May 24, 2021
The meeting was opened at noon by President Mindy Sehon via Zoom with 29 members in attendance.
We heard from some of our winners for the Hegy and Wolford Scholarships.
Blaine O’Shaughnessy gave a presentation on founding member, John Albert Wagner. There wasn’t a lot of information available so Blaine had to search census reports and Ancestry.com to find information. John Wagner was born in 1873 in St. Paul Minnesota. His parents emigrated from Germany and he had 5 siblings. At age 26 he lived on his father’s farm in Minnesota and is listed as a farmhand. Between 1900-1906 he married Winifred and moved to California at the age of 32. In 1906 he was living in Alameda County, and was listed as a salesman. At age 36, still living in San Francisco, Wagner was listed as a whiskey salesman. In 1917 he was living in Arcata as a real estate insurance salesman. When he turned 50 he became a charter member of the Rotary Club of Eureka. He was the District Manager of West Coast Life Insurance who had offices in Eureka and Arcata. Wagner was a club member for six years, before his wife passed away and he subsequently moved back to San Francisco. In 1940 at age 66 he was living at a hotel on Church Street in San Francisco and was a salesman at Tavern Supplies. He died in 1972, still living in San Francisco. He is our latest Paul Harris Fellow.
Mindy noted that there will be a Done in a Day project at Casa of Humboldt, 2636 Myrtle Ave. on Saturday, June 5th 9am – noon. We will be cleaning gutters, weeding, sanding picnic tables. Please contact Mindy if you have a power washer, ladder or sanders we can use.
Monday, June 7th will be our first in-person meeting, Zoom will also be available. Please RSVP Mindy if you are attending.
We are planning an off-site meeting on June 28th at the Inn at 2nd and C Street. Please email Mindy to let her know if you will be attending.
Our speaker was Daren Tully with Whitchurch Engineering. Tully talked about Cannabis Development in Humboldt County and Eureka. He described a project located at an old mill site off of Trinity River. There was lots of wrecked cars, junk and trash. The site was purchased by a cannabis company who cleaned up the site and they have completed about a million dollars worth of environmental studies. Their plan is to build 10 acres of greenhouses, hire 150 employees and sell their product world-wide.In Eureka’s 4th Street area there’s a burned down building that’s unattractive. Whitchurch is working with a cannabis client that wants to build a new building with a mural on the front that will be a big improvement to the area. It looks like the building will be built over the next year or two at this point. Tulley described cannabis extraction, used to extract THC oil from marijuana. This is the same process used in olive oil, coffee, etc. When set up correctly there is not a fear of explosions. Explosions happen when these systems are set up illegally. Whitchurch designs extraction facilities that prevent explosions.
The meeting was adjourned at 12:23pm.