​CONGRATULATIONS… 
…to our own Ambridge Rotary Club Past President, Jim Hahn, who has been chosen to be the DGND (District Governor Nominee Designate). That means that Jim will serve as the District 7300 Governor for the 2019-2020 Rotary year.  Jim will be only the second District Governor from our club and as we in our Ambridge Club all know, a nicer, more dedicated and generous person could not have been picked to fill this very responsible and prestigious position.  Each year, the District Governor is only one of 530+ such people in the entire world.
Jim has been a Rotarian for 34 years, first joining the Millvale Club where he served as their Club President. After Hurricane Ivan did all of its damage in Millvale and the surrounding area, the Millvale Club was forced to disband.
Jim later acquired the Kasper Funeral Home on Eighth St. in Ambridge from his long-time friends, Walter and Marge Kasper, and shortly thereafter another of our Past Presidents and the first female President of our club, Donna Durick, invited him to join our club. Within several years Jim served as our President and the rest is history.  Jim and his wonderful wife, Marlene, have four children who have blessed them with a total of 15 grandchildren.
We can all look forward to an exciting year when Jim is at the helm and we should all start making plans now to attend the Rotary International Convention together in Honolulu, Hawaii, from June 7-10, 2020, right at the end of Jim’s year as Governor.  It should be a blast!

 
(CLEVELAND, OH) – Jennifer Jones, Vice President of Rotary International, is excited to announce the selection of the “40 under 40” to attend the inaugural Young Professionals Summit to be held in conjunction with the Legacy Zone and Rotary Institute in Cleveland, Ohio.
 
Felicia Mycyk, President of the Ambridge Rotary Club,  was selected to attend the Legacy Zone Young Professionals Summit to be held September 29 – October 1, 2016.
 
“ It’s a honor to have the opportunity to influence others in a way to make the future brighter for current and incoming Rotarians” shared Mycyk.  “To have a voice at the table is one of the best ways to contribute to change and to build community. “
 
The Legacy Zone Young Professionals Summit will provide a unique opportunity to learn more about young professionals and their perceptions of Rotary, identify the challenges that clubs have attracting young professionals, and develop new ideas and innovative strategies to enrich the experience for young professionals in Rotary.
 
“The individuals selected are committed to Rotary and eager to connect with others who feel the same way,” says Jennifer Jones. She is also one of 17 global directors who oversee the stewardship and governance of Rotary. Jones adds, “these young professionals are the bright future of our organization and they exemplify how Rotarians feels at every age – ready for service to their communities and the world.”
 
The Legacy Zone and Rotary Institute consists of 28 districts with over 60,000 Rotarians in North Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa, eastern Nebraska, northern Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan, northern Ohio, western and central Pennsylvania, upstate New York and a portion of Ontario, Canada. Less than 20% of Rotarians are under the age of 40 in the two zones, where the primary goal is to join leaders, exchange ideas, and take action with the focus on Service Above Self.
 
About Ambridge Rotary Club
Ambridge Rotary Club turns 95 years old in September of 2016 and Felicia Mycyk is the club’s first African American Female president.  The club prides itself on the service oriented activities and the service youth groups in the  Jr and Senior high school, called Interact.  New this year is the launch of EarlyAct, a community service club for elementary students.  Upcoming project  lighting the sports complex basketball courts in Ambridge. www.AmbridgeRotaryClub.org
 ​
About Rotary International
Rotary brings together a global network of volunteer leaders dedicated to tackling the world's most pressing humanitarian challenges. Rotary connects 1.3 million members of more than 34,000 Rotary clubs in over 200 countries and geographical areas. Their work improves lives at both the local and international levels, from helping families in need in their own communities to working toward a polio-free world. For more information or to join, visit Rotary.org. 
 

Congratulations to the participants of the 7th annual Ambridge Rotary Club district wide 3rd grade spelling Bee held at Economy Elementary School.
Each third-grade classroom in the three elementary schools held a spelling competition then sent their top two spellers  per class to the district-wide spelling bee held Wednesday at Economy Elementary. 

To prepare for the competition, the Ambridge Rotary donated personal dictionaries to each student in third grade.  

A total of 16 students advanced to the district-wide spelling bee and all spellers who participated received a medal.  The top tow spellers received trophies along with metals. 

First place took home two additional prizes: a gift from Kasper Hahn Funeral Home and an invitation from the Rotary 7300 District Governor to attend the  Rotary regional spelling bee held at Seven Springs Mountain Resort in June.

Congratulations to Highland Elementary's  Benjamin Francis on winning the spelling bee and Lauren Mealie who placed second.

...to Donna Durick and her entire family on the passing of her mother, Florence DiClemente, on Feb. 14

 and

...to Debbie Kmit and Dick’s entire family on his passing on Feb. 18. Dick was recently one of our Honorary 

Members but had been a very active member for many years.

(mostly for the benefit of our newer members-we oldies remember some of these things)...about how our 

club started to make and sell funnel cakes. More than 30 years ago, when we still met for Monday evening 

dinners at the Ambridge Country Club, then member and perennial song leader, “Big Joe” Rosenberger, 

(we sang several songs at every meeting and had lot’s of fun doing it), suggested that we start to do funnel 

cakes as a fundraiser. For years, we had been packaging apples and selling them but they got too expensive 

and the profit was no longer there. 

Joe and his wife went to Manheim, PA, quite often and saw the Pennsylvania Dutch folks doing their funnel 

cakes. His idea caught on and he brought back cases of two pound bags of Funnel Cake Powder mix for us 

to use. Nationality Days was our first venture and we used a tent and three borrowed tabletop deep fryers 

(the kind you can make French Fries in at home). As you can imagine, production was rather slow.

For the following year it was decided that we needed a booth of some kind. Under the planning and 

direction of our member, Jerry Steinmetz, we constructed, inside a building at Ohio Valley Lumber Co.

(thanks to club members, Jim Schell, Sr., and his son, Bill Schell), a wooden booth in which we could do 

our Funnel Cakes. It was designed so that we could put it together and then take it apart, after the event, for 

storage. We did that one time and realized that it way too much work. For the next year we put wheels on it 

and pulled it away instead of hauling it away in pieces. 

We used that for several years and then Whitey Mikush and several others, including Phil Trapold, came 

up with the idea of getting a custom aluminum trailer built (the one we still have). When that was completed 

and in our hands we decided to give the wooden booth/trailer to Crime Solvers of Beaver County. They 

were very grateful and used it at events for a number of years.

The tabletop fryers went away when Whitey stepped in and came across the bigger, much deeper ones that 

we used for many years. Whitey also found that we could get ready-made, powdered Funnel Cake mix, in 

50 pound bags, locally. No more two pound bags of mix or trips down East. 

As we all know, we are still making Funnel Cakes at six or more events every year but now you know the 

rest of the story as to how this all came about.​​

Written by PDG Walt Sickles
​
As has previously been reported, there were only 359 new cases in 2014 and only 74 new cases in 2015 (54

in Pakistan and 20 in Afghanistan). So far, as of Feb.10, only 1 new case has been reported - in Pakistan. 

We must, however, keep up the inoculations in order to completely end this horrific disease.

 Ethan Work of Ambridge is the proud new owner of this 

 beautiful power scooter thanks to the generosity of 

 New Brighton Rotarian, Alan Crundwell. Alan recently

 made this scooter available by donating it to our Ambridge 

 Rotary Club’s “Free Medical Equipment Loan Program”.

 Ethan, a graduate of Ambridge Area High School, is 22 

 years old and, in all of the years that he has been using a

 wheelchair, this is the first power unit that he has ever had. 

 Needless to say, when Ethan received the scooter on 

 December 14, he was extremely happy and immediately 

 took it for a spin up to the corner and back. 

 We certainly believe and hope that this will make a very

 positive change in Ethan’s life and allow him to get around 

 and accomplish things much easier than before. 

 Also this month we loaned out a transporter type wheelchair.

...Barbara Knecht, Michael Marticek, Gary Page & Robert Taylor who were inducted at our November 8 

Dinner meeting. We were honored to have District Governor, Bill Segar, attend that evening to assist in 

pinning our four new members. 

That evening we also presented a Paul Harris Fellowship to Officer Alan Loskoch of the Harmony Township 

Police Dept. in recognition of the incident in which he was shot in the chest and thankfully survived because 

of the bullet proof vest he was wearing at the time.

The new District Parade Float, thanks to the Monroeville Club, appeared in the Nov. 11 Beaver County 

Veteran’s Day Parade in New Brighton and in the WPXI TV Holiday Parade in Pittsburgh on Sat., Nov. 28. 

We hope that the float will be in many more community parades throughout our district as it makes a very 

nice appearance and lets the public know who we are and what we do.

​Interact Conference a Big Success

The Oct. 26, Interact District Conference was very well attended and was very successful. Four members of 

our High School club as well as their new sponsor, Karen DeMarco, and four members of our brand new 

Junior High School Club along with their sponsors, Amy Braund and Carolyn Crawford, participated.

Many thanks to Mr. Bob Rhodes for providing Rhodes Bus transportation for this event in Green Tree.