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Today, the Westwood Village Rotary meeting was held via Zoom. No wonder! Upon signing on, the zoom screen was filled with some very strange faces, appearing from locations far from the boundaries of greater Los Angeles – for very good reason. The program was arranged by our own PP Peter More, a member and advocate of the International Fellowship of Flying Rotarians (IFFR).
You see, the speakers for today are Peter Teahen and John Ockenfels, both of whom are qualified pilots, of the Iowa City, Iowa Rotary Club who jointly flew a single engine Cessna on a flight “Around the World to End Polio.” Joining Peter and John were George Coffey, past president of the IFFR and member from the Lornorinda Sunrise Rotary Club in Northern California, Craig Bledsoe, PP hailing from the Anchorage East Rotary Club in Alaska, Bob Phillips, member of IFFR and Immediate World Past President and Kathy Shepard, VP of Santa Monica RC.
John began by noting that Peter had come up with the idea of an around the world flight to illustrate the importance of Rotary’s effort to end polio by vaccinating individuals -specifically children – in countries that still experienced the disease. Peter discussed this concept with his wife (who just happens to be John’s cousin) who shrugged it off by thinking this flight, so to speak, ‘would never get off the ground’. In addition, she demanded that you are not doing this crazy idea without someone joining you as co-pilot.
Pursuing this flight of a lifetime, Peter asked John to join him. And the planning began! First, however, the plane had to be upgraded to handle the extensive length of legs of flying time. A Cessna T 210M was chosen as the most desirable aircraft. Interestingly, the wings of the Cessna had to be extended to carry enough fuel, as well as 150-gallon drums of fuel placed just behind the pilot seating area.
The island to island planning routes were planned out in March of 2020. However, along came the Covid issue so delays pushed the flight until 2022. Unfortunately, Russia invaded Ukraine, so the route through Russia had to be eliminated and, so once again, delays pushed the flight into 2023. But, as Peter and John concurred, this dream was just too big to be cancelled. So, on May 5, 2023, the flight around the world to end polio took off from Cedar Rapids, Iowa!
Compelling pictures of Peter and John administering vaccinations to children in Afghanistan and Pakistan appeared along with children who experienced polio in these rural areas of the Middle East. One interesting aspect was that in Afghanistan it was the mothers who brought in their children to be vaccinated whereas in Pakistan it was the father’s role. Still, although only 12 cases of polio were experienced in the prior year, will there ever be an end to this terrible disease? There was a video of a doctor named Sandeep who emphasized the importance of continuing the task to end polio.
Peter showed a slide that contained the message: People told us this trip could not be done, should not be done, that nobody in their right mind would do it. But with the support of Rotarians throughout the world, we did it! There are 7.4 billion people on Earth, 4,000 have climbed Mt. Everest, 500 have gone into space, 700 pilots have flown around the world now the number is 702. Statistics included 30,000 miles flown, 37 landings in 19 countries, 180 hours of flying in 90 days, with two pilots, one plane and one engine. The longest leg was from Pago, Pago to Honolulu, a distance of 2,265 miles, comprising 16 hours and 49 minutes. One emergency occurred however, on the flight out of Brisbane, Australia, an electrical failure some 2 hours out required a return to Brisbane for repairs.
To support this effort, fundraisers were critical. Although they jointly absorbed the entire cost of their mission, they had 24 fundraisers generating nearly two million dollars, including a Bill Gates matching effort, all going to the Rotary International cause of ending polio. Will the end of polio ever happen? Some hope, but Peter and John believe it will happen. Two old guys have made a difference and truly believe they will see the day when the last child will suffer from polio.
President Steve started the meeting by reciting the RI President McInally’s theme of Creating Hope in the World and reciting the 4-Way Test. PP Ron Lyster led the Pledge and IPP Chris Gaynor gave the Thought of the Day with very depressing lyrics from a 1960’s song by Barry McGuire called, “Eve of Destruction”. However, in response to PPx2 Chris’ question of “what can we do?”, Chris suggested we perform an act of kindness every day! President Steve followed up by pointing out this is National Compliment Day.
Visitors: PP Peter More introduced the visiting Rotarians mentioned previously and PP Mark Rogo introduced a first-time visitor to our Club, Carla Tourin, a lawyer with a law practice on the Westside.
Dave Stover summarized the Jan. 13th cleanup in association with the Brentwood Community Council and mentioned the next cleanup with occur on Feb. 17th.
President Steve then showed a slide with a picture of Dave Stover on the cover of a magazine featuring Nammi Therapeutics, where Dave is the founder and CEO of this biotech company which is developing an anti-tumor cancer treatment. Heavy stuff, indeed, including the fine assessed for such publicity!
Various birthdays and anniversaries were announced, with special interest it was noted that PP Diane Good and Frank Smith were married on January 1st. What a special New Year’s Day that must have been. (The year was intentionally omitted!)
* The ‘Super Bowl’ pool has four remaining entrants: Day (Detroit), Fisher (Baltimore), McCockran (Kansas City), and O’Keefe (San Francisco). If the favorites win, it will be Fisher and O’Keefe sharing the prize money. But stay tuned….
Next week, we are returning to Hillel with the annual ‘Investment Week’, with PP Steve Scherer leading the program.
As usual, the meeting was brought to a close with President Steve presenting a special quote, this time from Robert Burns.
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