Dateline: [Mankato, MN, May 17, 2023] — The Greater Mankato Rotary Club held their annual speech and debate lunch at the Courtyard by Marriott in Mankato. Seniors from all three local high schools who participated in speech and debate this season were awarded a $300 scholarship and given a chance to share their craft with the lunch attendees.
The Greater Mankato Rotary Club honored three recipients of the Service Above Self event at the annual event on March 1 - one week later than anticipated due to inclement weather in later February. Individual recipients were Laura Doyen and Susu Sadaka and the group recipient was South Central Minnesota Food Recovery, accepted by founder Natasha Frost.
The Greater Mankato Rotary Club - Eco club recently received a boost as it begins an ambitious project in Rotary Park (Augusta and St. Andrews in Mankato). The group, which is a focused subgroup of the Greater Mankato Rotary Club is undertaking a pollinator project set to beautify the park while adding native plants that are friendly to bees, butterflies, and other pollinators. They received a Rotary Shark Tank grant for phases beginning July 1. In the meantime, work has begun around the entrance sign to the park. Additional phases will include more native plant areas, signage to learn more about the plants, and sculptures, including one that spreads the word about the great works of Rotary.
As was presented by long-time member Herb Kroon at the Noon meeting on June 16, the Mankato Rotary has been around in some fashion since 1935 when it was chartered with 15 members. Thirty years earlier Paul Harris founded Rotary International. Judge Milt Mason was one of the first members and remained in the club until the early 1980s. Eventually, the club, like the area, grew and morphed into offshoots. The St. Peter club in 1938, the New Prague club in 1945, Waseca in 1960, and North Mankato in 1969. At its peak in the late 1990s, the Mankato Rotary Club had more than 100 members, perhaps attributing to the fact that women were allowed to join in 1987 (prior to this the “wives” were in Rotary Auxilliary clubs). JO Guck Bailey and Denise Zernechel, current active club members, were among the first to join. Both would later become presidents, following the lead of the first female president Carol Larson in 1993.
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Service Above Self
Mankato, MN 56001
United States of America