Rotary Meeting featuring the Duke Slater Statue Initiative Committee

thank you I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all uh invocation is going to be Pastor Paul taking over for pitch hitting for the day let's be in prayer Lord God we thank you for your generous goodness that comes to us new every day for the blessings of today for the opportunities to serve and rotary for this meal we ask that you keep us mindful of the four-way test and the goals and purposes of rotary that we may truly put service above self and all that we do that our lives our families our communities our nation the world may benefit from the blessings that come only from you in Christ's name we pray amen amen thank you Father everybody be seated uh quick announcements uh we need to have a very uh short board meeting after the the transportation today so board members if you can hang behind and we have a couple little things we need to vote on uh so we need all a little bit I think there's eight of us here uh so only one person can skip out and that's not you Christy you're not skipping them not yet um we do have a Paul Harris thing to hand out uh Andy Ferguson's not here but I'll go ahead take her I won't bore you with the whole story we all know the Paul Harris story uh we just did it last week so I'll grab this over here uh for those who haven't been here we've been uh Doling out some Paul Paul Harris points accumulated by other members to get people up to 100 Paul Harris for the club we did achieve that goal we still have some uh some certificates to hand out along with pins and uh this pin and certificate goes to Ron Gutierrez who's here today [Music] right there okay there's a speech no I'm just kidding uh we don't have a whole lot for announcements this month uh what I don't have are the cards we need to hand out but February is always the month where we do random acts of kindness for this club I will have those cards at the next meeting to hand out so when you do a random exercise card but that just because you don't have the cards doesn't mean you can't do random acts of kindness anyway so please take the opportunity to do that and if you do a random active plan just make sure you let people know about the Rotary Club itself and next week we'll have the cards anybody doesn't know I bought a new house I'm moving and I'm very sore and tired things are just kind of so so next week we'll have it anybody have any announcements from the floor yeah Susan's got an announcements the library is having actually the library um the main library is having a lot of stuff going on we have two um we have an art display and then we have the lock of Fame displays there right now um they're also doing some special programs this month um remembering um mayor Lew Mattawan is going to be on the 15th Wednesday at six o'clock with her daughter she's going to be doing a special program with us and then that will be at the Lions branch on the 22nd doing a special underground railroad through routes history program for Clinton County so I have a couple of Flyers if you're interested it's also on our Facebook page and our website thank you Siri I promise I won't forget you next time anybody else have anything on the floor if not turn this over to Mr Vista for Fellowship Ryan go ahead all six Applause oh wait Susie wants to say one more thing we're gonna have uh tomorrow at the DeWitt Public Library at what time 6 30. 6 30 at the DeWitt Public Library um exploring a satellite with the DeWitt Community for rotary and I'll be there um and the DeWitt director for that Library he'll be there and hopefully some more people that might be interested in the DeWitt satellite okay good afternoon rotarians um got a birthday that we had to celebrate yesterday for those who didn't see Dennis's heartfelt uh Facebook live uh his birthday was yesterday what was your inspiring quote at the end of your video I didn't watch it what are you trying to follow the saint Giuseppe's guy uh getting the fake advertising on Facebook Dennis or what that's a five dollar fine Maestro can we sing should we sing happy birthday to him happy birthday foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] views by the end of the day I'll I'll donate five dollars did you hear that yes yes sir okay a couple rotary anniversaries Dan housing here online thank you congratulations Dan 12 years Sue Watkins is here nine years congratulations and Ryan Kelly's here as well two years congratulations Brian and Teresa Nielsen four years is she online congratulations Teresa guests Ron you have a guest today we do Eric Schweitzer our sports editor welcome America you want to introduce are some of our corporate guests thank you we have several participating today from Citizens First bank for our corporate membership our 11th Eddie Dunham Heather Farwell welcome Andy do you have the student guest for tonight yeah this is uh Anna and Sophia their seniors for the month of February wonderful welcome and then Joe do you have our Prince of Peace friends before I left yeah welcome any other guests today you've forgotten yes we have two more yes Francis uh Matt barbs and Bill Michelle welcome well since we're talking about the new Slater statue and scholarship I thought it would be appropriate to have some Duke Slater trivia so those that are on the committee are not uh you can't answer the question okay three dollars if it's wrong two dollars if it's right and uh Norland your table Mr Hawkeye Duke was his nickname it was also the name of the family dog what was Duke's legal first name George John Frederick or William we say Frederick Frederick is correct two dollars Greg your table where was born Chicago Clinton Kankakee or normal wrong normal Julie your table back back when Duke played football at Clinton High every player needed to provide their own shoes and helmet times has been tough back then Duke's family could not afford both so he had only shoes he played three seasons at Clinton High how many state championships did Clinton High when they well and while he played football one two three or zero foreign Duke went on to play at the University of Iowa over his senior year season in 1921 they would go undefeated and then claim a share of the 1921 National Championship Iowa would upset this team which had not been defeated in three years who were they Rutgers Northwestern Michigan or Notre Dame what was his name correct Notre Dame two dollars Greg your table before you were there in 1972 the president of the University of Iowa proposed naming Iowa Stadium kinnick Slater Stadium but the university decided to name it after kinnick alone and naming a residence hall in Duke's name later the field at kinnick Stadium would be due to Slater field what year was that done 2016-2018 2020 or 2021. foreign birthday boy lover your table Duke would be elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame and don't be looking at these answers on Wikipedia like who you're probably doing what year was he elected in the Pro Football Hall of Fame 71 80 or 95 or 2020. you're correct good job two bucks thanks friends thanks Ryan that was great zipped right along okay we're in the program and uh setting up the program for today come on up there thank you I think a lot of you are here just for this program and I think that's great um beginning of February the first meeting of Black History Month what is more appropriate than to have a program about the Duke Slater statue initiative we've got several of the board members here who will be speaking about this and providing us information and I'm pleased to let um had determine who's the first speaker and Ted I'd like to remind Greg wanted to talk to you after the meeting too about the numbers yeah the membership thing okay thank you um yes that's the liquor okay that's for you Billy yeah all right Okay so about two years ago um well actually more than that um we had always the ball Club had always had a former player that as a bobblehead and I literally ran out of players I mean I could have put a ball player in that played 11 games and and the person I'm talking about is Chris Taylor when the Dodgers won it but I'm thinking to myself okay if I got to do a guy that won a World Series for 11 games some scrape of the you know I mean I I may do it next year trust me um but then I thought about it I thought you know maybe we recognize some some of the and this was like on the cusp of the the Hometown Heroes and the whole movement there and I thought well you know what what you know what what person would would signify the best of of Athletics and baseball you know you can make the rounds of you know locally you know TJ sycamon I'm sure we go back in the history but but to cut it short the sports figure was was stupid so what we've always done the ball Club is always done I've always reached out to the to the people directly to players so so I talked to Dave Stewart when we did what we did his I said Stewie would we want to do a bobblehead you okay with it he loved it everybody loves it okay well trying to track down Duke and his ancestors was like pulling teeth okay but the good news is we knew a guy that wrote a lot of books about him uh Neil Rosendale who unfortunately can't be with us today he's uh he's at home with his kids in Grinnell um he works for the Department of Labor and he can work anywhere so he decided to move out of Washington and move to Grinnell Iowa which I'm thankful very thankful for it um but there's a niece uh Sandra Wilkins and so when I reached out to him they wholeheartedly said yeah great idea okay so we put together this bobblehead and part of the part of the horse the camera on on the computer oh hey here it is see it okay good um uh part of the deal was Neil had said at the time he said Ted that's great do a bobblehead but I want you to do something a little bit more with it and he showed me and I have to cheat a little bit because he texted it to me I thought I had it in my notes but there were six things that Neil had wanted done with Duke uh and he's kind of Taken on his own Crusade with with Duke Slater but he wanted physical recognition at Clinton High School which this statue would represent he wanted physical recognition a recognition of Duke at kinnick Stadium which they did the relief in between when we did the uh bobblehead the the relief on the side I think it shows in a two Dimension I think as I read three two dimension on the wall um and then he wrote to me he said the relief and the field naming are far beyond what he had hoped for a placard display at Slater Hall as aforementioned the naming of the Kinect and then they did the residence hall so they're working on that um he's pushing for a street name for Duke in Chicago um so far no progress I know Bill if you're working together with the city and some other people would try to get a a name and a Gary here in the mix as well um and then Duke's induction and the Arizona Cardinals rigam honor um with his election of the Pro Football Hall of Fame I had thought that happened Neil apparently uh said it didn't so that would be my fault and then Duke's induction the Pro Football Hall of Fame which uh Dennis Lauer so accurately his table got us 20 20. so um I said to Neil I said well what what do you what what kind of what do you need you know and he said well I want you to spearhead this if you're going to do it that's part of the deal so I'm like oh wait I can't do this by myself so I made a few phone calls I called Ryan vidster I called Matt Parks I call Bill Michelle Francis I called David sivrite I called my board I called everybody Ron Gutierrez fowry Kathy Forrest I said okay what do we do so we all got together and uh we've been at it and uh through through a lot of hard work and some uh great efforts by our committee uh we're I don't know halfway close to halfway there maybe someone so without further Ado I want to recognize the group of painstakingly listening to me Babylon like once a month um and I mentioned some of them already uh Francis uh bill mischevitz uh Gary delay see Ron Gutierrez Brian Kelly Matt parbs Kathy Forrest Ari uh Ryan uh and then again um Neil we've got some other ones who aren't here and there's a lot of them so um maybe Neil's on On Cue here for uh watching it on Zoom so it's been fun I mean I've been involved with a lot of different uh projects and that I'm telling you what this is this is this is it this is in 40 my 40 Years of doing this as a career this is the cat's meow this is this is some good stuff so uh without further Ado uh Bill put together a slide presentation of his classes Billy can you come up and help out with us please so it's it's a basically a pictorial on on Duke uh and Bill does it much much better than I do so I just want to give you an update on the uh I'll give you an introduce the committee and then also um kind of give you the history about how the song came about so Bill all right thank you thanks Ted uh about 2008 or nine I'm golfing with Gary Luther OMG and I said how come we don't have a Hall of Fame because I don't know I know we should get a home so he put the wheels into motion get Hall of Fame and you know we you put in the Mount Rushmore always first right so by 2013 we had done that well right around oh about 2009 as so you know some of the some of you guys started to become the old guy at the school and nobody knew anything about what's going on when the fire came in um that destroyed a lot of Records so one day I just happened to be at the high school and on a June day and there was a pile of stuff out there and I go what's what's this they go we're gonna toss us away you're not going to tell us anything this is all our sports records so we squirreled that away Gary looters went through microfilmed a ton of it I'm still scrolling through a lot of it too and it came to find out that when I first got to Clinton High School uh there was a picture of Kenny playing and Duke Slater in the hallway and everybody knew that there was a legend out there and then as you kind of go through changes and um Administration changes then people leave and then before you know it you're the old guy and you're looking around nobody knows anything and so I mean that's what happens right there's a forgotten past I mean that's why we teach history because we tend to repeat it all the time so hopefully we won't do something like that so a lot of people know this about Duke I'm trying to figure out all right so none of these are true okay Duke wasn't even the first African-American to play until high school he certainly wasn't the first one at uh the University of Iowa either all right and he wasn't the first one in the NFL although he was a Pioneer he was certainly out there okay but he wasn't born here he's not buried here um Matt and I tried to track down where he used to live I mean none of that kind of stuff it was almost like it was just washed out of our history uh about uh Duke and uh this is the guy Neil that came up to me uh we had a phone call at the high school and they uh Neil wants to talk to somebody about Duke Slater and then everybody in the room did what you just did they all turned their heads and looked at me and I go okay when I can do that so we hung out for probably about an hour or two and he goes there's nothing here about Duke Slater though right I know there's absolutely nothing there's a lot of stuff that's out there that's not uh pioneered but this book uh he's I think in the process of getting more printed there is an Incredible Book let's take a look at the context because a lot of times when we talk about an event we don't talk about context about what was going on and so we have to take a look at the historical context think about this Duke Slater's family some of them were enslaved at one point okay back in the day all right Duke moved here um to an area that was uh welcoming for a lot of African-Americans at that time um take a look at all the stuff that was going on in and around that time period the Jim Crow laws the movie theater which is being torn down or in the process of how segregated they'll segregated all the way into the I think the 1930s maybe even the 1940s and this is Clinton Iowa you know you had institutional racism in terms of school businesses you know all that all of that you know it was deeply embedded you had the Spanish Flu pandemic in 1918. like how many people died in town I mean they were dropping like flies you ever read some of the stuff about that was crazy they're in the Jazz Age or World War One okay black migration to the north escaping uh finally you know the railroads were uh you know there was that plastic horses person case you know separate body equal all right that had just been established in the late 1890s all right then also uh professional sports start to come about and remember baseball used to be the sport played during the day or the daytime and college football is big all right well no wonder Notre Dame they should have been undefeated for three years they had all those guys that came back from the war who had been fighting in a war now they're just going to play against hung kids who just graduated from high school are you kidding me some of those guys had battle fatigue come on give me a break and then of course you know wow remember that women got to vote wow and the Civil War was about 50 to 60 years old think about that if some of you know a Vietnam veteran think about how long ago that was so you could say that you knew somebody who had fought in the Vietnam War right like I at my generation I knew someone who fought in World War One right I met someone whose grandfather fought in the Civil War so go back to that time period and what's Duke running into at school in society all right so there it is at the University of Iowa I found this like little cartoon I thought that was kind of cool about them oh boy okay so these are some things I'm not gonna uh it's on your screen bigger oh you're killing me Matt you're killing me dude all right the mythical state championships of 13-14 why do I say mythical because there's no State Association at that time hey here's there's here's the uh one that you should have said but Duke Slater ever All State no don't stick all right um uh the two mythical state championships they played uh you had to actually uh go undefeated at a time and we celebrated uh the one we've won outright I'm trying to remember which one we tied I think it was 1914 we tied with uh um who was it Western West Des Moines which had uh the Divine guy who uh they both played at Iowa together ten thousand people there yeah 10 000 people had a at a football game yeah that Clinton played that all right there we go there's a there's a whole team up of Ringwood Park okay crazy stuff look how gigantic those guys were there oh they weren't think of the diet back then of what these people were eating now this is a photograph from the yearbook he was in the C Club meaning that he was uh a captain he's right there everybody had like a little thing he's right there with the pepper you know he actually wasn't a drama uh at 1.2 and within the play there was some pretty ugly language that they used all right so here we go duke was a pretty big guy at that time right I think we got to take a look at the fact that when Duke Slater left Clinton Iowa he always kept Clinton Iowa in inside all right inside of his mind all right so he goes on to Iowa one of the greatest Hawkeyes of all time um honestly yeah think about this on the 100th anniversary team of the Hawkeye football we don't have one guy from Clinton we had two guys from Clinton on the team Kenny playing and Duke Slayer that's amazing Clinton Iowa all right you guys can read that I'm I'm not gonna insult you but yeah beat a Notre Dame you know that okay if you go to just about one out of every three bars in Iowa City uh and rig will tell you this okay that there's always that photograph of Duke Slater without a helmet leading the offensive block for a Divine to go into and score the touchdown all right let's here's another message did Duke Slater play without a helmet because he didn't want to he was given a helmet at Iowa and a lot of times uh people loved it you would wear the helmet and then when he would stride out to the field he would take it off and throw it and everybody would go nuts okay 1918 they did he really didn't play because it was during the war nobody nobody did that they stopped all that can you imagine doing that today and we're not going to have professional sports in college sports because here's award corner yeah think about how much more money there's the that's the photograph the the iconic photograph and how did you I mean how did they have them all one photographer at that time at that charge I mean not like today where everybody's taking a picture right even guys what was it was there some guy that went on the field and his phone fell out this year in the NFL this phone fell out of his but unified are you kidding me all right uh he was a member of Kappa Alpha Psi which is still um a big African-American uh fraternity and I think there's over 100 x uh campus in the NFL so hopefully I'm going to reach out to them I I've got some kids working on the project to see who's that going to be you know so playing for the Rock Island Independence all right that was like an early NFL thing they would have won the uh the league but they couldn't play he uh Duke was not allowed to play in the state of Missouri all right so anybody who's familiar with the Jack try story right that Jack Trice goes out to Minnesota he gets injured in the game the very next game he's supposed to go down to Missouri and the chancellor of the University of Missouri writes to the chancellor of Iowa State you know uh African-Americans are not going to play right and the Chancellor from Iowa State goes you're right they're not going to play and Jack tries to die like two days later right so think about that he was not allowed to play Down in Missouri they lose to the Missouri team when they came up they beat him but because of that loss they don't win the championship all right he completed uh his career with the Chicago Cardinals who just I think within the last year or two uh uh retired his number all right and look at that he was a teammate of Jim Thorpe okay or vice versa however you want to go now let's kind of go through this there were probably 5 000 people that were a teammate of Jim Thorpe because he needed to make money and he was all over the place trying to play sports okay look at this this is crazy African-Americans were banned from the NFL right but when he was playing in the NFL there was a Fritz Pollard Duke Slater Fritz Pollard and a one and there was another African-American I can't remember his name right now but he got into coaching a little bit he's uh he did a little bit of high school coaching then he got wise and he got out of that pretty darn quick and uh earned his law degree from Iowa do you know how hard that was for back there I mean you know how many places didn't even allow African-Americans to go to school much less go to law school and look up Lulu Johnson from Clinton Iowa which he had to go through okay again the Chicago cardinal rapper man look at that he's a big guy for back then okay so it gets into the field of law he uh becomes um so on your screen bill I I get that match breaking the number one rule in teaching those kind of stuff that's okay it is your show I'm just kind of going over here Chicago during the 1940s he's on the South Side who do you think this guy's working with in the city remember that's when they had the machine in the city right so you're not telling me that the machine is contacting him as a civil rights and African-American leader come on let's go behind that door over there and have a nice little talk all right you know that had to be going on and he did his best to keep that uh going there's a uh in the Chicago Defender the African-American newspaper at that time there's photographs of him I don't know did you insert that today it should be okay there's one where you must not have gotten yeah there's a one where he's uh um photograph of Joe Lewis and Jackie Robinson so he's and Jesse L Jesse Owens was um a name only one of his pallbearers okay it's for you guys who don't know Jesse Owens was uh one of the greatest athletes of all time as well during this time here remember African-Americans are making their name in entertainment and sports at that time because where else could they make their name where else were they ever allowed in society to to uh shine okay it wasn't going to be in the classroom it wasn't going to be in the hospital it wasn't going to be in the corner okay you got to put this into the context of the times okay put that into the context of the time all right yeah this was kind of a weird deal you know this was kind of a strange thing Panic you know nothing against you Hawkeyes I'm not a Hawkeye but you know that's what are you going to make the stadium connect like how you gonna do that so all of a sudden there's an oversight even at his own University this is the guy that was every year they asked him hey can you recruit African Americans to come play for the University of Iowa and he would be sending people there all the time his first choice was not Iowa his first choice was a small college and he was talked into hey you can play football we can get you into the school so he opened the door for a lot of African-Americans to uh go to school at Iowa and uh eventually play some sports too Slater Hall I can remember when I was doing basketball camps uh out and we'd stayed at Slater Hall and they had like one little case and they had a football and a pair of shoes and a helmet and it um and it said something like uh Duke Slater named up and they had like a little thing and they said none of this stuff was Deuce leadership okay Bill did you know it's named after uh one guy yeah there's a really good video of this on um the making of this on YouTube right um this bronze relief this is that block against Notre Dame uh crazy how they played that game back then nobody threw that boy nobody could throw a ball back then because the ball is like a pumpkin you know so finally they go oh man maybe we should put this guy into the Hall of Fame oh yeah maybe you should do that I can remember in uh 2018 when I went down to Kansas City that the Football Hall of Fame exhibit was going around and the first thing I walked into there's his jersey and he's not in the Hall of Fame but his jersey was traveling around in the NFL exhibit that didn't make any sense to me so finally they named the field after Duke Slater and I think we have to take a look at Duke Slater more than just the athlete I think we have to take a look at you know it was your local football hero you know okay I'm not going to try to be a mean person here but I'm an outsider I came here from Detroit right so one of the only books that I was reading about Clinton was the history of written in 1976. which is you know I was a centennial year and all that kind of stuff but when you open up that book there's like a little thing about Duke Slater in there but there's a huge picture of a person who lived here moved at the end of age of three months and then came back there's tended to be some forgotten writings in that and that's okay that's that's what history does right that's why Matt and I got into this business so we could dig up that kind of stuff this Duke need to be recognized here in town certainly yes okay we can recognize there's a lot of people that probably could be recognized but you talk about a person that did something for the high school how many people here have played High School sport raise your hand if you played High School sport okay now how many times did you leave to get on the bus home and there's a line of people lining up to tackle you afterwards to see how tough you were if you have any of that happen Duke did all right how many of you had to get begged to go to a university right how many of you had to be called Almost on a daily basis sometimes even by his classmates names that are no longer discussed right and then do it over and over and over over never lose his character that's a thing he's a man of character that's what we all recognize we recognize who he was and what he was all right and that's not something we could say about life so I want you to think about this okay let's do something really cool for Clinton get that statue up right how many people are going to come by and visit for the people under the age of 40 and you just go take that photograph bring some people into town I mean maybe change the name of a street by the high school Mr delacy Right make something really cool and special all right continue to make this town something bigger and better than we all know it could be thank you all right okay all right so on your table there are um forms for we have a couple different sponsorship opportunities so in addition to building a statue we're hoping to establish a scholarship in Duke Slater's name and our committee is uh set a fundraising goal of 175 000 and with the help of the uh a gaming Grant and with the help of the three banks in town uh for Central Brig Kathy and Citizens First and Clinton National Bank were were pretty we're getting there um we're hoping to have a an event um maybe an annual event but a fundraising kickoff event and the future um so don't be uh surprised if one of our members of our committee reaches out to you folks for a contribution to the Statue and scholarship fund and um the goal is to have the statue um unveiled is that the right word yeah in the fall of 2024 and for those and it's kind of difficult now that 8th Avenue South or maybe future Slater way is uh kind of being closed uh for the high school project but um if you would have your back to the pool and look right across the street there was a dumpy red house on the corner of Knight Street and 8th Avenue South and this around Christmas time right before Christmas break um the school district um graciously tore that down got the asbestos out so that will be the location of the statute and uh like I said I think it's going to be a huge anchor and historical landmark for our community so I hope you guys are always um passionate and excited is build displayed uh Duke was a wonderful guy and so we're excited we hope that you take that uh form with you and think about it like I said don't be alarmed uh myself and someone of the members of the committee will be in touch for a contribution so because we need to get this thing up um anybody else wanna on the committee want to share any thoughts statue yeah it'll actually be on the other side of the screen Gary do you want to add something sure so from an educator perspective I always look at it as getting role models for our current students and uh we do have an athletic Hall of Fame we also started a hall of Honor Duke is actually in both of those obviously the athletic due to his football promise but we did recognize him as well for his judicial thing I think you couldn't have a better role model for our kids in terms of someone that had to overcome barriers and Achieve at a high level and that's why I'm really supportive of the project uh I'm looking at it for our future students and being able to walk past that every day as a role model to say this is this is a guy that went to Clinton High School and what a difference he made Beyond Clinton High School and that's certainly an idea I want to get in every one of my students Minds like you can make a difference and it's obviously long overdue and we're really excited about getting it uh I'll be honest with it we were hoping we could have did it the fall of this year uh that's that's just the the leg between when we ordered it and when we can actually get the statue is that long so um yeah we were actually hopeful it was going to be this fall and then when they said oh where it's going to be 12 to 14 months down the road before we could get it and we really feel like they have the unveiling needs to coincide with the beginning of football season so um that's the way we're going to time it um yeah that'll actually be right across the street and we did take that house down and so we'll get it landscaped nice with some park benches and things like that uh and have it we talked about actually having the statue face diagonally towards the football field is how we want to get it in place so I appreciate all the work the committee's been working very hard on it I'm just a very small piece of the puzzle but um I I and just I want to thank all those that have contributed uh for for the students of our school all right thank you all right is there any questions or comments uh talk about the budget oh I've heard some numbers have shifted and when we originally came to the CCA and I know that there's a sport there where are you in the private fundraising and the greatest total of Mr Parks come on yeah that's why I have committees because that they could answer me so I am the that was going to be my my pitch is what's great about the ass that we're doing now is the statue is funded we have a hundred thousand that that covers the cost what really is the exciting part in Vince we're talking that we've talked on the phone about this I mean this is your chance to be part of History we want to create that scholarship fund which was not part of the ccdas and we can build the Statue the pocket park The Base today but we want to make that pocket park and in the base Grand we just found the poem michevitz and I uh that uh for Slater's obituary perfectly summarizes so now that's another you know 5 000 for a thing but we really think this is going to become a huge draw I was just in Iowa City at Prairie Lights I was seeing if they had the booking stock I was talking to the book people about the Statue they lit up they're like oh man this is really cool we know people are going to come visit so we want to make your contributions basically enhance and grow uh this project into something else and that scholarship is really what we're talking about and Veenstra can talk a little bit about his vision for years to come how to really make sure that Duke Slater's Legacy through the scholarship in this statue is Everlasting every year we want a kid to go out and do that that's about 2500 so you need four percent right Dr Kelly yep so that's 50 000 there and things like that and so yeah for the ccda part the statue was there I mean if if we had to do nothing else we can get the statue up the school district has stepped forward and did a lot of the demo and some other things but yeah that's where we are now that's that extra 75 000 over that is this really the scholarship and really enhancing uh that experience um and let's also be honest security and lighting and some different things like that that we want to add with your your contributions yeah okay on the scholarship how many are you planning to give each year how much money will it be and what's the criteria for being selected so I'm going to let Gary at any point rip me off the stage but uh it is basically the goal is 2 000 to 2500 a year um and here he comes stand back here a couple flowers um we need to get a committee together to actually determine the criteria of that obviously it's going to be uh there's been some talk is it just you know a student that would go to the University of Iowa uh would it be tied to Athletics or the law or both or one or the other uh those are things to be flushed out uh right now we're talking about one a year and that 2000 to 2500 it'll actually depend on how much we're able to fundraise but uh we're feeling anymore anything less than 2 000 just given the cost of college really isn't a significant scholarship anymore so we've kind of set that as a minimum yeah obviously if we got inundated with more money I'm sure we would think about two scholarships a year there has been a talk to you one female one male um do you do something that involves social economic status or minorities I mean there's a number of things that we would have to flush out uh to get to the point who would qualify obviously a Clinton High grad could it be just for the one year or would it be for the four years of college we would have to get a lot more money if it was going to be multi-year ideally that would be great because what happens for kids is they get a lot of scholarship money in year one and then it dries up but you know we're talking 50 000 if you get a four percent interest that just generates two thousand a year Well if we're going to start doing that we're gonna have to generate a lot more than fifty thousand so right now our goal is to be able to provide that one time once a year um we would need a little bit of a windfall to do more than that although I'll be honest that's the way I really think it needs to go anymore to be honest with you is you need something renewable over four years and if they would do a certain GPA and they stay in that track then get that money to renew for all four years so um if we happen to get a windfall that would be something I would really push um I know my sister right now uh is retiring from a business and she wants to do a science scholarship and that's what I told her I said do it over four years and I said you need to do at least 2500 a year and that way that that actually does help those students get to the Finish Line Gary Dennis had a question where in town did uh Duke grow up where's the house that he lived in so uh basically it's 21st place is where his father George lived uh basically behind like uh Vitalis and whatnot so he had a fairly long walk to the the brewery I mean the church and um that's where we hope to do our big first kickoff line some things up uh reaching out to you know Kirk and Gary and different things and do it and then basically the shadow of where his dad George preached um and then yeah and then of course he played football basically in Hawthorne Park you know and were some houses sit now so so that's not very far from where Terry branch he was in commands I thought about Bradshaw's father no I thought Richard Clinton Clinton yeah right in that same neighborhood okay um uh yeah if you get I got an iPhone too you could go right in yeah uh so Neil brought in the obituary and I saw these words and I'm like holy moly I'm just hoping somebody remembers and says Bob was a nice guy that was Bill but so listen to this okay balls of corn from his native state strong is the best in the middle west true to the word his father taught loved by the team his struggles brought proud of those he helped to Spain grateful to the sport that built his name Madison a great University reflecting credit honor and dignity held by the students with great affection forever now of bond recollection humble because the greatness that is his Slater of Iowa James Peterson I mean you know how do you say the Lord right and to be crass for like 4 500 you could fund that on the base that's when that's what we talk about we we are there we can do this project with the past support but to add that there for every kid to read we don't have to come up with any words for Slater the poem is already made and it's it will speak for Generations on who Duke was well I thought I was a marketing Guru this guy's got beats oh it's gonna be life-size it's going to be 6-1 215 and we're looking about anywhere between a three to four foot base so we had a lengthy discussion at our last committee meeting about not maybe necessarily making it a floor model we we just think he needs to be without the exact religious he needs to be lifted up and so people can see it and they can read I mean we want to make sure that his biography is is listed on there both his athletic and his and his academic uh so then we got to keep the sides open for Mr marketer over here for the sponsors of everybody else so there's some there's a couple more hands up Dougie go ahead maybe I missed it but it's his family aware oh yeah oh yeah oh yeah yeah Sandra was here for Duke's academic and uh actually I had a nice visit with her and her husband and their grandson and uh and she's she gets every email she gets she's down she's the niece her niece I said yeah I'm sorry I said yes no Sandra's grandson okay Hassan Duke never had any kids Duke never had any kids but it was Sandra and they came up for the academic and it was Sandra and her husband and they are Saunders and her husband's grandchildren anyway there was somebody else no okay all right well thank you very much thanks to Bill Maddie and Ryan and Gary whoever else yeah there we go so Francis we kept you off the podium we had been here thank you all very much for that great presentation um every week I run from our guest speaker on behalf of them we donated a book to the Clinton Public Library the children's department and uh this one is there's only one you so if we get all of you folks as folks today to sign this so we can go get it over to the library we know a library we might make a bath so if you take that I'd appreciate it thank you very much um thank you all for the presentation thank you Jennifer for setting that up uh and Paul for filling in uh for invocation we appreciate that a quick board meeting before you leave don't sneak out of here with that imagine rotary random acts of kindness