Janesville Blackhawk Golden Kiwanis

Blackhawk Golden ‘K’ General Meeting
Minutes
January 21^st, 2026

Richard Johnson presided, and called the meeting to order with a ring of the bell at 9:30AM.
28 members were in attendance today.

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

Invocation: Steve Skelly, mentioning unity and the children.

Raffle: Maury Frey oversaw the ticket sales and drawing this week.
The weekly pot was $12 and the big (Joker) pot was $161.
April Wright drew a ticket from the bucket, ticket number 1278.  Congratulations to the winner, Carl Cramer.
The deck of cards has 39/53 cards remaining.  Carl Cramer drew the 8♠.

Richard Johnson thanks greeters Bob Knudson and Dale Henning, invocator Steve Skelly, rafflemaster Maury Frey, and server Bob Knudson.

Happy Box: Carl Cramer announced he is happy because he won the raffle, and is donating the proceeds to the Truck on Ice!
Richard Johnson announced he is happy because it is his brother’s birthday.

Jokes: Joker Steve Skelly had a good joke.

Member Health: Linda Bontly had a status update on Ron Shuler, who is in room #8 at St. Elizabeth’s, and his son is here since Monday.

Carl Cramer shared an educational moment video from 2011, with Adams School president Sally Parks and many volunteers, when Kiwanis supported seven grade schools’ breakfast clubs for children.

Committee Reports: John Janes announced the Truck on Ice table sales at Sentry are completed.  The last shift couldn’t sell tickets as fast as the customers passed, and made $331 during that shift.  The collection today is $1,435 inclusive.  Friday and Saturday will be Lion’s Quick Mart at Highways 14 and 51.
John Janes announced thanks to Kiwanis member Ryan Lewis for his work implementing the cellular phone for credit card transactions.

April Wright introduced the day’s speaker, Nikki Bennett.  Nikki with her husband John teach art and DIY designs with their event company Emunah Designs.  Nikki and John previously had a child with special needs that passed away.  Nikki started crafting, and is an advocate for the healing power of art.  Nikki proceeded to tell about her life and how art is an important part of it.

Emunah means “faith.”
Nikki believes in ‘no mistakes art.’
Nikki and John passed out pencils and circular pieces of paper.  Nikki asked all members to say aloud, “I promise not to judge my art or my neighbor’s art until we’re done.”

The project the group completed was to take a coin and push it across the circle with a pencil, five times from five different angles.

Nikki shared some facts about their business: they teach at many types of events and locations, including nursing homes.

Some artists will participate without speaking.

One of their regular attendees was 103 years old.

After the lines were created, they were made into rough circles with a black marker.
Other locations they have presented include other events at Rotary including a quite successful one recently, and G5 Brewery, and Hedberg Public Library.
The circles were then colored in with different colors.

Art is a great stress relief.  It causes the brain to release endorphins.

Completed artistic items were shared among one another.
Magnetic tape was applied to the back of each project to use it as a refrigerator or etcetera display.
The Bennetts’ business’ website can be found at https://www.emunahdesigns.com/ .

The presentation was well received and enjoyed.

April Wright thanked Nikki Bennett for speaking and presented her with a Kiwanis Parker pen.

Richard Johnson adjourned the meeting with a ring of the bell at 10:50AM.

Reminders: There is an executive board meeting next week.

On this day:
1549 Act of Uniformity passed by the English Parliament requiring clergy use The Book of Common Prayer
1677 First medical publication in America, a pamphlet on smallpox, is published in Boston
1789 The first American novel, William Hill Brown’s “The Power of Sympathy,” is published by Isaiah Thomas
1818 Keats writes his poem “On a Lock of Milton’s Hair”
1846 First edition of Charles Dickens’ newspaper “The Daily News” is published
1880 1st US sewage disposal system separate from storm drains in Memphis, Tennessee
1894 Oscar Fredriksen skates world record 500m in 47.8 sec
1899 Opel manufactures its first automobile
1903 Harry Houdini escapes from Halvemaansteeg police station in Amsterdam
1915 Kiwanis International founded in Detroit
1921 British crime writer Agatha Christie publishes her first novel, “The Mysterious Affair at Styles,” introducing the character Hercule Poirot
1922 1st slalom ski race run at Murren, Switzerland
1935 The Wilderness Society is founded by conservationists
1942 Bronx magistrate rules all pinball machines illegal
1954 First time in All-Star history, an overtime period is needed to decide a winner; Boston Celtics’ guard Bob Cousy’s 10-point OT scoring burst gave the East a 98-93 win; Cousy wins All-Star MVP honours
1962 Snow falls in San Francisco
1974 Price of gold hits a record $161.31, and silver hits a record $3.97 an ounce in London
1976 Supersonic Concorde has its first commercial flights
1978 Bee Gees’ album “Saturday Night Fever” goes #1; stays on top for 24 weeks
1987 Second Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees: The Coasters; Eddie Cochran; Bo Diddley; Aretha Franklin; Marvin Gaye; Bill Haley; B.B. King; Clyde McPhatter; Ricky Nelson; Roy Orbison; Carl Perkins; Smokey Robinson; Joe Turner; Muddy Waters; Jackie Wilson; Louis Jordan; T-Bone Walker; Hank Williams; Leonard Chess; Ahmet Ertegun; Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller; and Jerry Wexler
1988 US accepts immigration of 30,000 US-Vietnamese children
1994 Dow Jones Industrial Average passes 3900 (record 3,914.20)
Taking place in the dead of winter, when food for squirrels and other animals can be scarce, Squirrel Appreciation Day acknowledges the role of squirrels in nature and encourages people to put out nuts, seeds, or other food for them. It was created in 2001 by Christy Hargrove, now Christy McKeown, who at the time was a freshman at UNC-Asheville, a wildlife rehabilitator affiliated with the Western North Carolina Nature Center, and runner of the now-defunct Squirrels R Us website. She wrote that people could simply “celebrate by putting out extra food for the squirrels.”

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.