Meeting Notes from January 23, 2023

Pledge: Mike Frangadakis

Inspiration: Ramon Ware: Three things a plane needs for successful take off:
1. Energy
2. Lift (motivation)
3. Supportive Environment
Rotary inspires these same three principles. We get energy from one another to make a difference in the world. We are motivated to do well in the world and we support each other in our common goals.

 

Guests: Sarah Janigian from San Jose Rotary and the wife of our guest speaker. Lloyd Russell, a guest of Tina Orsi-Hartigan and cousin to Lissa Kreisler. Joe Albers from the El Salvador school and a guest of Mike Norcia

 

Rotarian in the Wild: Lydia Norcia and her family enjoying dinner with a wood fire
pizza in her backyard.

First Tuesday Happy Hour: February 6 from 5:30-7:30pm at Milan Italian Restaurant, 1712 Meridian Ave, San Jose. Waiters will come to us for food and drink orders, there will be separate checks and a 20% tip will be added to each bill.

 

Annual Rotary Foundation Drive: Thanks to Marty Fishman and his team, we reached our highest donation amount of $44, 898 with 122 donors.

 

CrabFest: Suzanne and Lisa gave us an update. There are still tickets available for purchase and we still need volunteers to help out, especially in the kitchen for clean-up. The Fund the Need will go to the Bill Wilson Center this year to help with their Safety Net program for runaway and homeless teens. Safety Net provides housing and counseling with the goal to reunite them with their families. Promotion until Friday at midnight: anybody who bids $100 on any auction item will get their first drink for free at the event.

Club Centennial: Mike Norcia talked about John Pencer’s 1995 interview with George Martin, who talked about the first meetings that were held in the old Lyndon Hotel with 30 people. The meal provided was $1.50. He also showed the original membership cards of John Colwell and Ray Cobb from 1965.

 

Santa Maria Urban Ministry: Barbara Fishman and Terri Trotter thanked Rotary for our support of this important ministry. Santa Maria was founded in 1983 by the Episcopal Diocese of Santa Clara and is non-sectarian. They provide food boxes and clothing for local residents in need. They have provided 1927 food boxes and 90,000 pounds of food.

 

They also provide clothing, support for the unhoused and after school and summer programs for children. Barbara and Terri volunteer to work on the computer and help intake the clients. Anybody interested in volunteering, please reach out to Barbara or Terri.

 

Blue Badge Bio: Matt Mullikin. Matt grew up in LA in the San Fernando Valley. His father was an actor working in movies and theater. The family traveled across the country with him for acting jobs. His Mom loves to read and was a school librarian teaching children to read and working with ESL students. His sister is an artist and musician and has a band, Wild Iris. Matt loved to listen to musicals when he was a kid, and he played clarinet, saxophone and tuba. He joined the drum and bugle Corp for children 14-21 years. He traveled with the Bugle Corp. and had a great experience. He moved to Santa Cruz and got a job at Staples and moved up the ladder from stock boy to store manager. His sister worked at Shoreline Middle School and asked him to come in and set up computers for the students. He was offered a job and started in Educational Technology 23 years ago at Shoreline Middle School. He now works at Los Gatos Union School District as their Educational Technology Specialist. Matt met his wife at Fisher Middle School where she is a special education teacher. They have a son Keegan who is 9 years old and attends St. Lucy Parish School. He comes from a family of educators. Education means a lot to him. He attended Forbes School of Business and is now getting his Masters at John Hopkins in Digital Technology. He is excited to be a part of Rotary and to share his skills with the club.

 

Scott Herhold, author of The Stanford Church Murder.

Scott was a reporter for the Mercury News for 40 years. He is married to Sarah and has 4 children. His first book is entitled, Murder Under God’s Eye. He retired 6 years ago and always wanted to write a book about the Stanford Church murder. The murder was committed in 1974 and was an unsolved case for 40 years. On Oct.12, 1974, Bruce and Arlis Perry, both 19 years old and living on the Stanford campus, had a marital spat, Bruce went back to the dorms and Arlis went to the Stanford Church to reflect. When Arlis did not return, Bruce called the police at 3:00am. At 5:40 am, the police found Arlis’ body laid out under a pew in the Church. Stephen Crawford, the church caretaker, had found the body. She had been strangled and ritualistically mutilated. The two suspects were her husband, Bruce and the church caretaker Steve Crawford. In 1977, the murder was 3 years old and police were no closer to finding the perpetrator. In 1991, Scott wrote an article about the murder, and in 2008, he read the case file. He was trying to interpret what the layout of Arlis’ body said about the crime. The crime would be left unsolved for the next 4 decades until a cold case investigator was put on the case to go over the physical evidence from the scene. He found out that the pair of jeans that Arlis was wearing that night had been mislabeled as her husbands. When these jeans were reprocessed they found DNA evidence belonging to caretaker Stephen Crawford. On June 2018 the police arrived at Crawford’s apartment to arrest him, but before they could he committed suicide. This closed the case after 40 years.

 

Meeting was adjourned at 1:25