Friday Potpourri

Nancy Dalton Rob LoBosco

In a first-ever happening, two Rotary Clubs traded Chief Executives for a day, with Nancy Dalton, President of University Rotary, taking the reins Friday morning, while her BBRC counterpart, Brian “Aussie” Evison, ran the University meeting at noon on Friday. It was a memorable day!

Nancy introduced Rob LoBosco who gave the invocation and led the pledge. His invocation follows:

Invocation to the Bellevue Breakfast Rotary Club, October 17, 2003

I am very grateful for this opportunity to provide the invocation because I feel it is one of the most important parts of Rotary. It is a time for us to reflect upon our implicit relationship with God and to pledge our allegiance to this great country.

Just this week, these two rites were brought into the foreground when the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case concerning the phrase “Under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance. It seemed strange to me that it wasn’t always there. The phrase was added in the fifties as a sign to the avowedly Godless communists that we were not only different because of our system of free and democratic government, but even more so because we are a people, a nation, under God, forever committed to being a beacon of freedom to those who suffer the evil of oppression.

The phrase wasn’t there before because it was self-evident. More than three centuries ago, John Winthrop, the first governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, set the tone as he prepared to set foot on the shores of the New World. He wrote, “We shall find that the God of Israel is among us … when he shall make us a praise and glory, that men of succeeding generations shall say ‘The Lord make it like that of New England.’ For we must consider that we shall be as a City upon a Hill, the eyes of all people are upon us …”

We have always been, and I pray always will be, a nation under God.

I am proud to be a Rotarian because I feel that Rotary is an organization under God – not religious, but implicitly under God’s guidance, expressed in no better way than the phrase “Service above Self.”

Please join me in a prayer:

Dear God,

Bless the Bellevue Breakfast Rotary Club and thank you for leading me here. Help me to join them in their selfless service, in “Service above Self.” May your presence be known among us and evident in all that we do. May this spirit of selflessness extend through Rotary International as an example to people everywhere of the true meaning of “Under God.” And may you always bless the United States of America.

Amen.

And now let us pledge our allegiance, loud enough, and proud enough, to reach the Supremes in Washington, D.C.

Alan Pratt

Alan Pratt greeted three visiting Rotarians, including Chuck Clegern and Carr Krueger, Seattle #4; Nancy Dalton, University; and Warren Crain, Emerald City.

Visiting President Dalton revealed the plan to trade presidents was hatched several months ago when she and Brian attended PETS. “Seemed like a good idea at the time,” she said. “Brian has a habit of getting people in trouble, so I hope I get through this activity this morning!”