Newsletter - Archive  Apr 1, 2010

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Have Camera, Will Travel to Anywhere!

Club President-elect Linda Nichols (seen here at her Jefferson City photo studio) took off for Ecuador on April 1 – no April Fool’s joke – to spend a week teaching a photography class at the Technical High School in Yachana, Ecuador as part of the joint Jefferson City West and Springfield Rotary Club’s international project. She claims she is not scared of snakes, spiders and crawly things, but she is taking her long lens.

    Linda is also taking some of her rarely-used digital cameras, which she plans to donate to the school. “I have always dreamed about going to a far-off place and teach young people how to use new photo technology, from cameras to computers, and this was too good a deal to pass up,” she said before leaving on a trip of a lifetime.

    The West club has traditionally had an international project, but this is the first time it will have a physical presence at the project site. Linda joined up with Rotarian Paul Reinert of Springfield, who has been involved in the Yachana Project for the past 10 years.

South Korea GSE Team visits Jefferson City

Chan Choi, left, of Daejon, Korea presents a Rotary flag to Steve Houser, president of the Jefferson City West Rotary Club
during ceremonies at the downtown club luncheon.

    A South Korea Group Study Exchange team from Rotary District 3680, made up of business and professional people, made a whirlwind tour of Jefferson City on March 29, visiting businesses as well as the state capitol building and historical sites such as the old Missouri State Prison.

    While meeting with the Jefferson City Downtown Rotary Club, GSE Team Leader (and Rotarian) Chan Choi presented Rotary club flags and pins to each club president in Jefferson City. The pins included the South Korea and U.S. flags.

    “I am pleased to know something special about Rotary clubs in the United States, and I am enjoying seeing first-hand the many cultures and customs of the peoples here. This visit is the greatest moment in my life,” Choi told Rotarians.

    The GSE team will participate in the all-Missouri Rotary Convention April 15-17 in Springfield.

Right photo: GSE Team members from South Korea, along with local Rotarians, tour the main cell block of the old Missouri State Prison, which was built in 1836 but closed in 2004.

Program Highlights: The Old State Prison

Mark Schreiber holds up knife made by a prisoner of the old State Prison. Mark was actually stabbed with it while serving as a guard.

Mark Schreiber, a long-time guard who rose to become deputy warden at the Missouri State Prison in Jefferson City, loves to talk about the old prison days and the characters that graced its cells and dungeons. He spoke to the Jefferson City West Rotary Club on March 19 – just a few weeks before he was due to retire as a prison employee.

    Now closed, the old prison was built in 1836 and opened when the battle of the Alamo was going on in Texas. It celebrated its 100^th anniversary when Alcatraz opened near San Francisco. It was truly one of the oldest continuous prisons in the U.S. before it closed in 2004.

    Time Magazine once called the Missouri Prison “the bloodiest 47 acres in America,” Schreiber proudly noted. He held up a prison-made knife in which he was stabbed by a prisoner. A riot in 1954 is still remembered by many Jeff City citizens. It caused $7 million damage and seven were killed. There was another riot back in 1927, and the culprits were hung where the current City of Jefferson police station now sits.

    But there were many other stories that have made the old prison a favorite tourist attraction. Mark likes to talk about “Fire Bug” Johnson (pictured at right), who tried to set fire to the prison five times. He was sent to the dungeon, and later wrote a book in 1903 titled “Buried Alive.” Other prison notables included Pretty Boy Floyd’s girlfriend and his get-away driver of the 1930s. Even boxer Sonny Liston was once an inmate, who learned to box while incarcerated here. One little-known inmate who escaped before he became notorious was James Earl Ray, who later shot and killed Martin Luther King. The reward for his capture, by the way, was $50.

    Mark Schreiber has led tours of the prison since it closed. He is retiring, he says, after 42 years, but will still be available to tell his stories and lead visitors on some interesting visits to an icon of the past.

    (For photos of a recent tour of the prison, go to Photo Albums and lick on Prison Tour.)

PETS and SETS Training for Linda and Ed

President-elect Linda Nichols (left) and Secretary-elect Ed Hughes (right) recently attended the Missouri Rotary PETS and SETS Training at the Capital Plaza in Jefferson City to get ready to take their official club duties on July 1, 2010. Both Linda and Ed did double duty. Linda also took photographs of club presidents, presidents-elect and other dignitaries. Ed also served as a Sergeant-at-Arms (shown standing next to an old iron lung for polio victims in the 1940s) in addition to learning all about becoming a club secretary, DaCdb and all that jazz!

Rotary Conferences coming up!

Here are two key Rotary conferences and special events coming up soon. Put them on your calendar.

April 15-17: All-Missouri Rotary Conference, involving all four state Rotary districts, at the University Plaza Convention Center in Springfield, Mo. The incoming Rotary International President, Ray Kinginsmith, will be among the speakers. This will be a fun event for all family members! To register go to www.missourirotaryconvention.com.

April 23: Rotary Trivia Night, sponsored by the JC West Rotary Club, 5:30 p.m. at Capital Ritz, a fun fund-raiser for the Samaritan Center. Open to the community. Contact Tim Haas for information and tickets.