Blackhawk Golden ‘K’ General Meeting
Minutes
August 20th, 2025
Roger Willeford presided, and called the meeting to order with a ring of the bell at 9:30AM.
36 members were in attendance today.
The meeting was led with the singing of America, the National Anthem and the Pledge of Allegiance.
Invocation: Carl Cramer, mentioning helping youth of the nation.
Raffle: Hamish Martin oversaw the ticket sales and drawing this week.
The weekly pot was $15 and the big (Joker) pot was $393.
Maury Frey drew a ticket from the bucket, ticket number 5517. Congratulations to the winner, Bob Knudson.
The deck of cards has 23/53 cards remaining. Bob Knudson drew the 6♦.
An additional ticket # 5532 was drawn by Glenn Disrude for a bouquet of flowers, won by Hamish Martin.
Roger Willeford thanks greeters Bob Knudson and Tom Neumann, invocator Carl Cramer, rafflemaster Hamish Martin, and server Linda Bontly.
Happy Box: Bob Knudson announced he is happy because he won the raffle, and will donate the proceeds to Project 16:49.
Roger Willeford announced that Mel Lemirande brought a guest today, Sara, a new member from the Farmer’s Market booth.
Jokes: Steve Skelly had a good joke about the queen showing the archbishop around her horse stables. One of the horses farted, and the queen apologized to the archbishop. The archbishop replies, “I thought it was the horse.”
Member Health: Luci Cramer had a status update on Don and Linda Hanneman. Don continues to recover and Cedar Crest. Linda is rehabilitating at a hospital in Rockford, and is not yet allowed visitors. Linda has a broken hip, right femur and neck.
Other Announcements: Dave Thill spoke upon Kiwanis Park watering, for which the signup sheet is being passed.
Tom Neumann spoke upon the Blackhawk Golf outing, tomorrow. It will be ‘best ball,’ with several challenges including shortest putt. Lunch at Mac’s, open to all members, will follow at 11:30.
Tom Neumann spoke upon the Lion’s Chicken Roast, on September 6th, which Kiwanis are assisting with. A sheet is being passed around for booth shifts.
Jim Farrell introduced the day’s speaker, John Light. John is the Rock County Administrator. He previously served the same role for the town of Lyle, and other roles in Illinois, Colorado and Michigan before that. John has a Master’s degree in Public Administration.
John appreciated the evaluation for the Rock County position was stringent. Rock County has only had two county administrators in the last 45 years.
Our bond rating is one of the highest, one level below the top. It affects borrowing for projects like the new 100M jail, which could not be placed upon the taxpayers, and has to be spread over a number of years.
John shared some of his family’s history, including having a great great great grandfather, Joseph Porter, who founded Porter township.
John mentioned county government is the oldest form of government, and an arm of the state government.
There are 72 counties in Wisconsin.
Kiwanian Tom Neumann asked about the fairgrounds, when will they be moved, and to where? Light responded that they are small. Relocation would be a large project, with a quick estimate placing it north of ten million dollars.
Kiwanian Bob Wilcox asked, what is the population of Rock County? John responded, “Janesville is roughly 65k, Beloit 35k, Edgerton <10k, and a few other larger locations. Around 70% of the county population are in cities.”
Jim Farrell thanked John Light for speaking and presented him with a Kiwanis Parker pen.
Roger Willeford adjourned the meeting with some wisdom, “Life is short, do stuff that matters. Have a good week” followed by a ring of the bell at 11AM.
Reminders: There is an executive board meeting next week.
Minutes by Ryan Lewis.
Credit: Dave Figi, and Ryan Lewis, photographs.
On this day:
1741 Alaska is first sighted by a Russian expedition led by Danish explorer Vitus Bering
NASA’s Voyager program began after it was discovered a ‘once in a lifetime alignment’ would allow a spacecraft to fly past some of the solar system’s planets using their gravity. The mission, managed by California’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, launched Voyager 2, the first of two spacecrafts, from the Kennedy Space Center in 1977. Although launched second, it was calculated that Voyager 1 would reach Jupiter and Saturn first, which it did in March 1979. Voyager 2 followed in July 1979. Their findings include the discovery of a number of new moons, with evidence of volcanic activity on Jupiter’s moon Io and the storm at the center of Jupiter’s red spot.
On this day in 1911 Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa was stolen from the Louvre by three Italian handymen; it was not recovered until 1913, and the media sensation helped make it one of the world’s most famous paintings.
National Radio Day is a time for communities across the country to celebrate radio.
Actor Jerry Lewis (1926 – 2017) passed away.
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