August 30, 2010

ITALIAN YOUTH EXCHANGE
Anna Follett, Starkville High School senior, will share her experiences as a Rotary Youth Exchange student in northern Italy last year.

NO MEETING NEXT WEEK
Celebrating the nation’s 128th Labor Day, we will not meet next Monday.

COMMUNITY SERVICE—GET SWEPT UP
On Wednesday we have the Main Street assignment for this year’s “Get Swept Up!” community clean-up before the first MSU home football game. Volunteers will meet at 7:00 a.m. at Debbie Nettles’ ERA office. It’s not too late to volunteer or recruit friends and family to help. If you can help, contact Lynne Richardson, Community Service chair, at lynnedavisrichardson@gmail.com.

FOR THE RECORD—AUGUST 23
Invocation and Pledge: Frank Chiles
Attendance: 61.6%
                    Present — 119 (42 exempt)
                    Absent — 69 (10 exempt, 11 honorary)
Guests and visitors: Member guests were Andrew Martin of Jerry Toney; Bill Poe, Jack Wallace and Josh Knight of Stu Vance; Buddy Bayliss of Rodney Foil; David Mize and John Williams of Krish Bhansali; Don Trotter of Joe Thompson; and, Howard Miskelly of Bryce Griffis.

INBOUND YOUTH EXCHANGE
If all travel connections and routes work smoothly, 18-year-old Fang-Wei Hsu from Taipei, Taiwan, should arrive in Starkville on Wednesday.

Our 2010-2011 Rotary Youth Exchange student goes by her American first name "Jessie." Her host family will be Randy and Melissa Follett. The committee is seeking two more host families for Jessie's year with us.

GOLF FOR EDUCATION
The second annual Rotary Classic Golf Tournament will be October 11. The beneficiary is the East Mississippi Community College tuition guarantee for eligible Oktibbeha County students.

CONGRATS GRANDPA
President Tommy congratulated Ed Clynch on the arrival of granddaughter Haley Ann, daughter of J.J.

ROTARY MINUTE (24 SECONDS)
Setting a record for the “minute,” John Simpson told of Rotary’s accepting women into membership. Esther M. Johnson was the first woman in the world to be admitted to membership in any Rotary Club in 1986 in Santa Monica, Calif.

HONORING SERVICE AND SACRIFICE
Mission Statement—The museum honors the service and sacrifices of Mississippi’s servicemen and women of all branches and those from other parts of the country that trained in Mississippi during times of war. The museum’s state-of-the-art exhibits tell personal stories of the heroes and heroines of our Republic and serves to educate future generations about the price paid for the freedom and prosperity Americans enjoy today.

The Mississippi Armed Forces Museum, housed at Camp Shelby, illustrates the state’s military history from 1798, its territorial days, until the present.

Chad Daniels, museum director, took us on a tour of the military installation’s 93-year history and its role in the past century’s military conflicts. The camp will celebrate its centennial the same year that the state celebrates its bicentennial.

The nine-year-old Mississippi Armed Forces Museum is located in Building 850 of the Joint Forces Training Center. The 134,000 acre camp is 12 miles south of Hattiesburg.

Explaining the difference between a camp and fort, Daniels said mainly that a fort has permanent facilities. Shelby remains a camp even though it has gone through five activation and deactivation cycles.

Named for Kentucky Governor Isaac Shelby, the only state executive ever to serve as an active military commander while in office, the camp was established during World War I.

From 1920 to 1938, it saw little activity. However, the march to World War II brought it back into full service in 1938. Its role lessened in the national demobilization after 1947. However, the Korean and Vietnam Wars kept it in business as a National Guard training facility.

With the advent of the Global War on Terror, the camp has steadily seen more activity.

Answering the rhetorical question, “Why is the museum not in Jackson?” Daniels said that its location on an active military base creates a unique interaction of past and present.

Serving to inform both the public and active duty soldiers, the museum features 7 galleries.

The Nineteenth Century Conflicts gallery covers the War of 1812, Mexican War, American Civil War and the Spanish-American War.

The World War I Gallery contains exhibits explaining how the United States entered the war, the establishment of Camp Shelby, and artifacts from the war at sea, in the air and on land.

The immense scope of World War II is presented to the visitor in chronological order and includes: Activation and expansion of Camp Shelby, Pearl Harbor and the Fall of the Philippines, Women in World War II, Nazism, German Prisoner of War Camps in Mississippi, and more.

The Korean Conflict Gallery features special exhibits about the breakout from the Chosin Reservoir, MIG Alley, the US Air Force in Korea, and weapons and equipment.

The Vietnam war is traced from its origins in the 1950s to the fall of Saigon in 1975. Exhibits feature weapons and equipment, a life-sized diorama of a medical evacuation scene, and a prisoner of war cell from the infamous Hanoi Hilton.

The War on Terror exhibit traces the terrorist threat to the United States from the first attack on the World Trade Center, the attacks on the USS Cole and American embassies in Africa through September 11, 2001, defeat of the Taliban, and war in Iraq.

The Medal of Honor exhibit, housed separately in a copper skinned tower in the museum’s central courtyard, honors Mississippi’s 26 Medal of Honor recipients and 44 Medal of Honor recipients who served or trained at Camp Shelby.

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