Galesburg Sunrise Rotary Club

09/02/2026

Erin Olson was our speaker this morning and she was introduced by Jeff Douglas. Erin is the Director of Public Health Information and Community Engagement with the Knox County Health Department. She mentioned that the Knox County Health Department was created by a citizen referendum in November 1992. She has worked with the Health Department since shortly after it moved into the current headquarters on Fremont Street in 2000. Three areas in her scope include environmental health, disease prevention, and communicable diseases. In speaking of immunizations, Erin told us that the county is 96.8% vaccinated against measles; and that the Health Department has given over 52,751 vaccinations since 1992. She mentioned other services offered such as lead testing and mitigation kits, WIC, dental, and behavioral health. Her talk was very interesting and generated a lot of questions. Thanks, Erin, for coming to talk to us this morning!

08/25/2026

At our meeting this morning, here we have our speaker, Steve Gugliotta, who is the Director of Community Development for the City of Galesburg, along with George Burgland. Steve gave us an update on some areas that come under the scope of his role, which includes planning, zoning, economic development, housing, public transportation, and a number of others. He has spoken to us before and what he shares with us is always informative and interesting. Thank you, Steve, for what you do and for speaking to us today!

08/21/2026

This morning, Galesburg Sunrise Rotarians and additional volunteers made short work of bagging fresh fruit and vegetables at the River Bend Food Bank for distribution in the Galesburg area.

08/18/2026

Today we heard from Dr. Debra Katchen MD who spoke to us on the topic of "Being Human: The Art of Medicine & AI." Dr. Katchen started by talking about Aristotle and Nicomachean Ethics followed by the progression of various technological advances such as binary code and punch cards. She mentioned Joseph Weizenbahm as a key figure in the lead-up to AI as we are seeing it today. Weizenbaum created ELIZA in 1966, which was an early form of chatbot. Dr. Katchen described Foundational AI, Generative AI, Large Language Models, and AI Agents. She explained that in the clinical encounter, once the patient provides biometric consent, then the voice recognition and language interpretation begins. The output (generated record) must be reviewed and errors redacted, which is a manual effort. One particular concern of several that she brought up, was that statistics based on these generated medical records aren't necessarily corrected when the source medical records are corrected. She told us that she thought AI could be a very good thing in considering a possible diagnosis of a patient and that there is a need for governance and having a "human in the loop" for AI to be truly beneficial in medical practice.

08/13/2026

Our speakers at the August 11th meeting (led by Mike DeSutter) were Judy Wang (of Judy’s Family Cafe fame) and Victor Dantas, who helps manage her business’s marketing and merchandising efforts. Judy mentioned that she once worked as a server at a local restaurant and then got into the restaurant business herself just before the pandemic. Victor went to Western illinois and studied supply chain management. The first promotional video they made for Judy’s business went viral and there have been a number of high profile publicity opportunities since then. Judy hopes to open another location at some point. One area of focus for them now is merchandising her pancake mix. Each of these individuals had a fascinating story to tell and is highly motivated and loves their work.

08/05/2026

At our August 4th meeting, Doug Baird introduced Keith Herrmann who spoke to us about the Pleasant Hope Academy in Kikuyu, Kenya. Keith and his wife Ruth have been involved with the school for 11 years which has been built out on a 1.5 acre campus. English is the common language at the school. The school has 200 children and 50 of them stay year round. The school plans to expand to offer high school education also. In Kenya, the population is around 55 million. Of that number 21 million are children. Although there is no cost for tuition in Kenya public schools, there are other costs for books and uniforms, for example, which are not government funded. Pleasant Hope Academy offers a Christ-centered education to families who could not otherwise afford schooling. Keith explained the political and cultural challenges with expanding the school facilities over the time he has been involved and what he has learned along the way.

07/28/2026

Today's speaker, Byron Baird, was introduced by State Representative Dan Swanson. Byron's parents, Doug and Nancy Baird are also Sunrise Rotarians. Byron told us the story of how he came to be serving the Army in Afghanistan as a specialist at finding and blowing up Improvised Explosive Devices (IED's). Unfortunately, the vehicles he was driving were twice blown up by IED's. The first bomb caused severe injuries to Byron's spine. However, after a short period of recovery, Byron chose to stay on active duty and had the bad luck to be hit by a second, weaker, IED. Following his return to the States, Byron found that paperwork for his Purple Heart medal was somehow misplaced, and there was a 15-year saga of trying to get that medal awarded, as it was crucial for him to receive disability benefits from the VA. He eventually told this story to a friend of his family, who took it upon himself to write many letters on Byron's behalf, one of which found itself in the right hands and resulted in Byron receiving his award.

07/23/2026

Great Balloon Race organizer Greg Saul joins Galesburg's Morning News to preview the weekend and describe what hot air ballooning feels like.

07/22/2026

At our July 21st meeting, we met at the Discovery Depot Museum and were given a tour by Denise Gerstenberger, who is the director of the facility. Denise first shared with us that they had visitors from 484 zip codes and 39 states in 2025. She then showed us the 2nd floor which contains mostly STEM exhibits. We then went downstairs and observed Mr G's Build Shop,where kids can learn tool safety and basic construction skills. Denise also showed us the Ferris Junction village, which has a grocery store, a bank, a post office, and other exhibits. It even has a Little Judy's interactive exhibit!

07/15/2026