February 18, 2008 TODAY AT ROTARY CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM We’re pleased to welcome State Representative Hank Zuber to discuss campaign finance reform. An attorney from Ocean Springs, he has represented House District 113 (Jackson) since 2000. Gary Chism will introduce the program. APPALACHIAN LEADERSHIP PROGRAM Next week we’ll learn about Mississippi State’s Appalachian Leadership Honors Program. Our speaker will be Program Director Cade Smith. He will be introduced by Ed Clynch. LAST WEEK’S MEETING Attendance: There were 128 Rotarians (89 active, 38 exempt, and 1 honorary) present, and 48 active, 18 exempt, and 8 honorary members missing. Invocation and Pledge: W. C. Johnson Visitors and Guests: Visiting Rotarian was former member George McKee of Cold Creek Rotary Club, Colorado. He was a guest of his Dad, Chester McKee. Bill Ford was a guest of Briar Jones. Club guests were Kyle Frazier (RIF Ambassadorial Scholar); Negrita Caicedo and Maryna Melnik (Rotary Youth Exchange students); Paul Sims (Starkville Daily News); and Skip Descant (Columbus Commercial Dispatch). New member: Sean Owen was welcomed to his first meeting as a member. Sean is an assistant research professor for the Center for Educational and Training Technology at Mississippi State. He was proposed by Rotarian Gery Cummings. Makeups: Mike Hainsey made up in West Point January 3 and January 17 and in Columbus January 15. Rotary Minute: Nancy Hargrove’s Rotary Minute focused on the Rotary Foundation’s Ambassadorial Scholar Program. Nancy pointed out that this is the oldest and best known program of the Rotary Foundation. Since it started in 1947 nearly 38,000 men and women from a hundred nations have studied abroad. “It is now the world’s largest privately funded international scholarship program. Some 800 scholarships (totaling $500 million) were awarded for study in 2005-2006,” she said. Districts throughout the world qualify to nominate scholars based on their contributions to the Rotary Foundation. “We are very fortunate and proud that our club’s candidates have been selected for two years in a row – Kyle Frazier for study this year and Allison Noffsinger for next year.” Ambassadorial Scholars have full scholarships for a year of graduate study , serving as ambassadors for Rotary and for their home country in another part of the world. Reservations for Rotary Banquet: Jeff Donald announced that reservations for the March 3 Rotary Awards Banquet must be made no later than Monday, February 25. The banquet will be our official meeting for the week so active members have already paid for their meal. Charge for guests will be $12.50. Meeting Notes: Loren Zimmerman made one last plea for volunteers for the Rotary Rodeo. Since this is an important fund-raiser to support our literacy projects, he asked that volunteers also buy admission tickets ($12 in advance; $15 at the gate). AMBASSADORIAL SCHOLAR KYLE FRAZIER
Kyle Frazier, the impressive 2006 MSU graduate our club nominated for the Rotary Foundation Ambassadorial Scholarship, spoke briefly before leaving for his year of study in South Australia. Frazier has spent the last year-and-a-half working on his Masters Degree in International Technology and Policy at MIT. Frazier managed to finish all his course work, but has his thesis on hold until he gets back from his year of study at the University of Adelaide in South Australia. In addition to his classes, Frazier has worked on projects with the World Economic Forum in Switzerland and had an assignment in Kyle left Thursday for his 34-hour flight to Adelaide, the capital city of South Australia. He will be hosted by the Rotary Club of Blackwood while he studies International Economics for the next year. “I’m looking forward to the experience of studying and living there and connecting with Australian Rotarians,” he said before expressing his thanks to our Club for making the experience possible. He was introduced by Nancy Hargrove, Chair of the Ambassadorial Scholarship Committee. EDUCATION KEY TO ECONOMIC TRENDS Phil Hardwick, Coordinator of Capacity Development for the Stennis Institute of Government, left little doubt in the minds of Rotarians that economic trends are significantly affected by education. Education, he believes, is the key to future economic growth in our community, the state, and the nation. Looking at Mississippi’s “education pipeline,” paints a dismal picture. Of 100 ninth graders, 41 will drop out before graduation from high school. Twenty-one will go on to college but only 8 will earn a degree. How does this impact the state? On a per capita basis, Mississippians earn $9,570 less than the average American, according to Hartwick., and this is a direct reflection of education (or lack thereof). Using PowerPoint charts and graphs, he pointed out how the state’s economy is “clustered.” “Half of all jobs in Mississippi are in 11 counties and a few of the counties have most of them. “Mississippi’s growth in employment has been 1.37 percent better than the national average,” he reported. But he said progress on the Gulf Coast is uneven. There are very different issues there. Gulfport is staking its future on gaming; in Waveland, there’s nothing left to tax. He predicts the Coast will be a hot spot for the aerospace industry for the next 10 years. Flowood has continued its rapid growth and is at the other extreme (“Flowood now gets more than 70 percent of its revenue from sales taxes,” he said). Turning to our community, he said retail sales are better in Starkville than in the state. The state’s population in 2006 was 2.95 million compared to 2.8 million in the 2000 census. Population, like jobs, is clustered, with heaviest areas in and around Jackson, in coastal counties, and spillover from Memphis. DeSoto is the 5th fastest growing county in the United States. However, looking at population figures alone doesn’t give an accurate picture. When deaths and births are taken into account, the state has had a net out-migration of 4,081 over the last 5 years. During the 2000-2006 period, DeSoto County’s growth averaged 35 percent, George County 14 percent, the state average growth was 2.3 percent, and Oktibbeha County average was - 3.0 percent. Most Delta counties lost as well. There are bright spots in economic trends. Personal income growth since 2002 has been better than before – 18.75 % compared to the U.S. average of 17.8%. “We’re on the right track,” he said. And the good news is that in Starkville, sales tax revenue is up. In conclusion, he believes one of the major roadblocks to economic development in most communities is “turfism” pure and simple. He ended with a poem called The Kite, that clearly emphasized the importance of replacing turfism with teamwork. He responded to one question about whether he was concerned about inflation in the future. “The quick action by the Fed indicates that it (the Fed) is giving it top priority, so I don’t see inflation as a major problem or concern.” Matt Cox introduced the speaker. |
