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LEXINGTON, KY – The Rotary Club of Lexington held its weekly meeting Thursday, March 25th,  via Zoom. The program’s guest speaker was Dr. Rob Farley, Senior Lecturer, University of Kentucky Patterson School of Diplomacy. To attend via Zoom  please email, trafton@rotarylexky.org. A global pandemic, an economic meltdown, a change in the Oval Office and the balance of power in Congress, and civil unrest here and abroad—the world has been in constant change since our last “State of the World” address from the University of Kentucky’s Patterson School of Diplomacy. To update us this week and try to forecast how those changes [...]

LEXINGTON, KY – The Rotary Club of Lexington will hold its weekly meeting Thursday, March 18th,  via Zoom. If you would  like the Zoom link  please email, trafton@rotarylexky.org.  The program’s guest speaker is Mat Kaplan, Radio Host and Producer, The Planetary Society.     “We are the Martians!” That was how author Ray Bradbury ended his classic, The Martian Chronicles. While boots haven’t yet left footprints on the Red Planet, our robots have been busy exploring its surface and looking down from high above. Three more exciting missions arrived just days ago. NASA’s Perseverance rover has begun the search for signs of [...]

LEXINGTON, KY – The Rotary Club of Lexington held its weekly meeting Thursday, March 11th,  via Zoom. If you would  like the Zoom link  please email, trafton@rotarylexky.org.  The program’s guest speaker  was Jonathan Matos, Sr. Manager, Blue Origin. Jonathan has worked in the aerospace industry for over 10 years and has a breadth of knowledge both learned and experienced through his engagements in managing hardware for both spacecraft and commercial aircraft. His interest began as a child, and the first book he read (to his preschool class) was I Want to Be an Astronaut by Byron Barton. In second grade, when [...]

LEXINGTON, KY – The Rotary Club of Lexington held its weekly meeting Thursday, March 4th,  via Zoom. If you would  like the Zoom link  please email, trafton@rotarylexky.org.  The program’s guest speaker  was Ronald Harris, vice president, BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee. Ronald Harris is vice president of diversity and inclusion for BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee. In this role, Ronald is responsible for cultivating a corporate culture where diversity and inclusion are aligned with the company’s corporate strategy and values. He program is titled: Diversity in the 21st Century Reporting directly to the CEO, Ronald provides strategic leadership and counsel for diversity initiatives [...]

LEXINGTON, KY – The Rotary Club of Lexington  held its weekly meeting Thursday, February 25,  via Zoom. If you would  like the Zoom link  please email, trafton@rotarylexky.org.  The program’s guest speakers were Dr. Rudolph Buchheit, Dean,  and Dr. Greg Erhardt, assistant professor of civil engineering, University  of Kentucky College of Engineering. This week we’re taking a brief detour from our series on Black History Month to highlight an issue which focuses on our future rather than our past:  mass transit and ridership declines.  In a presentation entitled “Headwinds and Headways,” our speakers, Dean Rudolph Buchheit and Dr. Greg Erhardt, have noted [...]

LEXINGTON, KY – The Rotary Club of Lexington held its weekly meeting Thursday, February 18,  via Zoom. If you would  like the Zoom link  please email, trafton@rotarylexky.org.  The program’s guest speaker was Reverend L. Clark Williams. In continuation of our programs honoring Black History Month, our speaker this week is Reverend L. Clark Williams.  Reverend Willams’s presentation will take as its text a poem by Langston Hughes, Let America Be America Again. Reverend Williams is a native of Lexington, Kentucky.  He was ordained by the Shiloh Baptist Church in Lexington, where he currently serves as the director of ministries, which involves [...]

LEXINGTON, KY – The Rotary Club of Lexington held its weekly meeting Thursday, February 11,  via Zoom. If you would  like the Zoom link  please email, trafton@rotarylexky.org.  The program’s guest speaker was  Rozalyn Akins and Dr. Gerald L. Smith, Co-Chairs, Mayor's Commission on Racial Justice and Equality. In the wake of local and national civil protests following the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and other Black Americans, Lexington Mayor Linda Gorton created the Commission for Racial Justice and Equality, whose purpose was to “assemble diverse community members to listen, discuss and create empowering solutions that dismantle systemic racism in Fayette [...]

LEXINGTON, KY – The Rotary Club of Lexington held its weekly meeting Thursday, February 4,  via Zoom. If you like the Zoom link  please email, trafton@rotarylexky.org.  The program’s guest speaker was Rufus Friday. On January 18 our country observed Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. And this week our club begins the celebration of Black History Month with a series of programs related to Black history and racial justice and equality in our community and the nation.  We’re pleased to have as our kickoff speaker for this series Rufus M. Friday, CEO of Rufus Friday Consulting LLC. The theme of his presentation [...]

LEXINGTON, KY – The Rotary Club of Lexington held its weekly meeting Thursday, January 28,  via Zoom. If you like the Zoom link  please email, trafton@rotarylexky.org.  The program’s guest speaker was Dr. Mark Dougherty On August 13, 2021, we heard a presentation from Dr. Mark Dougherty, who updated us on what we had learned about COVID-19 since we became aware of the disease back in March, the virus that causes the disease, and the various ways it can damage the human body. Our speaker this week, Dr. Mark Dougherty, will bring us up to date on what we know now about [...]

LEXINGTON, KY – The Rotary Club of Lexington will hold its weekly meeting Thursday, January 28,  via Zoom. If you like the Zoom link  please email, trafton@rotarylexky.org.  The program’s guest speaker is Dr. Mark Dougherty On August 13, 2021, we heard a presentation from Dr. Mark Dougherty, who updated us on what we had learned about COVID-19 since we became aware of the disease back in March, the virus that causes the disease, and the various ways it can damage the human body. This week Dr. Dougherty, who brings with him dual perspectives as a consultant infectious disease specialist and a [...]