the first Christmas without his oldest. Barb Spriggs announced she sold her BMWZ3, which she won at a casino, and replaced it with a Mustang Mach E.
Bulletins are a great source of information for the club. Back editions of “The Key” are available on Lakewoodrotary.com. It was there where I found a break in the case of the lost Puffins. The last mention of the puffin was in Greg Rediske’s April 15th edition. It was on this day that we inducted three new members. And on this day Linda Ripley, Mark Silva, Scott Casebolt, Philip Lindholm, Tori Murphy and Kamarie Wilson all were in possession of the puffins. Critical reading let me know that Tori Murphy and Scott Casebolt seemed to end up with a puffin a piece. However, there was a record that Kamarie Wilson lamented handing over the puffin so soon. The last know whereabouts of two puffins together at the meeting was April 15th.
I contacted Kamarie to see what she remembered from the incident and whom she remembered handing the puffin off to. . .after that meeting Kamarie had the original puffin—not the Ted Wier one-and took it to the Wine Fest. There, she handed off to Brie Cooper who had just become our newest member. So, it was a secret handoff that was not witnessed by the membership. Did Brie still have Puffin #1?
John Korsmo introduced our speaker Marshall Meyer, General Manager of the Lakewood Water District. John is one of three elected Commissioners of Lakewood Water. The other two are Greg Rediske and Gary Barton. John explained the job of the commissioners and the water district. I misheard John say they worked on keeping Peatmoss out of the water supply. I later learned we are not making Scotch with Lakewood water as he actually said Pfas.
Marshall has been the general manager for the last year and prior to that he was the engineer. Marshall has been with Lakewood Water District for a long tenure. The Lakewood Water District was started in 1943. It currently services 62,000 retail customers and 5 wholesale customers. The Lakewood Water District monitors is responsible for hydrants, a lot of piping, providing 14K in water per day to its customers (double in the summer), testing and monitoring wells and water quality tests.
Marshall explained the hydrogeology of the area and the water resource area. He showed diagrams of the geology and our wells and what depth the water is pulled from. We got to see the cable tool drilling that is used now as well as in the 1940s. 141 Acre foot of precipitation provide the water for the 18 square mile Lakewood watershed. Right now, some of our shallower wells are offline due to Pfas (not peatmoss).
The precipitation and water levels of American Lake and Gravelly Lake are studied to help diagnose the amount of water available in the watershed. They are noticing a long, slow decline in the level of water in both lakes and amount of precipitation. This is a trend they are watching closely.
Pfas that have been mentioned re”peat”edly are found in scotch guard, Teflon, makeup and the firefighting foam used at JBLM (most notably at McChord). Our shallow wells have some Pfas present and are not used for water. Deeper wells have not had pfas detected. There is a carbon filter system that can be used to remove Pfas (think big Brita system). Those systems cost 100K so will be added when needed. My table mate, Chief Jim Sharp, said its been over 30 years since firefighting foam with Pfas has been used by West Pierce.
The big project that Lakewood Water district is working on is having Western State Hospital as a customer. Western State has been providing his own water from two wells on the property. Those wells could become part of the Lakewood Water system but they need significant upgrades. They will help provide water rights for 10 more years of growth of use for the watershed.
Lots of questions from the floor. Most interesting was that Lakewood Water put out for a vote whether to add Fluoride to the water. The votes were split 50/50 so it was decided to not add Fluoride. Our school district and the health departments work in this area seem to help long the proven help to tooth care for our youth.
Hopefully, I didn’t water down any of this information.
Don Anderson won $5 in the raffle. So, the pot grows but not the peatmoss.
As the meeting was called to an end I was having a brief conversation regarding finance council information with John Lowney. Out of the corner of my eye I spotted a plastic collar on a small faded puffin in the hands of Tori Murphy! One half of the mystery is solved. The second puffin who last was seen with Brie Cooper is still in the wild. A quick email to Brie and I learned she had handed it off. The person who has it might be the most seasoned investigator in all of Lakewood Rotary. The last known holder of Puffin #1 is Chief Patrick Smith! Hopefully, Chief Smith will illuminate us as to where that puffin now resides. It is possible that the imposter puffin is a deep cover Lakewood Police Detective. More to be discovered next week at the Puffin Roast.
Upcoming Events:
Friday, December 20th at Noon - Annual Roast - hosted by The Puffins
Friday, December 27th - No Rotary Meeting
Friday, January 3rd – No Rotary Meeting
Friday, January 10th -noon Rotary Club Meeting at the Pavilion at Fort Steilacoom Park
Gayle Selden
The December 13th meeting of the Rotary Club of Lakewood was in one of our alternative locations, the grill room down in the basement of the Tacoma Country and Golf Club. As I descended the stairs I was greeted by Chuck Hellar as the solo person working a desk. I was rather late to the meeting so I missed our Paul Harris desk person and anyone else who may have been there.
I have really had a more pressing issue on my mind then making the meeting on time. I have been infrequent to the meetings as of late. I’ve had some other pressing obligations. And I have had such worry—a worry that has been weighing on me since the first time I noticed an imposter stuffed bird at a Rotary meeting. It was the last Friday in August when I noticed Phyllis Stone carrying a black stuffed bird that was referred to as a Puffin. But that was no puffin I had seen before. My curiosity had been peaked. When did our old puffins become replaced with this new pretender?
In 1977, President Elect Mel Neighbors created the name for the newest members of our Lakewood Rotary group. New members for one year are referred to as Puffins and in more recent years those new members have carried a stuffed Puffin to meetings until the next new person is inducted into the club. In the year of President Mary Horn there were so many members being inducted the stuffed puffin was flying around barely spending any time with new inductees. Seeing that as a problem I donated a stuffed Puffin that was from the collection of Ted Weir. This second puffin was smaller than the original, a little sun faded and had a clear plastic collar. And now it seems both of those puffins are missing in action.
President Carl Bronkema called the meeting to order and welcomed all of us. He introduced Philip Lindholm for the invocation and Jim Merritt, visiting Rotarian from Tacoma 8, to lead the pledge of Allegiance. Carl then thanked Connie Coleman-Lacadie for working the Paul Harris desk and Chuck Hellar for being the Sargent at Arms. Tom George, James Osundwa and Rob Erb seemed to handle the set up quite well. Phil Eng was “phileng” in as a photographer. Myself, Gayle Selden, took up the duties as a scribe/investigative reporter.
Kris Kaufman introduced a guest but said their name before he was close enough to the microphone. Welcome whomever you were! Kamarie Wilson introduced neighbor Craig Guppy who attended our last Rotary on Tap at Mis Tres Amigos after seeing it on Facebook. Assistant Chief Ryan McGrady joined Chief Jim Sharp. Visiting Rotarians included aforementioned Jim Merritt and Marshall Meyer from Clover Park Rotary and our speaker of the day.
President Bronkema spent a lot of time on Zoomers today greeting many on the screen. He gave extra ribbing to John Caufield whose Boston Bruins has lost to the Kraken the evening before. John gave $100 for the mention of Boston.
Wendy McGowen had a full sunshine report mentioning Marie Neiditz’ lovely service, Jan Gee who is recovering from surgery, Wynn Hoffman who is recovering from surgery, Sharon Rediske who is recovering from surgery and Liz Heath who is recovering from surgery. Donna Phillips broke her wrist but no surgery was reported. Also mentioned was Bill Price who is fully blind and suffering with Lewy Body dementia. Pat Price did mention they are expecting their first great grandchild.
Greg Rediske led us in Birthday and Anniversary Celebrations. Best line was a zinger to John Korsmo celebrating 34 years of being a Rotarian and coming back to a meeting after 34 weeks away. Birthdays in attendance included Chuck Hellar, Phillip Lindholm, Jim Sharp, Becky Wiggins and Dwight Williams. Greg asked some questions that were part of the Christmas Dinner program. We learned more about Frosty, Gene Autry and Chestnuts. We also learned the reindeer in Jingle Bells is not named Bob.
Tori Murphy was given her blue badge for completing all the requirements for full membership. Including attending a board meeting. Which is wonderful as she is slated to be one of our newest board members.
President Carl then called up Greg Rediske, John Lowney, Tori Murphy, Don Anderson, Dwight Williams and Barlow Buescher. He asked us to vote to approve them. He asked for a motion and then a second. A confused bulletin writer asked for a point of clarification as to the understanding that there is a two week wait from board announcement to vote.
The Mandela effect is a phenomenon in which people collectively misremember facts, events, or other details in a consistent manner. And apparently the announcement of a new board slate and a two week wait that many of us thought existed is one of those Mandela effects. According to our by-laws in Article III Section II it is written “Not less than two months prior to the date of the election, the president shall appoint one nominating committee co-chaired by the two immediate past presidents who shall name additional members as they see fit. At a regular meeting not less than one month prior to the election, the presiding officer shall ask for nominations by members of the club for president-elect, secretary, treasurer and three members of the Board of Directors. The nominations made shall be placed on a ballot, in alphabetical order, under each office, and shall be voted by voice vote, or if necessary, by written ballot. The nominating committee will provide a slate of nominees to the Board and Officers prior to a formal club announcement and vote.” So, the word prior has turned into two weeks in many Lakewood Rotarian heads.
We had clarification that Barlow Buescher will be President Elect, Greg Rediske will be Secretary, John Lowney will be Treasurer and Tori Murphy, Mark Silva and Don Anderson will be directors. The was moved and voted in the affirmative! Thank you so much to these members for serving on the Board. Also thank you to Tom George, Carl Bronkema, Connie Coleman-Lacadie, Dwight Williams and James Osundwa for continuing their service.
President Carl and Mark Herr will be starting their Saturday morning at the Wreathes Across America event. Other members will be spending their Saturday delivering bikes to kids in the community. Bill thanked Greg Rediske and Leeanna Albretch for their work getting us ready for the delivery. Gayle Selden reminded members about the break bag delivery on Monday morning at the Clover Park Axillary Center at 9219 Lakewood Drive. 1000 bags delivered in 120 minutes. Lots of volunteer activities in this week before.
Bill Potter also thanked those who participated in the Lakewood Holiday Parade and helped us advertise the Dolly Parton Imagination Library.
President Carl then called John Korsmo out to fine him. Carl had no reason so John stood there. Until Carl suggested $5 per missed meeting. In an unlikely move, John offered his own information. He is proud to have both kids working in the company. Son Beau is engaged. And John did admit he might’ve missed a President or two so he donated $100 for Carl and $100 for Mary Horn.
Charles Herberle was in the room and donated $100 in honor of the upcoming Puffin Roast. Wendy McGowen paid $100 in honor of her daughter’s genetic research on Orange Cats and the arhgag36 gene.
Steve Saafield gave all a lesson in text news verses call news in explaining it would be the first Christmas without his oldest. Barb Spriggs announced she sold her BMWZ3, which she won at a casino, and replaced it with a Mustang Mach E.
Bulletins are a great source of information for the club. Back editions of “The Key” are available on Lakewoodrotary.com. It was there where I found a break in the case of the lost Puffins. The last mention of the puffin was in Greg Rediske’s April 15th edition. It was on this day that we inducted three new members. And on this day Linda Ripley, Mark Silva, Scott Casebolt, Philip Lindholm, Tori Murphy and Kamarie Wilson all were in possession of the puffins. Critical reading let me know that Tori Murphy and Scott Casebolt seemed to end up with a puffin a piece. However, there was a record that Kamarie Wilson lamented handing over the puffin so soon. The last know whereabouts of two puffins together at the meeting was April 15th.
I contacted Kamarie to see what she remembered from the incident and whom she remembered handing the puffin off to. . .after that meeting Kamarie had the original puffin—not the Ted Wier one-and took it to the Wine Fest. There, she handed off to Brie Cooper who had just become our newest member. So, it was a secret handoff that was not witnessed by the membership. Did Brie still have Puffin #1?
John Korsmo introduced our speaker Marshall Meyer, General Manager of the Lakewood Water District. John is one of three elected Commissioners of Lakewood Water. The other two are Greg Rediske and Gary Barton. John explained the job of the commissioners and the water district. I misheard John say they worked on keeping Peatmoss out of the water supply. I later learned we are not making Scotch with Lakewood water as he actually said Pfas.
Marshall has been the general manager for the last year and prior to that he was the engineer. Marshall has been with Lakewood Water District for a long tenure. The Lakewood Water District was started in 1943. It currently services 62,000 retail customers and 5 wholesale customers. The Lakewood Water District monitors is responsible for hydrants, a lot of piping, providing 14K in water per day to its customers (double in the summer), testing and monitoring wells and water quality tests.
Marshall explained the hydrogeology of the area and the water resource area. He showed diagrams of the geology and our wells and what depth the water is pulled from. We got to see the cable tool drilling that is used now as well as in the 1940s. 141 Acre foot of precipitation provide the water for the 18 square mile Lakewood watershed. Right now, some of our shallower wells are offline due to Pfas (not peatmoss).
The precipitation and water levels of American Lake and Gravelly Lake are studied to help diagnose the amount of water available in the watershed. They are noticing a long, slow decline in the level of water in both lakes and amount of precipitation. This is a trend they are watching closely.
Pfas that have been mentioned re”peat”edly are found in scotch guard, Teflon, makeup and the firefighting foam used at JBLM (most notably at McChord). Our shallow wells have some Pfas present and are not used for water. Deeper wells have not had pfas detected. There is a carbon filter system that can be used to remove Pfas (think big Brita system). Those systems cost 100K so will be added when needed. My table mate, Chief Jim Sharp, said its been over 30 years since firefighting foam with Pfas has been used by West Pierce.
The big project that Lakewood Water district is working on is having Western State Hospital as a customer. Western State has been providing his own water from two wells on the property. Those wells could become part of the Lakewood Water system but they need significant upgrades. They will help provide water rights for 10 more years of growth of use for the watershed.
Lots of questions from the floor. Most interesting was that Lakewood Water put out for a vote whether to add Fluoride to the water. The votes were split 50/50 so it was decided to not add Fluoride. Our school district and the health departments work in this area seem to help long the proven help to tooth care for our youth.
Hopefully, I didn’t water down any of this information.
Don Anderson won $5 in the raffle. So, the pot grows but not the peatmoss.
As the meeting was called to an end I was having a brief conversation regarding finance council information with John Lowney. Out of the corner of my eye I spotted a plastic collar on a small faded puffin in the hands of Tori Murphy! One half of the mystery is solved. The second puffin who last was seen with Brie Cooper is still in the wild. A quick email to Brie and I learned she had handed it off. The person who has it might be the most seasoned investigator in all of Lakewood Rotary. The last known holder of Puffin #1 is Chief Patrick Smith! Hopefully, Chief Smith will illuminate us as to where that puffin now resides. It is possible that the imposter puffin is a deep cover Lakewood Police Detective. More to be discovered next week at the Puffin Roast.
Upcoming Events:
Friday, December 20th at Noon - Annual Roast - hosted by The Puffins
Friday, December 27th - No Rotary Meeting
Friday, January 3rd – No Rotary Meeting
Friday, January 10th -noon Rotary Club Meeting at the Pavilion at Fort Steilacoom Park
Sponsors
