Every veteran is a story, Rotarians were told May 19 by Chris Kolakowski, Wisconsin Veterans Museum Director. The Wisconsin Veterans Museum is an educational activity of the Wisconsin Department of Veterans Affairs. Kolakowski’s latest book is “Last Stand on Bataan.”
Kolakowski told how military service ripples in families beyond an individual service member. Their research finds many children emulating their parent’s example over the past century. Sometimes this legacy of service extends into grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Just as some families run a commercial enterprise over generations, for others the “family business” is the U.S. military.
Chris overviewed some facts about the museum: There are over 26,000 artifacts in the collection; there are over 2,000 cubic feet of archives; there are over 2,600 interviews in the oral history collection; and they have over 150,000 photographs. Many members may not be aware of so many events having a Wisconsin connection, so Chris encourages members to visit the museum to view these collections. The museum typically has over 90,000 visitors each year.
The museum has been holding events virtually and in-person including Curators Conversations twice a month, movie night, and they also hold events for Memorial Day and Veterans Day.
Here is a link to the museum’s website stories: https://wisvetsmuseum.pastperfectonline.com/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&search_criteria=family&searchButton=Search
Our thanks to Chris Kolakowski for his presentation this week and to Valerie Renk for preparing this review article. If you missed our meeting this week, you can watch it here: https://youtu.be/XjWRO5oYllk.
Dr. Angela Janis discussed the basics of medical cannabis at the May 12 Rotary meeting. Janis is a Psychiatrist at Mendota Mental Health Institute.
Dennis Dresang shared the legacy of former Governor Patrick Lucey May 5.
Our guest speaker this week was Dr. Elizabeth Bagley, Director of Drawdown Learn at Project Drawdown, speaking to us on a pre-recorded video from Sitka, Alaska. Dr. Bagley received her undergraduate degree from UW-Madison as well as her Ph.D. jointly in Environment and Resources and Educational Psychology. She is clearly well suited to teach us about environmental issues in understandable terms.
On an historic day, when the Club returned to the Park Hotel for the first time in more than a year of pandemic isolation, our speaker was fellow Rotarian Jason Fields. Jason is the new president of the Madison Regional Economic Partnership. He spoke on the topic “We Must Not Accept Complacency.” The title derives from his belief that Madison is a great place to live and work, but his mission is to give his all for everyone he deals with, always. And he construes economic development to mean “to empower people.” All people. He is motivated by the question that his wife asked him: “Yes, Madison is a great place. But for who?” He briefly referred to the statistics we all know, that Wisconsin has huge disparities between its White and Black populations. He and his wife were themselves discriminated against while seeking a home here as they move from Milwaukee. This is never acceptable. Beyond the immorality of it, we have to send a message that this will not be tolerated if we really want to be competitive in attracting talent.
The speaker at our April 7th meeting was Jason Beloungy, Executive Director of Access to Independence, which is one of eight such organizations in Wisconsin. It serves Columbia, Dane, Dodge and Green counties. Today he spoke of the collaboration between his organization, the Downtown Madison’s Beyond Compliance Task Force, and the City of Madison’s Disability Rights Commission.
Rotary Club of Madison, Wisconsin 