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LEXINGTON, KY – The Rotary Club of Lexington held its weekly meeting Thursday,August 6th, via Zoom at 12:15 pm. For an invite to the Zoom meeting please contact trafton@rotarylexky.org. The program’s guest speaker was Lawrence Weathers, Chief, Lexington Police Department. Policing is never an easy job, and these days it’s only gotten more challenging.  Confronted with charges of excessive force, lack of transparency, and unequal enforcement for citizens of color, our speaker this week, Chief Lawrence B. Weathers, has expressed his support for revisiting current law enforcement policies to reflect citizen input while ensuring that such changes are tactically sound and [...]

LEXINGTON, KY – The Rotary Club of Lexington Held its weekly meeting Thursday, July 30th,  virtually on Zoom at 12:15 p.m. If you would like an invitation to join the meeting please email trafton@rotarylexky.org. The program’s guest speaker was Mitch Barnhart, Athletics Director, University of Kentucky.   Although Mitch Barnhart, this week’s speaker, has faced many challenges in his 18-year tenure as athletics director at the University of Kentucky, this year may be the most challenging yet.  As the academic year is set to start, much about SEC Athletics for 2020-21 is still up in the air and may stay that [...]

LEXINGTON, KY – The Rotary Club of Lexington will held its weekly meeting virtually via Zoom, Thursday, July 23rd. The program’s guest speaker was Susan Elkington. Susan Elkington President TMMK, Tuesday Feb. 4, 2020 in Georgetown, Ky. Photo by Mark Mahan Mahan Multimedia It’s rare that our weekly presentation comes from the manufacturing sector and rarer still when that sector is presented by a woman.  We’re pleased to have as our speaker this week Susan Elkington, President of Toyota Motor Manufacturing, Kentucky, Inc. (TMMK) since 2018.  As TMMK president, Elkington oversees an $8 billion operation that employs about 10,000 [...]

LEXINGTON, KY –  The Rotary Club of Lexington held its weekly  virtual meeting Thursday, July 16th  at 12:15 pm via Zoom.  Planning for the future and dealing with our past—both present significant challenges for colleges and universities these days.  Should students come back to campus, take courses online, or learn via some combination of the two?  How should small colleges and universities who value diversity welcome minority students to their campuses? Our speaker this week, Dr. OJ Oleka, will address both of these issues at Thursday’s virtual meeting. Dr. Oleka is the president of the Association of Independent Kentucky Colleges and [...]

LEXINGTON, KY –    The Rotary Club of Lexington will   held its  weekly meeting with Austin Simms, Executive Director, Lexington Housing Authority. Austin Simms has been employed by the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Housing Authority (LHA) for the past forty-seven (47) years, serving as Executive Director for forty-three (43) years.  In this capacity, he is responsible for the administration of over four thousand three hundred (4,300) units of low-income housing in Lexington (1,097 public housing units and approximately 3,300 housing choice voucher units) with annual budgets of approximately $37 million.  He will quickly tell you that the LHA is not a welfare [...]

LEXINGTON, KY – The Rotary Club of Lexington   held its weekly meeting Thursday, June 25th, virtually via Zoom.  The program was President's Day with President Gerald Marvel giving year end summary and annual awards. In conclusion President- elect Jamie Schrader spoke briefly about his plans for the coming year. Gerald Marvel. Rotary Club of Lexington. Lexington, KY 7-25-19. (c) 2019 Photo by Bill Straus. Below is a letter from President Marvel to the club : Dear Fellow Lexington Rotarians, As this most unusual of Rotary years nears its end, I am more humbled, honored, and prouder than ever to [...]

LEXINGTON, KY – The Rotary Club of Lexington held its virtual weekly meeting Thursday, June 18th,  via Zoom. For an invitation to the Zoom meeting please contact trafton@rotarylexky.org. The program’s guest speaker was Michael Halligan, CEO, God's Pantry Food Bank. “Food insecurity,” that is, being without reliable access to a sufficient quantity of affordable, nutritious food, is not something that most of us have ever experienced or even worried about.  It’s something that happens to the homeless or those on very low wages.  And, while that may have been true before the middle of March, since then people who never expected [...]

LEXINGTON, KY – The Rotary Club of Lexington held its weekly meeting Thursday, June 11th, at 12:15 pm,  virtually via Zoom. To view the meeting please go to our YouTube link. The program’s guest speaker was Linda Gorton, Mayor, Lexington -Fayette County Government. Linda Gorton, the longest-serving member of the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Council, is serving her first term as Lexington’s mayor. She was elected in a landslide on November 6, 2018, winning sixty-three percent of the vote. A native of Ohio, Mayor Gorton has lived in Lexington most of her adult life. In addition to her sixteen years on the Council, including four years as vice mayor, [...]

LEXINGTON, KY – The Rotary Club of Lexington held its virtual weekly meeting Thursday, June 4th via Zoom. To view the meeting please go to our YouTube link.    The program’s guest speaker was Paul Wagner, executive director for Black in Blue. When President-Elect Jamie Schrader invited Paul Wagner to speak about his latest documentary, Black in Blue, Jamie had no idea that some of the issues raised in that film would be on the front page of America’s newspapers, on the evening news, and all over social media this week.  As we struggle to address the unfinished business of race [...]

LEXINGTON, KY – The Rotary Club of Lexington held its virtual weekly meeting Thursday, May 28th via Zoom. For an invitation email trafton@rotarylexky.org.     The program’s guest speaker is Lark Doley, Immediate Past International President, Toastmasters International. Lark Doley, DTM , of Jonestown, Texas, is a senior training coordinator for MAXIMUS, where she has worked since 2007. She manages the professional development strategy for the MAXIMUS Texas Project, which includes webinars, computer-based training and instructor-led workshops. As chief executive of Second Wave, Inc., a company she founded in 1987, Doley led a team that manufactured hardware peripheral devices for Apple Macintosh [...]