The October 7, 2015 Naples Gulf Shore Sunset Rotary Club meeting was called to order by President Elect Robert Samouce followed by Invocation and Pledge of Allegiance. Visiting Rotarians and guests were then introduced. Jan-Ulrich Bernhardt and Annette Roth-Kroeger Rotary members from the Wedel Rotary Club, Wedel Germany presented our club with their banner and gave welcome from their members to all our club members. Our guest speaker was then introduced. Julie Sprague, Vice Chair of the Collier County School Board graduated from the State University of New York at Cortland with both a B.S.E. and M.S.E. degree. She taught physical education and health for thirty years, with ten years at Immokalee High School and ten at Gulf Coast High School. She was the department chair at IHS for seven years and the department chair at GCHS for three. She coached a variety of sports for twenty years. She founded the first Medical Academy in Collier County at Gulf Coast High School. In 2003 she was selected as the Collier County High School Teacher of the Year. She has taught at the pre-school through undergraduate level over the span of her teaching career. Julie is active in the community, currently serving on the Board of Directors of the Immokalee Multicultural Multipurpose Community Action Agency. She also serves as the school board liason to the Collier County Head Start program. She formerly served on the Board of Directors for the Collier County Education Foundation, the American Heart Association Community Board, coordinated walkers for the AHA Heartwalk and coordinated a fundraiser for the Make-A-Wish Foundation. She has volunteered for the nonprofit organization FriendsTogether, Inc. which assists HIV/AIDS infected and affected children for the past fifteen years and has completed numerous 300 mile/3 Day bicycle rides from Tallahassee to Lakeland to raise funds for the group. In addition she has climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro twice to raise awareness and money for the group. While in Africa, she also did medical mission work for a month. Julie holds the Certified Board Member designation from the Florida School Boards Association and holds Master Board Certification as well. Julie was first elected to the Collier County School Board, District 4, in November of 2008. She was re-elected in 2012 without opposition. She explained in detail with a powerpoint presentation the many exciting happenings in Collier County schools and what the future holds. Our members enjoyed this presentation very much. Additional information available by clicking
here. President elect Samouce then reminded all members to be promoting the tickets of our October 28th HalloWINE Mercato Winewalk and to spread the word about
http://www.MercatoWineWalk.com . The next meeting will be Wednesday October 14, 2015 at Jane's Cafe on 3rd Street with our guest speaker Paul Thein, President & CEO of the Naples YMCA.
