Janesville Blackhawk Golden Kiwanis

Blackhawk Golden ‘K’ General Meeting
Minutes
October 14^th, 2026

President Tom Neumann presided, and called the meeting to order with a ring of the bell at 9:30AM.

Tom Neumann led with the singing of America, the National Anthem, and the Pledge of Allegiance.

Invocation: Dave Calverley, mentioning thanks for guiding and leading us to help the children.

Raffle: Ryan Lewis oversaw the ticket sales and drawing this week.
The weekly pot was $12 and the big (Joker) pot was $345.
Steve Skelly drew a ticket from the bucket, ticket number 5667.  Congratulations to the winner, Don Kellogg.
The deck of cards has 26/53 cards remaining.  Don Kellogg drew the 5♠.

Tom Neumann thanks greeters Bruce Jorenby, invocator Dave Calverley, rafflemaster Ryan Lewis, and server Bob Knudson.

Happy Box: The Don Kellogg and Dick Fay raffle duo announced they are happy because they won the raffle.  They are donating the proceeds to the Salvation Army!

Jokes: Joker and guest Katie Villa had a good joke about why the chicken crossed the road.
Joker Steve Skelly had a good joke about a $5 bill who walked into a bar.  The bartender shouted, “Get Out!”  “Singles only.”
Joker Roger Willeford had a good joke, “How do prisoners call each other?”  “Cell phones.”

Other Announcements: Greg Turco spoke upon his post-treasurer and last ‘Thank you cards’ announcement.  Several cards were reviewed, including the Boys’ and Girls’ Club for the many years of the wishing well which included a donation, the Rock County Children’s Museum, the Salvation Army, and Project 16:49.
Bob Knudson spoke upon the new Kiwanis wishing well in Rotary’s main building.  The 50% Rotary keeps will be used for the gardens’ children’s programs.

Committee Reports: John Janes announced upcoming Blood Drives.  These will net donors a free A1C test, and a $10 Amazon gift card!
Ryan Lewis spoke upon the flag box, being installed tomorrow at 1PM.
Steve Skelly spoke upon a few free pins for vets, which are available courtesy of Sheila, via a veterans’ event at Craig High School.
Tom Neumann spoke upon ECHO’s Empty Bowls fundraiser.  It starts soon.

April Wright introduced the day’s speaker, Katie Villa.  Katie is a Janesville native, who passion for science, caregiving and community has shaped her career in healthcare.  She earned degrees in biology and Spanish with a minor in Public Health from Augustana College before completing her Master of Science in Nursing in Clinical Nurse Leadership at Rush University in Chicago.  Her experience spans high-acuity bedside nursing, leadership roles, and travel nursing, giving her a broad systems-level perspective on delivering compassionate, high-quality care.  Today, she is owner and operator of the Right at Home franchise in Janesville.
Katie proceeded to present to Kiwanis about in home care.

Kiwanis member Tom Neumann asked, “Does it include meal prep?”  Katie replied, “Home Care yes, Home Health Care no.”

Tom Neumann inquired, “Is long term care worthwhile?  They might not be around?”  Katie responded, “I don’t disagree.  It is generally so many dollars per day.  It might be 80 and sometimes up to 400.  Someone recently said maybe an HSA is better.”

Kiwanian Bob Wilcox asked, “Does the military have benefits?”  Katie answered, “Yes, you have to be assessed for the home care or home health aide benefit first.”

Kiwanis member Bob Knudson inquired, “What is the average cost increase yearly?”  Katie, “Good question.  3.1% to 3.5%?  caregivers are becoming more in demand.”

Right at Home is based in Nebraska, where Katie received her training.

Kiwanian April Wright asked, “Does Medicare offer ‘Aid and Attendants?’”  Katie explained, “Yes.  There are 76 hours per year.  That equates to roughly 20 visits.”

Katie’s presentation was well received and appreciated.

April Wright thanked Katie Villa for speaking and presented her with a Kiwanis Parker pen.

Tom Neumann adjourned the meeting with a ring of the bell at 10:47AM.

The Board of Directors met briefly following.

On this day:
1644 English Quaker leader and advocate of religious freedom William Penn, who oversaw the founding of the American Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, was born
1773 American Revolutionary War: The United Kingdom’s East India Company tea ships’ cargo are burned at Annapolis, Maryland
1773 The first recorded Ministry of Education, the Komisja Edukacji Narodowej (Polish for Commission of National Education), is formed in Poland
1774 First Continental Congress makes Declaration of Colonial Rights in Philadelphia
1834 First African-American granted a US patent, Henry Blair, for a corn planter
1884 George Eastman patents paper strip photographic film
1890 Dwight D. Eisenhower, born this day in 1890, served as Supreme Allied Commander in western Europe during World War II, overseeing the Normandy Invasion in June 1944, and was elected to two terms (1953–61) as U.S. president
1892 Arthur Conan Doyle publishes “The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes,” a collection of 12 stories originally published serially in “The Strand Magazine”
1893 Harry Wright suggests umps keep ball-strike count a secret
1899 Morning Post reporter Winston Churchill departs to South Africa
1911 Largest baseball crowd ever 38,281 (Polo Grounds) see Giants beat A’s, 2-1 (gate is record $77,379)
1926 A. A. Milne’s book “Winnie the Pooh” is released
1930 George Gershwin and Ira Gershwin’s musical “Girl Crazy,” starring Ginger Rogers and featuring the debut of Ethel Merman, opens at the Alvin Theatre in NYC and runs for 272 performances
1945 Chicago Cardinals end a record 29-game losing streak, beat Bears
1947 Chuck Yeager makes the first supersonic flight in the Bell XS-1 at Mach 1.06
1951 NFL Detroit Lions Jack Christiansen returns 2 punts for touchdowns vs Los Angeles Rams
1957 Everly Brothers’ single “Wake Up Little Susie” reaches #1
1958 District of Columbia Bar Association votes to accept black Americans as members
1960 The Peace Corps is first proposed by John F. Kennedy in a speech at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor
1964 American swimmer Cathy Ferguson sets world record 1:07.7 to beat Kiki Caron of France by 0.2s and win the women’s 100m backstroke gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics
1964 American swimmer Dick Roth sets world record 4:45.4 to beat teammate Roy Saari and win the men’s 400m individual medley gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics
1964 Little known American distance runner Billy Mills scores major upset by winning the 10,000m at the Tokyo Olympics; beats Mohammed Gammoudi of Tunisia by 0.4s; only American to ever win the event
1964 Martin Luther King Jr. announced as winner of the Nobel Peace Prize
1964 Philips begins experimenting with color TV
1965 USAF test pilot Joe Engle in the X-15 reaches an altitude of 50.5 miles (81.3 km) and a top speed of 3,554 mph (5,720 km/h) (Mach 5.08)
1968 First live telecast from a manned US spacecraft (Apollo 7)
1968 Gruner and Watson (US) set a scuba depth record of 133 m in the Bahamas
1968 MLB National League expansion draft: San Diego Padres pick San Francisco Giants outfielder ‘Downtown’ Ollie Brown and Montreal Expos pick Pittsburgh Pirates outfielder Manny Mota 1st as they choose 30 players each
1968 The Beatles finish recording their double album “The Beatles” more commonly known as “The White Album”
1969 The United Kingdom introduces the 50p (fifty-pence) coin, replacing the ten-shilling note, in anticipation of currency decimalization in 1971
1970 Cleveland Cavaliers lose to Buffalo Braves in their 1st game 107-92
1971 John Lennon and Yoko Ono appear on “Dick Cavett Show”
1976 Nobel Prize in Economics awarded to American economist Milton Friedman
1976 Soyuz 23 carries 2 to Salyut 6, but returns without docking
1977 American rock band Kiss release their 2nd live album “Alive II”
1977 RCA releases David Bowie’s 12th studio album, “Heroes”; his second collaboration with Brian Eno in what becomes known as his ‘Berlin trilogy’ features contributions from guitarist Robert Fripp
1978 TV movie “Rescue from Gilligan’s Island” continues the story of the 1964-67 shipwreck sitcom Gilligan’s Island; six of the seven original cast members reprise their roles
1980 Presidential nominee Ronald Reagan promises to name a woman to the US Supreme Court
1982 US President Ronald Reagan proclaims a war on drugs
1986 IOC decides to stagger Winter & Summer Olympic schedule
1986 Nobel Peace Prize awarded to Auschwitz survivor Elie Wiesel, for his efforts to ensure the Holocaust was remembered
1994 NASA Space probe Magellan burns up in atmosphere of Venus
1994 Nobel Peace Prize awarded to Yasser Arafat, Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres
1996 Dow Jones Industrial Average closes over 6,000 for 1st time (6,010)
1996 Packer Chris Jacke kicks the longest field goal to end overtime (53 yds)
National Bring Your Teddy Bear to Work and School Day is a day to bring your  stuffed bear to work and school. Whether you are young or old, the day is an excuse to take your teddy bear wherever you go for the day.
The teddy bear was named after the 26th President of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt. In November 1902, Roosevelt, an avid hunter, went on a  hunting excursion organized by Mississippi’s governor, Andrew Longino, in Smedes, Mississippi. Roosevelt was accompanied by some aides, other hunters, and reporters, as well as a hunting guide, Holt Collier, and his hunting  dogs. After a few days without success, Roosevelt and the hunting dogs were on the trail of a black bear. Having thought that they had lost the bear, Roosevelt went back to camp, but Collier and his dogs kept searching. Collier and his dogs found the 235-pound bear, and the dogs circled it and began biting and attacking it. The bear killed one of the dogs, and Collier clubbed the bear over the head and tied it to a tree. He bugled for Roosevelt, who found the bear mauled from the dogs, and refused to shoot it. He also forbade anyone else from shooting it, but as the bear was so injured, he had the bear put out of its misery by having it be killed with a hunting knife.
A few days later, a cartoon titled “Drawing the line in Mississippi”, which showed Roosevelt refusing to shoot the bear, was drawn by Clifford Berryman and appeared in the Washington Post. Rose and Morris Mitchom, store owners in New York City, saw the cartoon and were inspired to create the teddy bear, which they originally called “Teddy’s bear.” They eventually founded the Ideal Toy Company which produced the bears and even allegedly wrote to Roosevelt asking his permission to use his name for their bear. About the same time as the Mitchom’s debuted their bear, Richard Steiff of Germany created a stuffed teddy bear as well, which also became very popular.
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everyone is to type in lowercase all day today because it is national lowercase day. in ancient rome, the latin alphabet consisted of capital letters all of the same size called roman majuscule. after the fall of rome, capital letters that were more rounded emerged, called uncial script. half-uncial came about around the same time, with some letters that resembled today’s lowercase letters. uncial and half-uncial were used throughout medieval times.
tracing their roots to the court of french king charlegmagne, the lowercase letters of today are called miniscule script. they were used by monks and scholars, who were scribes who made manuscripts by hand. this script was faster to write than uncial. this shift from uppercase to lowercase was on account of its handwriting ease, not because of writing rules; there weren’t many capitalization rules in europe before 1300.
when johannes gutenberg introduced the letterpress printing process circa 1439, it quickly spread around europe. letters were individual pieces called moveable metal type. the letters were stored by their type in wood cases. capital letters came to be stored in the upper (higher) cases. miniscule letters were stored in the lower cases. this is where the names uppercase and lowercase came from.
the terms were first used in the eighteenth century and were soon embraced by the public. this was also the time of the standardization of grammar. so uppercase and lowercase not only became names but were used in specific circumstances, such as uppercase being used for proper nouns. while uppercase letters are used for proper nouns on most days, they aren’t today, because it’s national lowercase day!

Minutes by Ryan Lewis.
Credit: Ryan Lewis, photographs.

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