Janesville Blackhawk Golden Kiwanis

Blackhawk Golden ‘K’ General Meeting
Minutes
December 31^st, 2025

President Richard Johnson presided, and called the meeting to order with a ring of the bell at 9:30AM.
An Executive Board meeting occurred today.

Richard Johnson led with the singing of America, the National Anthem and the Pledge of Allegiance.

Invocation: Carl Cramer, mentioning the inspiration to help people in need, and the children.

Raffle: Glenn Disrude oversaw the ticket sales and drawing this week.
The weekly pot was $12 and the big (Joker) pot was $139.
Carl Cramer drew a ticket from the bucket, ticket number 1381.  Congratulations to the winner, Bob ‘Lucky’ Knudson.
The deck of cards has 41/53 cards remaining.  Bob Knudson drew the 6♠.

Happy Box: Bob Knudson announced he is happy because he won the raffle.  He is donating the winnings to the club!
Luci Cramer announced she is happy because the Cramers’ daughter is on the mend.

Jokes: Joker Ron Shuler had a good joke.

Member Health: Richard Johnson had a status update on Dick Peck.  Saturday morning, he passed away.  He was 81 years old, and a Kiwanis member for 14 years.  A lifelong GM employee, he had Christmas dinner and went to bed that night.  Don’s funeral is Saturday, 10a-12p, at Schneider funeral home.
Dick Fay had a status update on Don Kellogg.  Don’s wife passed away during the night.
Mel Lemirande had a status update on John Sarnow, who has COVID.

Other Announcements: John Janes spoke upon the recent blood drives.  The first day gathered 47 pints, followed by 27 pints the next day.  Blood is difficult to come by in cold months due to poor blood flow in the extremities affecting the blood’s viability.
John Janes spoke upon the improvements to the Golden K and Truck on Ice website and praised Ryan Lewis.

Committee Reports: John Janes announced the form is being passed for shifts selling Truck on Ice tickets.  We particularly need people for New Year’s day (tomorrow).

Jim Farrell introduced the day’s speaker, Justin Stubbendick.  Justin holds a bachelor’s degree in criminal psychology.  He is a police detective in Janesville.  Justin is the president and co-founder of the Isaac Strong Foundation, a charity supporting children with childhood cancer.  The Isaac Strong Foundation is currently serving nine children in Rock County during their active treatment.

The foundations’ goals are awareness, outreach, education, service and honor.
Childhood cancers kill more children than all other diseases combined (ages 1 to 20).
September is Childhood Cancer Awareness month.

The Isaac Strong Foundation has served more than 20 heroes and their families since 2021.  Over $100,000 was given directly to families as of January, 2025.
Only 4% of the National Cancer Institute’s budget goes towards childhood cancers.

Each child’s family receives $500/m extra to assist with day to day living.
The foundation supplies the families with toys on Christmas.

One way the foundation supported the children was by completing exercise challenges, one part of each of the days for which a child had their cancer.  An example given was, one child had cancer for 1,156 days, for which the foundation supporters completed 1,200-meter runs.
An Austrian cross-fit team had word of the foundation’s efforts, and decided to participate.  Team Wega sent photos of their efforts, apparel and other items for the children.
Currently, the foundation is selling tickets for their ‘Go Gold Dinner’ event at the Janesville Country Club.
More information including workouts and event tickets is available on the Isaac Strong Foundation’s website, isaacstrongfoundation.com .

Jim Farrell thanked Justin Stubbendick for speaking and presented him with a Kiwanis Parker pen.

Richard Johnson adjourned the meeting with a ring of the bell at 10:55AM.

On this day:
1600 British East India Company receives its royal charter from Elizabeth I to explore trade routes in the East Indies
1744 English astronomer James Bradley announces the discovery of Earth’s nutation, or wobble
1781 Bank of North America, 1st US bank opens
1795 The Dutch East Indies Company is formally dissolved, taken over by the Batavian Republic
1862 President Abraham Lincoln signs act admitting West Virginia to the Union
1879 Edison gives 1st public demonstration of his incandescent lamp
1897 Brooklyn’s last day as a city, it incorporates into NYC (1/1/1898)
1904 First New Year’s Eve celebration is held in Times Square, New York City
1911 Marie Curie receives her second Nobel Prize, this time in Chemistry, for her work with radioactivity
1935 Charles Darrow patents the board game Monopoly and becomes the first millionaire game designer
1937 Born this day, Anthony Hopkins, Welsh actor from Port Talbot, Wales
1945 Ratification of United Nations Charter completed
1946 US President Harry Truman officially proclaims the end of World War II in Proclamation 2714
1955 The General Motors Corporation becomes the first U.S. corporation to make over $1 billion USD in a year.
1963 Jerry Garcia and Bob Weir of The Grateful Dead play music together for the first time at Dana Morgan’s Music Store in Palo Alto, California
1964 Donald Campbell (UK) sets world water speed record (276.33 mph)
1966 The Monkees single “I’m a Believer”, written by Neil Diamond, hits #1 and stays there for 7 weeks
1967 Evel Knievel fails in his attempt to jump the Caesar’s Palace Fountain, Las Vegas, breaking his pelvis, femur, wrist, hip and both ankles
1974 Popular Electronics displays Altair 8800 computer
1974 Singer-songwriters Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks join rock band Fleetwood Mac
1975 US 1st class postage stamp rate rises from 10 cents to 13 cents
1976 The Cars played their 1st gig
1978 Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco, California closes after 556 concerts; Final show is the Grateful Dead, New Riders of the Purple Sage, and The Blues Brothers; program lasts for over 8 hours, with the Grateful Dead playing for nearly 6 hours; concert broadcast on local PBS TV station KQED, and simulcast by radio station KSAN-FM, after the show, the crowd was treated to a hot, buffet-style breakfast.
1981 CNN Headline News cable TV channel debuts in US
1990 Sci-Fi Channel on cable TV begins transmitting
1991 Dow Jones Industrial Average closes at record high 3168.83
1994 Largest free concert in the world occurs when Rod Stewart performs in front of an estimated 3.5 million people at Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
1995 Cartoonist Bill Watterson ends his “Calvin & Hobbes” comic strip after 10 years, believing he had achieved all he could in the medium
1997 Intel cuts price of Pentium II-233 MHz from $401 to $268
1997 Microsoft buys Hotmail email service for $400 million and re-launches it as MSN Hotmail
1999 Boris Yeltsin resigns as President of Russia, leaving Prime Minister Vladimir Putin as acting President
1999 Control of the Panama Canal reverts to Panama
Universal Hour of Peace Day was first observed October 24th, 1995. It has been observed annually on December 31st since 1996. The idea is that every sentient being on Earth will participate by dedicating one hour a year to peace.

Minutes by Ryan Lewis.
Credit: Dave Figi, and Ryan Lewis, photographs.

Note: Kiwanis and its members are not responsible for errors or omissions.  We are open to discussion if you would like to request an alteration.