including, “Cat in the Hat,” “Green Eggs
MORAGA
ROTARY
NEWSLETTER
March 2, 2021
_________________________________
Next Meeting: March 9th
Evening/ 6:00 pm
Program: Dave Miller- Swim a
Million Miles for Charity
Greeter: Angelo Costanza
____________________________
To participate next week:
Zoom connection information for next week’s
meeting will be distributed early next week.
Upcoming Speakers:
March 16 Ellide Smith — Campolindo
HS DEI chair
March 23 Diego Rios – Here for Kids
International
~~Thirty-third Meeting of ’20/’21
Rotary Year~~
President Brian South rang the bell to
open our meeting, greeter Frank May
told us that today is the birthday of
Theodore Seuss “Ted” Geisel, better
known as Dr. Zeuss. “Ted” was an
American children’s author, cartoonist,
illustrator, poet, animator, and filmmaker
who gave us many children’s books,
1
and Ham,” “If I Ran the Zoo,” and
invented the word Nerd.
Frank reminded us of several sayings
made popular by Doctor Zeuss:
• “You miss 100% of every shot you
don’t make!”
• “You have brains in your head.
You have feet in your shoes. You
can steer yourself any direction
you choose.”
• “Today was good. Today was fun.
Tomorrow is another one.”
• “You can’t change the world – but
throw a rock in the pond and it
makes a lot of ripples which
spread far and wide!”
• “We are all a little weird and life’s
a little weird, and when we find
someone whose weirdness is
compatible with ours, we join up
with them and fall in mutual
weirdness and call it love.”
(apologies to Frank, the newsletter
editor just couldn’t resist adding
this last one…)
Our guests today were Barbara
Preston, today’s speaker and Kitty
Lenhart, a good friend of Past President
Debbie Koo.
~~HAPPY BUCKS~~
Debbie Koo had $5 Happy Bucks.
Evie Michon had some Happy Bucks.
President Brian South had $5 Happy
Bucks to celebrate his attending PETS
for the second time. Since Brian will be
President for two years, the District
leadership wanted him to attend a
second time so he could share his
unique (two year) viewpoint. Brian also
truly appreciated the PowerPoint slide
created by Debbie Koo to celebrate his
royal 2nd-Presidentship.
Debbie Roessler had $5 Happy Bucks.
She gave a donation to the Campolindo
Interact Club and was very impressed to
receive the nicest thank-you note in
response.
Mayor, Mike McClure had some Happy
Bucks – but the editor must apologize
for shoddy record-keeping on some of
these HB’s. He had three outside phone
calls during the Happy Bucks! (Very
distracting!)
~~ANNOUNCEMENTS~~
Our big fundraising event, Evening with
Rotary, will be held this weekend!
Please send the dinner flyers to your
local friends and the video registration to
friends worldwide. Dinner orders are up
to 149 so far. President Brian thanks
everyone for their donations so far.
Please keep telling your friends and
neighbors. The more the merrier!
Also let’s push for watchers for the video
presentation. We have 72 signed up and
watching is free! We need to know an
email address for viewers so the link
can be sent before the online event at
7:30 pm Saturday, March 6th. A great
deal of work has gone into the video
2
production and we’d like to have as
many viewers as possible. Just go to the
Moraga Rotary Club website at
www.moragarotary.com to sign up.
Remember, even if you can’t do the
dinner please sign up for the video. It’s
free and a lot of wonderful folks poured
their hearts into it.
~~?WHAT’S IN THE BOX?~~
The last game winner, Past President
Evie Michon provided this week’s
“What’s in the Box” item. President
Brian showed us a box about 2 inches
thick and about 16” x 16.” It was an old
MacBook Air box, so the first hint was –
“It is not a MacBook Air.” Other hints
were, “It’s worth about $20” and “It is a
home décor item.” (Each wrong guess
costs the guesser a $1.)
• Past Pres Debbie Koo guessed
“Book ends?” (No)
• Debbie Roessler guessed “A
photo?” (No)
• Barbara Bruner guessed “A
pillow?” (No)
• Cliff Dochterman guessed “A wall
hanger?” (No)
• Alka Mulakaluri guessed “A
Table liner?” (No)
• Carol Irwin guessed “Placemats?”
(No)
• Our guest, Kitty Lenhart guessed
“A picture frame?” and won the
prize. Congratulations Kitty!
 ~~PROGRAM~~
Debbie Roessler introduced today’s
speaker, Bobbie Preston, who told us
all about monarch butterflies and a local
project being sponsored by the Moraga
Garden Club to build a monarch
butterfly refuge at Rancho Laguna Park.
Bobbie along with her friends in the
Garden Club have been very concerned
with the dramatic drop in monarch
butterflies migrating through our area on
their way to Mexico each year. Last year
the Garden Club tried purchasing
monarch eggs and hatching them for
release. Turns out this doesn’t work well
at all because the vast majority of
commercially purchased egg stocks are
contaminated with “OE” (short for
Ophryocystis Elektroscirrha which is a
neogregarine protozoan parasite that
infects monarch and queen butterflies
and lesser wandering butterflies…)
(editor’s note, “Why do we let scientists
take Latin??? They feel they need to
create these awful names then after
graduation…) OE was first discovered in
Florida in 1960.
Of course, OE kills the butterflies, and it
is so widespread that you pretty much
cannot find commercially available
butterflies which are not already
infected. The Moraga Garden group
concluded that it would be best to focus
on wild monarch butterflies and find a
way to help them propagate. Thus, the
idea for the monarch refuge at Rancho
Laguna Park. At the park there is an
abandoned semi-circular area which
used to enclose a par course. The club
plans to put up a 6’ fence of redwood
and steel mesh which will enclose a
3
garden area filled with plants attractive
to butterflies and lots and lots of
milkweed. Turns out you even have to
be careful what kind of milkweed you
buy because some varieties have
rhizomes toxic to animals. Thus, the
need for the fence – to keep out the
dogs in the park and protect the plants
from the local deer population.
The area for fencing covers about 2,600
square feet. A narrow steel mesh will be
used with 2”x 4” squares which will
discourage little climbing children who
might wander over from the park. The
area has a water source, and the plan
includes a solar powered water fountain
for the butterflies. Five benches are to
be placed around the outside of the
fenced area and there would be a
6’ x 12’ pergola.
The Garden Club has gotten a lot of
support from other community
organizations, the Town Council and
Moraga Parks & Recreation. The
Garden Club and volunteers will tend
the plantings and maintain the structure.
It actually takes two years for milkweed
to grow enough to support a significant
butterfly larvae population. This is why it
is so critical to get the fence up and
plant the initial milkweed stocks right
away. The goal is to have the initial
plants in place by the end of April so
that by Fall there might be some
success with the milkweed stocks.
Going forward they plan to have
milkweed blooming throughout the
period from March to November. The
most desirable milkweed varieties are
“narrow leaf” and “shelly” (The editor is
not sure of the spelling of that second
variety of milkweed. A Google search for
“shelly milkweed” yielded no results.)
The rhizomes of these varieties are the
least toxic to animals.
The Garden Club will make milkweed
plants available to the community, to
organizations and schools to spread the
monarch butterfly benefits over the
whole Lamorinda area. It seems we are
right on a major western monarch
butterfly migration route, so we are well
positioned to help the little creatures
along.
A male monarch butterfly
A female monarch butterfly – a “queen”
There were lots of good questions and
lots of discussion generated by the
presentation. Evie Michon spoke for the
4
group when she said she was
astonished by the amount of knowledge
Bobbie had accumulated on this topic.
President Brian South asked Bobbie to
let us know when the work would
commence on the Rancho Laguna site
because he was sure many in the club
would like to help. He thanked Bobbie
for speaking with us today and told her
she would receive a certificate of
appreciation from the club and we would
be donating a medical kit to the schools
in her name. It is a club project to
provide a medical kit for each classroom
in the community.
~~ ENCORE GAME~~
The goal of this game at the end of each
weekly meeting is to guess the suit of a
single ace drawn from four aces.
Today’s potential prize was $50. Gary
Irwin drew the name of President Brian
South to try to guess the suit this week.
Brian laughed and said he suspected a
possible indictment for this, but he’d go
ahead and guess Hearts. Gary showed
the winning suit was Diamonds, so Brian
didn’t win the $50. He said, “Oh well, I
would have donated it to our event next
Saturday anyway.” Next week’s Encore
Game will be worth $50.
Greeters/Invocators:
• 3/09 – Angelo Costanza
• 3/16 – Tony Schoemehl
• 3/23 – Jim Campbell
• 3/30 – Herb Wehmeyer
• 4/06 – John Erickson
• 4/13 – MarySue Erickson
• 4/20 - Open
• 4/27 - Open
Moraga Rotary Directors 2020/2021
President Brian South
President Elect Brian South
Past Co-Presidents Evie Michon & Debbie Koo
Executive Secretary Evie Michon
Secretary Jennifer Brophy
Treasurer and Youth Services Chair Rich Render
Club Administrator Debbie Roessler
Foundation Chairman John Erickson
Community Service Chairman Tony Schoemehl
Public Relations Chairman Gary Irwin
Fundraising Chairman Frank May
International Service Chairs Dianne Wilson & Debbie Koo
Membership Chairman Roger Gregory
Director at Large Mary Sue Erickson
Director at Large Linda May
Advisor to the Board John Erickson
Advisor to the Board Jim Campbell
Advisor to the Board Cliff Dochterman
District Governor 5160 Mark Roberts
President, Rotary International Holger Knaack

This month’s Newsletter Editor – The Rajah Gregory

5
6