President Biondo shared these announcements:
- The theme this month is Basic Education & Literacy and today happens to be International Literacy Day!
- The thought for the day: "Carry out a random act of kindness with no expectation of reward, safe in the knowledge that one day someone might do the same for you." - PRINCESS DIANA
- Thanks to Mark Febus and Don Overly for being greeters today. Next week’s greeters are Chris Norman and Ram Nunna AT THE KENNARD NATURE NOOK, not Yankee Trace.
- Guests today included Amy Hary, guest of Sofie Ameloot, and Wyatt Thorp, son and business partner of Brad Thorp.
President Biondo noted there are so many Rotarians doing so much great work and gave a hearty thanks to everyone!
Boyd Preston announced our meeting next week is at the McEwen Road entrance to Grant Park. If possible, arrive by 11:45 am. Lunch will be ready by 11:30 am with the 50th Anniversary Project ground breaking program starting at 12:15 pm. Sofie Ameloot reminded all to get your lunch orders in ASAP if you haven’t already.
Boyd then also announced that Pancake tickets are here. Rotarians are responsible for selling 20 tickets. For new Rotarians, it is just a request the first year. We sold 1600 tickets last time and hope to exceed that number this year. See Boyd or Harvey Smith If you need more tickets or to turn in money. Please make check payable to Centerville Rotary Club. Boyd will check with Mark Balsan to see if an Invoice can be generated to use this year. We will set up quarterly payments again for next year.
President Biondo reminded everyone about the upcoming social at Lock 27. September 28 6:30-8:30 pm is Quiz for a Cause at Lock 27 Brewing. The event is on social media so like and share! We’ll have trivia, 50/50, and other fun activities to support Operation Warm. There are some opportunities for volunteers to help run the event. It is an 80s theme and a good way to promote the Rotary Club of Centerville. Come early and have dinner or you might find yourself standing!
Crissy Allums and President Biondo are working on the Dayton Diaper Depot with the Centerville Noon Optimist Club. We’ll have a friendly contest to see which club can collect the most diapers. Dates are now Oct 8-22. There is also a service opportunity to repackage cases into 25 and 50 bundles. Tuesday Oct 25, we will have a joint meeting with the Optimists to bundle diapers. Time TBD. We also need 8-12 volunteers Sat, September 24, 9:30-11:30 am to help package. Let Crissy know if you can help.
Happy Bucks this quarter go to support Operation Warm, providing new winter coats to children.
Pat Beckel was our Sergeant at Arms and shared that we have a lot of fun in this club; teasing means we have a lot of love for that person.
Happy Bucks were given generously for:
- Lee Hieronymus for a coat and that he will be speaking at the Miamisburg Rotary Club on Oct 12, teaching how to use extinguishers properly.
- Jeff Senney is going to Put in Bay with his grandkids to run a 5K, followed by a clam bake at fire house.
- Sofie Ameloot announced she and Bill will once again ride in the Tour de Gem on Oct 9. They plan on riding 100 km this year!
- Elda Gotos Gay went to the doctor and all is tops!
- Amy Henry is going to her first OSU game this week as her son is a Senior there.
- Carol Kennard for all of the club love and for Kelly McDonald stepping up to help with Facebook posts!
- Ginger Clark was happy.
- Bill Menker was at an Optimist meeting on Tuesday, talking about the library’s new Maker Space, and announced he will be on vacation in Michigan next week.
- Jim Harris was happy.
- Dick Hoback for a coat.
- Boyd Preston shared that last week he said something that crossed a line, and the new members may not know of his unique sense of humor. He apologized to the club and was sorry it happened. Apology accepted!
- Dan Johnson shared that 100 km is a little over 62 miles (67 miles said Bill)
- Dale Berry for Operation Warm and that we had 39 people here today.
- Ger Eastabrooks was happy.
- Wayne Davis was happy and he went to Frankie Valli concert where he still sounded good, and discovered Dale Berry sat two rows ahead of him.
- Kim Senft-Paras for the speaker today.
- Ray Merz was at Cleveland clinic last week for a breathing problem, The doctor thinks its a coronary artery restriction so he is finally on the right road with a plan. Ray has a new sense of hope.
- Adam Manning for our speaker and noted the Pancake Day volunteer sign up and sponsor forms are available at the sign-in desk.
- Don Overly for Operation Warm.
- Brad Thorp was happy.
- Harvey Smith visited Don Gerhardt this week, and he asked to be remembered to the club. Don is a past president, and the author of the pancake song. We all miss him!
- Brad Huffman’s wife had to drive to Detroit MI at the last minute to pick up her passport before flying out to Ireland and made it just in time.
- Chuck King saw a Spiro Gyra concert in Cincinnati. They have been performing non-stop since the 70’s.
- Pat Beckel for Boyd always giving us something to smile about and for being one who will always volunteer to help.
Our speaker today was George Ironstock, from the Myaamia Center at Miami University
George was originally from Chicago but now lives in Oxford. He is a Citizen of the Miami tribe of Oklahoma.
One of the goals of the Myaamia Center is to renew & revitalize the Myaamia language and cultures. There are currently 44 Miami Citizen undergrads at Miami University. They first started coming to Miami University in 1991.
Currently there are just over 6700 Miami Citizens in 49 states, with three main populations in Oklahoma, Kansas, and Indiana
Most don’t know much about how the tribes were forcefully removed from Ohio/Midwest.
Indian Citizens have certain rights and responsibilities of their tribe and the United States. Their tribe licenses vehicles, they have lands, laws to govern those lands, and police to patrol those lands.
There is an annual gathering of the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma, where they elect tribal leaders and pass referendums.
Youth education is where George works. His focus is to teach how to take up the role for next generation to keep the tribal language and traditions going.
Rock River is what they named the Miami River (they don’t name things after themselves).
Throughout history the Miami have had shared landscape with other tribes. There was no warfare but they worked on how to live near each other.
The 1795 Treaty of Greenville and those after, pushed the citizens out of their homelands. Remnant populations came from 150 people that were allowed to remain in Indiana. Population centers are the result of history of removal.
In 1800, the US was actively hostile to other languages and had the goal to silence tribal languages. Indian children were placed in boarding schools where they were only allowed to speak English. The US was trying to keep from passing on the tribal language to children, so it would be lost. When there are no children under 5 who can speak a language, it is considered dead. In the 1960’s the Myaamia language went into dormancy until the early 1990’s. There are leaders now working to bring back their language.
They have discovered lots of written sources for their language from late 1600-1960. Dictionaries were developed to teach language and an online dictionary/app is used to learn the language. You can add words to it (such as COVID).
Languages reflect the people of the time.
1972 the Myaamia Center was formed at Miami University. In the 1990’s core educational classes were introduced.. There are currently
18 employees of the Center. It is unique to have an initiative of the Miami of Oklahoma at a college setting.
Today hundreds of people are now using the language on a regular basis. The goal is to build back the language that was dormant for 30 years.
For more information:
Next week our program is the 50th Anniversary Project Groundbreaking at Grant Park - McEwen Road Entrance (6588 McEwen Road, just south of Alex-Bell Road.)
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