Remember - The noon Rotary meeting onAugust 11th will be held at B & B Theatres in Ankeny. The regular meeting location, the Ankeny Golf & Country Club has a conflict and is not able to host us. We will be hearing from the RYLA students that we sponsored this summer during this meeting.
The Rotary Club of Ankeny's monthly board meetings are held on the 2nd Thursday of each month at noon at Wig & Penn, 2005 South Ankeny Boulevard. The August meeting will be on Thursday, August 13th.
All members are invited to attend, especially new members. Not only is it a great way to learn more about Rotary and the projects your Club is involved in but it also counts as a makeup for attendance. Hope to see you there!!
A total of 616 balls were sold for the Rotary Club of Ankeny's 2026 "Golf Ball Drop" to benefit the Ankeny Service Center. The balls were dropped at the All City Play Day on July 30th. A big thanks to Amy Ratekin, Maggie Carstensen and Josh Craighead for their great ball dumping! The preliminary results show the net profit will be about $6,060 which will be donated to the Ankeny Service Center.
Thank you to Ankeny Sanitation for underwriting the prizes, Tim's Amoco and Leaning Tower of Pizza for providing the coupons on the back of the tickets, Jul's Design for designing the tickets, and Des Moines Printing for printing the tickets, the City of Ankeny for their great partnership with the All City Play Day, and to everyone that bought and sold tickets. Also, a special thanks to Tom Friedman for organizing this year's golf ball drop, as he has done in each of the past 14 years. Great job, as usual, Tom!
And the winners are:
1st Place - $1,000 - Tim Hawkins - sold by Tim Hawkins
2nd Place - $375 - Bret Blize - sold by Jamie Silver
3rd Place - $250 - Craig Block - sold by Shar Dunlap
4th Place - $125 - Troy Boelman - sold by Troy Boelman
Dr. Erick Pruitt, Superintendent Ankeny Community Schools, recommended three members of his staff become Rotarians and replace three former members of our club. Mark Moss is the new Chief Operations Officer and will be replacing Darin Haack, Deb Farver-Plumb is replacing Eric Brown as Chief Financial Officer, and Jerome Hilscher, Chief Information Officer will be replacing former school board president Katie Claeys. These three became the newest members of the club when they were inducted on July 21, 2026.
About 30 Ankeny Rotarians, both noon and evening club members, rose early on Saturday July 11th to assist with lining up the floats and other participants in the Summerfest Parade. Thank you to everyone that volunteered and especially to Rich Bergez and Marie Kline for their leadership on this committee.
Tim Hawkins had the privilege of presenting Rich Job with a Rotary pin with two ruby stones representing his contributions to the Rotary Foundation now exceeds $8,000 which makes him a Paul Harris Fellow+7Rotarian.
Congratulations Rich and thank you for your support of the Rotary Foundation!
During the July meeting of the Club's Board of Directors, the following donation requests were approved:
On With Life - A $1,000 sponsorship for the On With Life golf outing on Monday, August 3, at Woodland Hills Golf Course. The club receives two 4-somes with this sponsorship which is expected to be filled by Rotarians!
Renee Murphy Ankeny LeadershipScholarships - The Club will be providing two scholarships for $950 each. One will be awarded to Rotarian, Peter O'Tool.
Rotary' Board of directors approved the Club's budget for the 2026-2027 Rotary year during the July board meeting. This budget included donations totaling $60,475. The majority of these donations are to non-profits organizations that the club has supported for the past several years and budgeted for these organizations. However, it also includes $10,000 for non-profits that might be new organizations that we have not supported in the past and are considered unbudgeted. If any member is involved with a non-profit organization or cause that they believe would be deserving of a donation from our club, they may submit a donation request.
Donation request forms and guidelines are available on our web site or from the club secretary. Board meetings are held on the second Thursday of each month and requests are considered at each Board meeting. We do ask that the request be received prior to the end of the month preceding the Board meeting to allow adequate time for review and response to any questions.
The two Rotary Clubs of Ankeny are sponsoring a Rotary Youth Exchange Student for the 2026-2027 school year. Asia is expected to arrive from Spain sometime between August 15th and 23rd. School will be staring on August 24th.
She will be spending the first semester with Melissa and Aaron Nord and the second semester with Steve and Brenda Wieneke. We expect to have her as a guest at our Rotary meetings several times during the next year.
We recently welcomed Evelyn Forrester at the Rotary Club of Ankeny. She shared insights about spending the 2025-2026 school year in Spain as a Rotary exchange student. Obviously, spending a school year in another country is something that will having a lasting positive effect on the rest of her life. Thank you sharing, Evelyn!
During the Club's annual Recognition and Awards Banquet, three members were recognized for becoming a Major Donor or Level 2 Major Donor. The Rotary Club of Ankeny now has Seven Rotary Foundation Major Donors. They are Nate & Annette Burnham, Tim Hawkins, Paul Romanelli, and Sally Schroeder all Level I and Neil & Kathy Fell, Zane Smith and Steve SchraderBachar Level II. I case you wonder what a Major Donor is or how to become a Major Donor yourself, a Major Donor is a Rotarian whose cumulative lifetime donations to the Rotary Foundation have reached the following levels:
Level 1: $10,000 to $24,999
Level 2: $25,000 to $49,999
Level 3: $50,000 to $99,999
Level 4: $100,000 to $249,999
Once cumulative lifetime giving surpasses $249,999, that moves the Rotarian to the Arch Klumpf Society (AKS) which has several other tiers and recognition opportunities for them.
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