Good afternoon. Welcome to the Bloomington Rotary Club's weekly celebration of service. I'm Steve Wicks,
so I'm honored to serve as your president this year. Please silence your electronic devices. On this
day in history, May 19th,
Good afternoon. Psalm 118, 24 says, this is the day the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in
it. Abraham Lincoln said, folks are usually about as happy as they make their minds up to be.
Charles Schultz says, happiness is a warm puppy. Or one of my favorite, a scout is cheerful. Proverbs
17-22 says, a cheerful heart is good medicine. Being happy offers significant health benefits, including
stronger immune system, lower stress levels, improved heart health, reduced pain, and increased longevity.
Happiness fosters better habits,
such as healthy eating and regular exercise, which can increase your lifespan. It also boosts resilience
and cognitive function. Finding happiness in the face of adversity involves cultivating resilience through
gratitude, maintaining a growth mindset, and nurturing social connections. It is a proactive, dynamic
process of focusing on what can be controlled, celebrating small victories,
and finding meaning despite challenging circumstances. Practices like mindfulness, self-care, and humor
help manage stress and build lasting strength. So key strategies for cultivating joy during hardship
is one, practicing gratitude. Actively acknowledging the good things, even small ones, shifts our focuses
from deficiencies to abundance.
Foster a growth mindset. View challenges as opportunities for personal growth rather than insurmountable
obstacles. Focus on control. Concentrate efforts on actions within your control while accepting the
things that cannot be changed. Connect with others. Lean on relationships and supportive communities
to feel less alone in your struggle. And engage in self-care. Prioritize sleep, exercise, and activities
that bring joy or peace.
to manage emotional regulation. So I hope you can use this reflection to center your thoughts and actions
towards pursuing more happiness. Thanks. Thank you, Randy. Leslie Kutsenko will introduce some of our
guests today, and also, while she's up front, provide us with a brief update of this week's Wonderlab
Summer Blastoff Service Project. Hello.
How is everybody? Awesome. So I have some limestone host guests. So with Michael Shermas, I have Ann
Kibler, Noelle Herhusky-Schneider, and Becky Wan. Nope, nope. Dacen Anderson with Joy Harder. So then
I have Betty Coffee, who is the sister of Glenda, who's a clergy member.
Raise your hands. Emily Reynolds with Michael with Limestone Pose. This is going swimmingly. And anyone
is a guest of Brad Meyer. Do we have any guests online? Well, we have one person who is identified as
user. So that's our mysterious guest or Rotarian of the day.
That's all folks. Summer Blast Off. Summer Blast Off. Okay, so we're getting ready for Summer Blast
Off, which is from 3 to 8 p.m. outside at Wonder Lab. We need volunteers for the Rotary to hand out STEM kits
All of the STEM kits have been completed or will be completed by the end of today. So you don't actually
have to assemble anything. You don't have to create a science project. We just need to show up and be
Rotarians for service. Where it's in a shaded area, you don't have to bring anything. We have chairs,
tables, all the banners are coming, et cetera. You just have to bring yourself. So there's a sign up
sheet that's at the checkout desk.
Please, please, please sign up. We would love more Rotarians. There's only five people that have signed
up so far. So please, please, please volunteer for Summer Blast Stop. Question. It's not going to rain.
If it rains, everything gets moved inside Wonder Lab. We've had big events inside Wonder Lab before.
The explosions will have to be eliminated though. What day this Thursday?
from three to eight and with the Rotary Foundation giving the $6,000 grant, it's not only coming free
admission, all of the STEM kits and everything that goes along with this. So it's a free admission day
the entire day.
However, the block party is when school ends. We have everything from the STEM bus, the ROI bus. We
have all of the local museums, including Monroe County History Center, the Terre Haute Children's Museum.
We have Wesselman Woods coming, Parks and Rec, the library, Morgensterns, Bloomington Fine Arts, and
I know there's more. So it's going to be a big party. Thank you.
Thanks. Thanks, Leslie. Guests, certainly, if you'd like to learn anything about rotary, please ask
someone at your table. Can we have a round of applause for today's guests? And Sally, the phrase big
brother is listening when you find out who unknown user is, let us know. My theory is that Tyler planted
someone. Ah, I see.
birthdays. We have a number of birthdays to observe today. Tomorrow, Melinda Cedar and Alice Zulman.
On the 21st, Marcy Hibbard. On the 24th, Tina Swanson. And then Bill Brown has a birthday on the 25th.
We also have some anniversaries to note. Jim Griffith, one year tomorrow. On the 22nd, Maria Carraschio,
one year. On the 23rd, Girono Rotich, three years. And on the 25th,
Marcus Debro five years. Tyler can you fire up the PowerPoint. Okay well we'll start with the district
conference which is a week and a half ago in Louisville. Three districts Kentucky Tennessee and southern Indiana.
Here is the entrance to the reception area at Galt House before the crowds arrived. Here's a picture
taken during one of the meeting sessions. It was well attended. There was a full room. Here are pictures
from the Friendship House. And on the left, you can see people looking at baskets, deciding whether
to bid on baskets. And on the right is a picture of our basket, which was
prepared, donated by Judy Witt. You can see there were a number of bids, and there were more bids after
that. So this gathering was a week after the Kentucky Derby. So one of the themes was all the hats and
things that people wear at the Derby. And so Alann was not to be outdone. I don't know if there was
an award for best dressed, but he would have been a contender.
And you can look in the background and see people wearing lots of different hats. And if you really
focus in, you can't see it on the screen, but his name tag indicates district governor nominee. So at
the business meeting, Judy Witt made the motion. We unanimously vote for a land to be the district governor
for 28-29. So he's on his way. It's official.
So here's a picture of us winning the Club Excellence Award. It was called something else years ago.
This is something that we won last year. My guess is we probably won it every year. A handful of clubs
received this award. It's based on you set goals at the beginning of the year. You're allowed to make
a few changes. And then if you meet 13 of the 24 goals, you get the award. And here is this.
So it's kind of cool. I remember last year, Tracy handed it to me to look at. And I think this will
probably endure the same fate. Within a month or so, it'll end up in a box at Teacher's Warehouse. But
in the meantime, it's kind of nice to have. So social event. So Saturday was all business stuff, informative sessions.
Friday evening, there were four different outings. One was the Louisville Slugger Baseball Museum. Alain,
my wife Lisa and I went to the Peerless Distillery, which is a craft distillery just a few blocks away
from the hotel. So here are barrels of bourbon aging. And then the last thing we did on the, yes, they
even aged as we watched. And the last thing we did was go to their tasting room.
A tasting room, you'd go in and you'd get four small servings of rye or bourbon. And this is my wife
Lisa after the tasting. Lisa slumped on the bar and then from here I carried her back to the hotel.
This picture was posed, my wife and I are both lightweights and just to make sure there was no club
money being used to buy bourbon.
So highlights, the Friendship House raised $14,000 for the Rotary Foundation, money used to eradicate
polio and to do international projects. We donated a number of shoes. Some of you donated your gently
used and new shoes. Lots of other Rotarians did the same. They had a box on each floor for shoes, and
they were always full. So I don't know how many shoes they left with, but there was a bunch.
It was interesting meeting Rotarians from Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee. The Tennesseans had very deep
accents. So it was interesting. Sessions were informative, and the social outings were fun. Louisville
was a really fun place to have it. So let's move to a celebration of service, and let's look back to
last week. And the scholarship committee has traditionally been one of our stronger committees. This
year was no exception.
And we had a really upbeat, joyful session last year. But that starts with a lot of work. So here's
a picture from one of the planning sessions. I think Jim Shea took this picture. Jeff Richardson was
one of the co-chairs. Jeff is a wonderful host. So if you attended this meeting at Jeff's house, look
at all the food is served.
Jeff has been on our club board. He's leaving at the end of the term. Always brings cookies to the meeting.
Jeff is the guy you want to have in your organization. So here's a more traditional meeting with some
of the club members talking about scholarships. Like I said, there was a lot of planning. I want to
say they had nine finalists and they had to get down to four. And that was really hard because they
liked the nine individuals they had.
So the scholarship committee, Jonas Chang and Jeff Richardson were the co-chairs. Jeff Bradley,
Diana Hoffman, Steve Engel, Tim Jessen, Sandy Keller, Leslie Kutsenko, Connie Chakalas, Jim Shea, and
John Zote. Hopeful I didn't miss anyone, but can we have a round of applause for our scholarship committee.
And then this is the end result. Here are the four high school seniors we heard from last week. Just
very upbeat, knowledgeable. I enjoyed all four of them. And they're heading off to do great things.
So here's a picture of an empty plate. And this is a reminder to me that we ran out of food last week.
So that hasn't happened in my year of president.
I really want to apologize. We had communicated to the IMU beforehand that we are expecting a big crowd.
And evidently the word didn't get through the system properly. So we ran out of food. I think everybody
got something. Lots of people didn't get what they hoped to get. So the IMU was very apologetic. But
I will want to remind the group that for a group our size, when we eat somewhere, if you go other places in town,
they want a fixed number a week, five days ahead of time. The IMU lets us roll with whomever comes in
because we just fit into the other things that they're doing. So that's really convenient. And sometimes
it's easy to forget. So now we're in the summer. There were fewer things going on. So they're having
to adjust to their workload. But anyway, so sorry for running out of food. I see.
Yes, and Tracy does say that it definitely keeps the cost down. I would say if we had to have a firm
number each week and ask each and every one of you if you plan to attend, we'd build in a little bit
of pad and the extra costs would get spread out among the members. So anyway, hopefully it won't happen
again. But if it does, just please roll with it. So Wonderlab summer blast off, I want to echo what
Leslie had to say.
Once again, this is a Rotary Foundation Rotary Club-sponsored project. Here is the kit. You can see
the glow worm. I've already helped assemble some of these kits, so it's kind of cool. And here is what
Leslie's shown, and the actual sign-up sheet is there, and Leslie's sitting here at the front table.
So other things going on.
Business After Hours is on the May 21st, Central Supply Company, 1150 Sunrise Greeting Court in Bloomington,
530 to 730. So after you've volunteered at Wonder Lab, you can go to Chamber Business After Hours or
you can go there and do work cleanup at Wonder Lab. We, Rotary Club members, attend free of charge.
So fifth annual Refugees Summer Pitch In is this coming Sunday, May 24th at the Upper Cascades Lions
Den. Refugees, volunteers, friends are welcome. Bring a dish to share if you can. I don't see Cindy
Neidhart here today, but probably Sarah Laughlin or Dave Meyer can help if you need more information.
One thing to note, I think that the bridge from Lower Cascades to Upper Cascades is now out. So if you
want to get
to the upper cascades, lines, dens, shelter, you need to get there from Kinzer. Okay, we need two volunteers
to work Meals and Wheels the morning of Friday, May 29th. Diana Hoffman is here today. Please see her
if you're interested. And then some other things coming up, June 5th and into the 6th, the Beacon Solidarity Sleepout.
So June 9th is one of the Tuesdays when the union is fully booked and they ask us to go elsewhere. And
so that day, we're meeting at the Neal Marshall Black Culture Center. So kind of file that away on June
9th. We won't be meeting here. We'll be going to Neal Marshall. And then the same thing is true on June
23rd. The union is fully booked. So we're having our club picnic that day. And it'll be at lunchtime
on Tuesday the 23rd at the Bryan Park Woodlawn Shelter.
And it's a shelter with plenty of parking right next to it. July 11th, the Teacher's Warehouse Supply
Drive will need lots of volunteers for that. And then November 6th, the Rotary Toast, if you want to
buy a table, they are for sale, not yet selling individual membership or individual tickets. Rotary
Seven Area is a focus. And then a reminder that May is Youth Service Month.
I think that's everything, and Joy Harder will introduce today's speaker. Thank you, Steve. Hi, everybody.
Nice to see you all in person. Can you hear me well? OK. So it is my pleasure to introduce our guest
speaker today, Dason Anderson.
Dason is the executive editor for the Limestone Post digital magazine. And he's been in that role for
about a year. Limestone Post is a local nonprofit organization serving our community through in-depth
journalism and cultural storytelling. I'm proud to be involved with Limestone Post since 2021. I currently
serve as the president of the board.
Dason grew up in south of Bloomington in Lawrence County, where he loved to spend time in the woods.
Yes. And the quarries. Yes. He's a real nature guy. And he now calls Bloomington his home after being
out west Colorado for quite some time, returning to Bloomington. And he's still out in the woods, traveling,
being a nature guy.
And interestingly, especially now that we know, we're reminded that May is Youth Services Month. When
Dason was in high school and he attended Bedford North Lawrence, he received a high school scholarship
from the Bedford Rotary Club. How cool is that? We're gonna clap for you. All right. Dason is an Indiana
University alumnus with a degree in creative writing. He is an award-winning journalist,
published poet, and he's actually been involved with Limestone Post for many years. He joined Limestone
Team in 2016 as assistant editor and then over the last 10 years still had involvement and was engaged
with Limestone Post in a variety of capacities. For the past two years of note, Limestone Post contributors,
so I mean writers, including Dayson, have received back to back
Best of Indiana Journalism Awards from the SPJ. SPJ is the Society for Professional Journalists. And
we're quite proud of Dasin and our other writers who have distinguished themselves with some excellent
in-depth writing. I don't know if Dasin will remember this, but when we met about a year ago, you said
that being the executive editor of Limestone Post would be your dream job.
And he's fulfilling his dream. He really is. Dason is enthusiastic, he's creative, and he will lead
Limestone Post into the future and help us grow and expand our service to the community and help us
all stay informed, engaged, and inspired. Please join me in a warm welcome to Dason Anderson. Thank you.
Hello, Rotarians. I will probably echo some of what Joy has said and expand on it. And I'm going to
start with an unplanned anecdote just because you brought it up about my dream to step into this position.
I was moving home from Colorado after a few years of attempting to live there. I've decided it's a place
worth vacationing and not so much residing. But I was in the U-Haul with my brother-in-law at the time
driving through Kansas in the middle of the night. And he says, what are you going to do when you get
back home? And I had a job lined up. And he said, do you still
write for the magazine, because actually he and I had collaborated on a story once. And I said, oh yeah,
I've continued to write for it. And he was like, would you ever want to run that ship someday?
And I said, well, if Ron ever decides to retire, sure, why not? And lo and behold, it happened. So that
was great. Now back to the script.
First of all, thank you Rotarians for all the wonderful work you do in the community and around the
world, the money that you make accessible to community members and children, and the needs that you
provide are invaluable. Of course, I was a beneficiary of the Rotary Club when I was a wee high school
lad, and it really helped me in my journey at IU.
in that education. I remember I believe it was a man named Irvin. And he had one arm. And I had to shake
his hand with my left hand, which I just remember that that moment so distinctly and then being so thankful
for for that opportunity. So thank you again. I am indeed from Lawrence County. I still secretly live
in Lawrence County, about a mile south of the county line. So I have a Bedford address. Ironically,
I thought I'd never
move back to my childhood home, but there I am. Bloomington, however, is my chosen home. I spend almost
all of my time here in this community with these people. I come up to Bloomington to work from various
coffee shops or wherever. And so this is, Bloomington is my chosen home. And I'm very happy and very
proud to be a representative member of that. And one of the things that Limestone Post allows me and
allows us to do is to give this community a voice and a platform
to speak and to share news and information, arts, history, culture. So I'm very happy to be able to
do that. I indeed did grow up in the woods. My family, so I say I'm from Bedford, I'm not.
I'm from Avoka, Olidick, Springville kind of wilderness area. And so, you know, my backyard was the
Avoka State Fish Hatchery.
which is now a community foundation run public park, which is great. And so, you know, I just grew up
running through the woods and exploring caves and wondering why the fence had danger, no trespassing
explosives. And boy, what was on the other side of that fence? I'm glad we never ventured to find out.
Otherwise I probably wouldn't be standing here. But, you know, that was just part of growing up in the
quarries and on the other side of the highway,
my family's from a litic and we lived on our well that my grandparents lived on the dead end street
that used to be highway 37 and it dead ends of a cliff with that the Indiana limestone company. And
you know it was common practice to just jump off of a giant cliff into dark deep mysterious water and
go swimming.
So again, amazing that I'm standing here before you today, given the adventures of my youth. But it
instilled in me a great love, not only for this industry that has shaped so many of these buildings,
the one in which we stand now, so much of this campus and so much of this town and state. Growing up
in the limestone quarries, I think, see, I say quarries instead of quarry. So, all right, I think it
was a common misnomer around these parts.
It gave me such an appreciation for the history and the industry of where we live here in southern Indiana
and the limestone belt. And it was a lot of fun. Let's see. So I attended IU where I did major in religious
studies and got a minor in creative writing technically. But that was kind of my passion and my pursuit.
I started with poetry and in fact this hallway adjacent here to the Georgian room, there's restrooms
down at the end.
I had to use the facilities one day as a student walking through the union. And I just happened, oh,
there's a restroom. And I turned down this hall. And it's lined with these photographs. And I was fascinated
by the Frank Hohenberger photographs that this guy went over to Brown County and took pictures of the
people living there. And I really had to pee. But I also had to really get to class. So I was like,
oh, those are cool pictures. And I came back soon thereafter.
And I spent, I think, two or three hours at night one time with my notebook. And I think there are 27
photographs. And I just stood there and I wrote a poem about each one. And I did that because I am so
invested in the stories of this area and the history of this area.
And seeing the photographs of those people, it's going to make me cry because there's this one of this
old woman on a porch. You got to go look at it. And just the humanity in those photographs sticks with
me to this day. So I was so happy when we got here. I was like, oh, it's in the Georgian room. I can
look at those photographs again. So that was awesome. One of the things I did in IU was co-facilitator, co-host a
poetry reading, a group of poets. We got together and we did this for almost, I think, three or four
years. We published a zine. That was my first foray into publication. We did six runs of a zine. And
as IU students, you were allocated printing pages that you can go to the library or wherever and print.
So when our poetry group wanted to do the zine project, we asked all of the members of our poetry club
to donate their page
quota. And so we just ran off dozens of copies of these zines and we were in the
Herman B. Wells Library, my friend Pierce and I just commandeering printers and just printing off stacks
and stacks of pages of these zines and had a big stapling party and it was a lot of fun. But we would
do poetry readings most often at what was Rachel's Cafe is now Uncle Wang's Alley there on the third
street by the police station. So that was a wonderful space that they allowed us to use every month.
What did we call it first?
Thursdays, I think is what it was, we would do poetry readings on the top of parking garages in caves,
wherever we could find a spot to read poems to each other. And so that was just another way that I early
on got involved with the voices in my community, and learn to love and appreciate the art that comes
from collaborative storytelling. After IU, I was looking for a career I worked at
Blooming Foods. I was an independent gardener, landscaper, and sticking with the limestone theme, I
put up posters at Blooming Foods for hire. The limestone garden gnome. Thank God that didn't take off.
But I did have a few private clients. Doug Wissing, who some of you may know, a journalist.
So that kind of got me, oh, journalism, that's an interesting, I would speak to Doug after working at
his house. And again, just got my hands dirty and invested in the community and continued to get deeper,
more deeply knitted into the fabric of Bloomington. Then in 2016, I wanted to get more involved in writing
and I thought, well, maybe publication
our publishing and editing or journalism would be an avenue of pursuit. And a friend of mine very briefly
was the, I think, marketing and advertising person for Limesome Post in 2015-16 when the magazine got
started. So I hit him up and he connected me with Ron. And I went into their office, which was at that
weird curved intersection on 11th Street by the train tracks or Cottage Grove, I think, maybe.
I think now it's a yoga studio. At the time it was kind of a half unfinished blue building. And I go
in there and they sit me down at the desk and they give me a laptop with an editing quiz on it.
And I passed. And I still, I have a, they gave me a cheat sheet of editing shorthand, which is still
in my backpack now with the notes and the margin.
And so that was kind of my beginning with Limestone Post. Ron and Linnae, Ron Eade and Linnae Sawinski
started Limestone Post in 2015. At the time it was a for-profit publication and we're an online digital
magazine serving Bloomington, Monroe County and surrounding areas. Ron was publisher and Linnae was
editor, lead editor. They both edited but
And so they hired me on as assistant editor and it was a wonderful opportunity and I loved it so much
and we had so much fun working together for a few years. I was on the team. I mean, I've never really
left the team. But I was on the early years we had that really quirky office up on the northwest side
and then we moved to
Graham Plaza Hotel on the square, which was luxurious. It was very nice. I loved going to the office
there. We had those arched windows with the flower boxes that look over college. So I mean, it was just
ideal. But that was very expensive. So then we moved to another shared office location downtown. And
those were just wonderful years. We not only was I assistant editor, so I was working on
stories from people in the community like Michael Glab and Laurie Borman and Ruthie Cohen and many,
many others. And very likely, I probably worked on a story of yours in the early days and didn't even
realize it. And I lost my train of thought on that one. Oh, but Ron had also allowed me to be a contributor
as well as
the, you know, 10 or 15 hours I was putting in every week as assistant editor. And so that's when I
really got my chops in more formal writing, because up to that point, I had just been a fancied myself
a poet and a creative writer. And so really was able to invest in practice in journalism. In 2018, I
moved to Colorado, and I tried to continue working as assistant editor, but 1000 mile gap is quite the
gap to bridge when
You're working for a magazine that is so hyper focused on one community and so not being here made it
very, very difficult to stay involved to the depth and capacity that I wish. So at that time, about
2018 or so, I stepped down from the assistant editor position, but I continued to contribute. I wrote,
I think in 2018 or 19, I wrote a
piece which is still very near and dear to my heart and may actually be one of my favorite articles
that I've written about the history of Hoosier barns and the preservation of those. My family, my family's
been in Lawrence County since the 1800s and we have a barn on my dad's mom's childhood home property.
A barn that was built in the 1800s and I remember you know as a kid climbing up the ladder and and
trying not to get eaten by the buzzards that lived up in the hayloft and just playing there. And they
kept cows in the fields then. And I don't think I would do this today. And I probably wouldn't let my
son do this. But back in the mid-90s, you got hot. It was July. You go lick the salt lake with the cows.
I didn't know that it was gross. Don't recommend doing that, though, because it is very gross.
that was just part of it. So writing stories like that was not only a way for me to honor, again, the
history of where we're from, but also to honor my own history and my own stories of where I'm from.
And so I'm very grateful that Ron allowed me to continue writing for the magazine, even when I lived
1000 miles away. I covered the first eclipse that happened and I covered the second eclipse that happened
that story, which I kind of weaved into a larger narrative of
Art going on in town with sculptors and performances and live music and all that. That was an award-winning
article that I was awarded at the Society of Professional Journalists Awards. We'll get back to that
though. In 2019, I was still living far away and Ron and Linnae decided to transition to a nonprofit
model for the magazine, which changed
more probably behind the scenes than necessarily the the front page of our our website the front page
of our magazine but what it did do is allow for a lot more community involvement and sponsorship
opportunities and just kind of not share a charitable participation in the community i moved back in
2020 immediately
went to the Hundredth Hill with Krista Dutour, wrote a really long piece about a theater residency she
was doing there in the midst of COVID, and pretty much just got back to town and jumped back in with
the Limestone Post crew. And, you know, Ron and I are buddies. We've been friends for a long time. We
would go hiking. And so I got reintegrated into the magazine.
I did, however, miss out on the Sense of Place publication because that's our one physical magazine,
kind of a coffee table style magazine book. I was somewhat involved, but I was living in Colorado at
the time and so they published it while I was away. Someone, I didn't catch your name and I apologize,
but somebody asked me, you know, where did you print it? And I said, I don't know.
Are you printing more? Maybe. I hope so. And we would love to. We would really love to do another print
edition. However, that does require a lot of that, a lot of money. So maybe that will be an opportunity
we have in the future. But for now, you'll have to visit limestonepost.org to see all of the stories
that we publish. I try to publish weekly, twice if I can. We're not
We're not consistent with that by a rule, but I like to and each of our stories is going to be covering
a topic of maybe what's happening in the news scene, what's happening in the political scene, the economy,
the education scene here in town, local government, county government, maybe adjacent county governments.
We're also going to cover the arts and the culture and lifestyle. We're going to tell stories about
the people that live here and feature the artists who work here and the nonprofit organizers who strive
to make this community the wonderful, impressive, amazing community that it is. And what sets us apart
in the local news scene from, say, the Herald Times or the work that Jeremy Hogan and Dave Askins do
is we're not daily news.
We're long form investigative journalism. So we spend time with our stories. We spend time with our
writers. There's a dialogue that occurs that goes back and forth when we're in the editorial process
so that we can really craft the best quality, you know, deepest diving look into the stories that are
being told. I say deepest diving because one of the things we have done in the past was our collaboration
with WFHB. We did the deep dive series where FHB would
We would write a story, long form investigative journalism story on food pantries or many topics that
we covered, housing. And then WFHB would air a radio segment on their news program. Good news is we
are bringing back a similar project that is as of yet unnamed. But we will again be collaborating with
WFHB to do an even bigger news program.
And it'll follow a very similar model. We will do an investigative journalism piece. WFHB will do a
joint broadcast piece. But the difference this time is that we are going to continue to go even deeper
and engage even further with that story by bringing on perhaps the person who wrote it, the contributor,
maybe someone who was interviewed, people from WFHB, and we will have a roundtable discussion.
and provide our community with an even deeper look at what's going on. So that's one of the projects
this year that we're very, very excited about. We've applied for some other grant opportunities waiting
to find out if we'll be awarded those. And if we do, that will be wonderful. It will increase the number
of stories that we can write. But we've got a very full editorial calendar. Aside from the
grant opportunities, I am
so excited to be able to work with contributors to the magazine that have been writing for us for many,
many years. Steve Hennefeld, Ruthie Cohen, as I mentioned before, Michael Glab is still one of our regular
contributors and we all know he's such a talented individual and storyteller. We've got a really good
one from him coming out. But also new
community members and people who are eager to try out their hand at journalism or maybe it's friends
that I had from back in my poetry collective days or my IU days. And being so integrated in this community
for so long has allowed me to really tap into the talent that Bloomington has and fill our magazine
with wonderful stories. While I'm
At this point, I do want to shout out our staff and our board of directors, Noel and Anne and myself
are the staff of Lime Sunpost and I really could not do this without the two of you. So immense thanks
and graciousness. And then of course, our board of directors, Joy and Emily, who are here today, probably,
no, undoubtedly work harder than I do to keep this magazine alive and to keep it thriving and
the effort that you put in is invaluable. And your volunteers, which is amazing. So I appreciate both
of you. When the magazine, I know I'm almost on time for the Q&A, so I'll wrap it up here. When we started
out our, right, am I good on time or am I over? Good, okay, perfect. Riders with a Voice, Photographers
with a Vision was the original motto for Limestone Post Magazine. And we stand by that, we still are
a place for that. But now, as we move into our 10th and now 11th year as an organization with a new
executive editor, Ron has finally slipped away into retirement and obscurity and no one has heard from
him in months. Now, that's not true. I saw him last week. But we're taking on a new approach.
to inform, engage, and inspire our readers. And that is something that we all thought about very hard
and that I feel really captures our mission as Limestone Post, to inform our community, to engage with
our community, and to inspire our community to do more, to contribute more, to write more, to tell stories
more, to do what you Rotarians do, and keep community alive. And I'll just wrap this up quickly. Again,
yeah, we went to the SPJs this week.
this year, SPJ awards this year, and won again as we do every year. So congrats to us. We have a new
website. We switched from a .com to a .org, which I think is important. We also shortened the URL from
limestonepostmagazine.com to limestonepost.org, so you can get there a lot quicker.
I could speak about our partnership with the Arnold Center. They did a big story for us last year, and
they're going to do another one for us this year. And it's always great to partner and collaborate with
students here at the university. So that's another community partner that we're very happy to have.
We're growing. We're getting new readers and new subscribers all the time. We just got a new subscriber
this morning. If it was one of you, and I forgot your names, I'm sorry, but thank you regardless.
And lastly, I'll just say one of my goals when I came on as executive director is I was thinking of
what can we do differently? And I wanted to establish columns. We now have three columns. I can only
take credit for two of those. Ruthie Cohen's stirring the pot cooking column has been going on since
day one. I think it was legitimately one of the first articles that ever got published was was one of
her first stirring the pot columns. But we now have Stephen Higgs doing an environment environmental
column for us.
and Steve Hennefeld doing an education column for us. So we're off to a good start with me at the helm,
and I'm happy to take any questions you might have. I saw your hand first, sir. No, no. Oh, we stuck
up on you. I defer to you. Fair, fair. First of all, thank you for all that you do. Thank you.
was a sophomore last year at IU, junior this year. And his girlfriend last year was doing zines. I don't
know how many people in this room know what zines are. So you might want to explain that. Firstly, second,
because I had no idea what it was. Secondly, it was interesting because it opened my eyes to at my at
that point in time, I was like, oh, there's an underground current because I don't think kids are that
informed. And I'm like, oh, no, they're quite informed. So I think it's if you could share that with
this group, that would be helpful. And then how are you or are you leveraging the university
talent that's out there. Thank you. Those are very good questions. Zines. Sorry, I'm trying to get my
notes back out of my pocket so I can have a scratch pad. So zines are little bits of paper folded up,
stapled together that are filled with typewritten words, scribbled words, drawings, and then you Xerox
off or print off
hundreds of copies and give them to your friends or slip them into the bookcase at the at Runcable Spoon
or leave them on a table for someone to find. So it's kind of an underground distribution of an art
magazine. And it was a lot of fun. Our zine, of course, was poetry and visual art. We called it eggs
with all caps because Michelle Gotchlich and I, who we were the co-hosts and co-organizers, we were
walking outside the Union over by like we're done meadow.
of comes over to the union there's that little I guess facility door where they move in trucks and whatnot
and they had these big boxes of eggs out there and we said that's a good name all caps so that's where
that came from I think today though kids I mean people's young people still do zines I still see them
there's zine conventions and and it's a it's been a thing since I don't know the 60s the 40s
forever since we've had paper and could stand right on it. And but I think social media is really influencing
the distribution of knowledge amongst young people and the distribution of art amongst young people.
And I think like digital zines are a thing that are out there. So I don't know. I mean, I'm not as young
as I once was, but I still think zines are fun. Now, how do we collaborate with with students at IU?
A lot of times I'll have
young journalism students who have maybe graduated or soon to be graduating and they want to work with
us. I think we've got three all young women journalists, Ellie Alban, Meredith Perkins, maybe two or
one or two more, who came directly from IU and reached out to us to write. And I, Meredith Perkins had
submitted her story recently on maternal mental health.
We haven't published it yet, but when we do, holy cow, it's amazing. She did an incredible job. So keep
an eye out for that one. And then we collaborate with the Arnold Center as well. They do like one big
story for us every semester. Yeah. Thank you. Again, thank you for taking the job, coming back
to Bloomington, and for all that you do. So my question is sort of on the financial side.
What percentage of your of your revenue is coming from subscribers versus other sources? Can you talk
a little bit about that? A small amount. Very small amount. We are a free magazine. And as long as I'm
in charge, we will always be a free magazine. I don't believe in paywalls. We publish a story.
It's out there. It's up there. Anyone can read it with a click and we'll always have free access to
that story.
We do allow for paid subscription tiers on our site. You don't get anything extra except for the good
fuzzy warm feeling of having supported a nonprofit publication. But again, that ties into my philosophy
of it's a donation. It's, you know, we're not cordoning off content behind a paywall. That's just how
I feel about it personally. But we are very happy to have paid subscribers and we do have a few.
Um, it's a very small percentage of our revenue. A lot of what we get is just, uh, larger donations,
maybe a one time donation. Um, our donation box or whatever on our website is open perennially, but
in the winter, uh, like November, December, we are a part of the news match, uh, campaign,
which is the INN, which helped me and is independent.
nonprofit news network, something like that. So one of we're a member of a number of other
news organizations. So the news match campaign drive is one of our big fundraising opportunities. And
that's where a lot of our revenue comes from is just from donations. We also do like community sponsorships.
And we you know, we allow for sponsored articles. So instead of me paying you to write, you pay me to
publish you. And
Am I missing any other grants, grants, grants and donations and sponsorships? Yeah. Thank you. Yeah.
I'm just curious if any of us have a subject that might be of interest to your post for publication.
How do we contact you? Absolutely. This way.
Um, no, you can visit our website and we'll have contact pages on there. My email is editor at limestone
pos limestone post.org. Um, and yeah, visit the website, email me directly. Um, also that's my personal
phone. So, you know, after 8pm, no, just kidding. You can text me. It's fine.
Well, first of all, thank you for your family for preserving the barn. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. In Indiana,
we seem to tax people on what are just not farms, not using those barns, but they're being taxed. Yeah.
So that causes them to take them down. So we need to do something legislatively, maybe to stop that.
Yeah. There's a few.
you know, historical preservation societies, especially, and ones that particularly focus on barns,
but there aren't many left of those structures standing. Sorry, no, this is weird having me ask you
a question. It's not so much a question as I think people will be really interested to know what the
Bloomington Monroe County Community Foundation is doing and how that's
helping us because what they're doing is really significant. Yeah, it really is. So essentially the
Community Foundation invited a number of the local news organizations to apply for this grant and it
was kind of one of those things where they were like, hey, we really want to give you this money to
bolster and improve the news network here in town. And the idea behind it was that it's a collaborative
news effort. And
I'm not sure as to all of the recipients, but I can say that Limestone Post and WFHB were both awarded
a nice sum of money that will adequately facilitate a long-term collaborative news effort. So we were
very happy to come to the table with them. At first, it was supposed to be
remember the name of like a receipt based structure where you know you pay for something and then give
them a receipt and they reimburse you a reimbursement structure but the community foundation was actually
able to give us the money up front which i think will be helpful in just kind of executing the project
so we will be bringing on you know i'm going to look for a few other writers or contributors that can
dedicate to the themselves to the project so we kind of have like a core group
moving ahead. But yeah, we're going to meet with FHB later this week to strategize. So we're very, very
excited for this opportunity and very, very grateful to the Community Foundation for making this possible.
Jason, what would you do if you had unlimited money and dreams to spend it with limestone folks? Work
from a beach in the Caribbean? Work remotely in the cabana? No.
It's a very good question. First of all, I would use that money to do a print project. I would use those
unlimited funds to pay our contributors more. I think I'm very, very proud of what we are able to pay
our contributors. Having been a Limestone Post contributor, you get that invoice or you get the rate
from Ron and I was like, damn, okay, yes, thank you. That's, that's generous. And so I make sure to
always try to compensate our contributors well. But I would increase that. What else would I do? I think
one of the secret projects which I'll let slip because I like you people are archiving the the writer
magazine digital archiving the writer magazine, which is a project that we really need funding for we don't
We're still in the planning phase of that. So if any of you are lovers of the writer and have ideas,
I would be happy to speak with you about that. But that is something that we would immediately put money
towards to preserve that gem of Bloomington art.
And yeah, I don't know. I mean, do charitable things. Donate, share with other news organizations. Donate
to WFHB during their fun to drive. Buy a Corvette. I don't know. I don't know. I wouldn't do that. I'd
buy a 1969 black Mustang. And on that note. Thank you. All right. Jason, thank you. Thank you. Appreciate it.
When I was here as an undergraduate, I remember stumbling across the photos in the hallway. And so I
was really thrilled when I came back here as a retiree, and many of those same photos were up. But I
never thought about writing a poem about each one. So yeah, 27 poems, very impressive. So in honor of
your talk, a donation will be made this quarter to Wheeler Mission. I'd like to thank today's volunteers,
Jim Shea, Leslie Katsenko, Joy Harder,
Sally Gaskell, Randy Saunders, Bill Oates, Michael Shermas, Dave Meyer, Sarah Loughlin. I'd also like
to thank our Zoom and audio producer, Tyler Martin-Nichols, who regularly bails us out during meetings.
So our next meeting will be here in the Georgia room next Tuesday, May 26. Sergeant Jordan Hassler of
the Bloomington Police Department's Canine Unit. And Michael Shermas will his dog Twix be here.
And his dog Twix will be our special guest. We really loved having the raptors here a few months ago.
I think having Twix from the canine unit will be pretty cool. So please join us. Tyler, if you could
share the graphic for the four-way test, please join or stand if you're able. And join me.
of the things we think, say, or do. First, is it the truth? Second, is it fair to all concerned? Third,
will it build goodwill and better friendships? Fourth, will it be beneficial to all concerned? And fifth,
is it fun?