Pagosa Springs Rotary Club
Art Benzell began with an invocation of appreciation for the world around us: plants, wildlife, air, and water. People often take these simple elements of life for granted, but “you can’t eat money,” Art concluded.
As if closely choreographed, Sharon Crump followed Art’s tribute to nature by leading the meeting in a song celebrating its enjoyment, “The Happy Wanderer.”
Guests were then greeted, including Jim Byrne and Odilia Dauzacker, a couple who own and operate Elkwood Manner, a bed and breakfast south of town on US 84. In part, they joined the meeting to help Rotary observe Brazilian exchange student Laura Delgado’s birthday, in particular because Odilia had herself been an exchange student from Brazil in 1976, spending the year in Ohio.
(Odilia did not sing the lament, “I went back to Ohio, but my family was gone. I stood on the back porch – there was nobody home. I was stunned and amazed . . . My pretty countryside had been paved . . . the farms of Ohio had been replaced by shopping malls. . . Where’d you go O-hi-o. “ Singing that was the Pretenders, channeling Art.)
Also visiting Rotary for the meeting was Savanah Vasquez, an outbound exchange student next year, heading for Romania (the land of Count Dracula, but that’s only a myth, no worries, Savanah).
As if closely choreographed, Sharon Crump followed Art’s tribute to nature by leading the meeting in a song celebrating its enjoyment, “The Happy Wanderer.”
Guests were then greeted, including Jim Byrne and Odilia Dauzacker, a couple who own and operate Elkwood Manner, a bed and breakfast south of town on US 84. In part, they joined the meeting to help Rotary observe Brazilian exchange student Laura Delgado’s birthday, in particular because Odilia had herself been an exchange student from Brazil in 1976, spending the year in Ohio.
(Odilia did not sing the lament, “I went back to Ohio, but my family was gone. I stood on the back porch – there was nobody home. I was stunned and amazed . . . My pretty countryside had been paved . . . the farms of Ohio had been replaced by shopping malls. . . Where’d you go O-hi-o. “ Singing that was the Pretenders, channeling Art.)
Also visiting Rotary for the meeting was Savanah Vasquez, an outbound exchange student next year, heading for Romania (the land of Count Dracula, but that’s only a myth, no worries, Savanah).
Rotary’s May birthday celebrants were then called to the dais by Betty Switzer for the monthly Betty’s Birthdays feature. John Shepard, Livia Lynch, Melanie Garrett, and our aforementioned exchange student, Laura Delgado were festooned with celebratory headgear and then serenaded with a rousing chorus of “Happy Birthday,” which they received with “thank yous,” and the traditional embarrassed grins (except for Laura, whose genuine grin confirmed that she still actually welcomes birthdays).