Events

Katie has been with the Sebastopol Area Senior Center since August 2017, and after a short break, she has returned as Executive Director in October 2023. Working in senior services over the last seven years, Katie is a passionate and dedicated leader in the field of senior services with a deep commitment to enhancing the lives of older adults.  She has played an instrumental role in creating a warm and vibrant space for our community’s older adults to belong.

Katie holds her Master’s degree in Public Administration/Nonprofit Management from Sonoma State University and a Bachelor of Arts in English Communications.

Adam Peacocke is part of the founding team for the Camino de Sonoma, aka Chief Archeologist. Born and raised in Sonoma County, Adam loves the history of this area where he, his wife, and four children call home. Currently, Adam runs a non-profit, FeatherVine, which coordinates faith-based organizations to help those in need in our community.

Stephen Morris is acting Executive Director for the Camino de Sonoma, as well as serves the Catholic Diocese of Santa Rosa. His pastoral priority is his family in Petaluma, where he and his wife raise three kids. Adam and Stephen began collaborating on Ecumenical projects throughout Sonoma in 2016 and have guided hundreds of pilgrims across Sonoma over the last few years.

Larry Chiaroni was born and raised in Marin county before moving to Sonoma county in 1979. He graduated from San Francisco State University in 1978 with a BA in Broadcast Communication Arts.

Between 1980 and 1990, Larry worked as an air talent and in numerous managerial positions at radio stations KTOB and KSRO in Sonoma county.

From 1990 until 2019 he was a News Anchor and Reporter at KCBS All News Radio in San Francisco. While there he covered many news stories including the Oakland Hills Fire, the Polly Klaas story and the 2017 wildfires in Sonoma county.

Larry also reported frequently for CBS radio on Bay Area and California news events.

As a retired Sebastipudlian, Larry enjoys his family, gardening, cooking and road cycling. 

     Who is going to be our next president? Are all those polls really as close as everybody says?

For the best answers to these and other Election 2024 questions, come to our Rotary Club

of Sebastopol meeting on Friday, Oct. 25 and find out.

     Dr. Dave McCuan, political science professor at Sonoma State University, is a well-respected

expert on polls and elections — both national, state and local. He is regular commentator on

media outlets including CNN, KCBS San Francisco, Press Democrat, ABC News, Bloomberg

and many others.

     Dr. McCuan follows a strict policy of bipartisanship which makes him a very valued

commentator on elections and all things political. His scholarly expertise rests in two broad

areas - American politics and International Relations. His doctorate was granted from the

University of California – Riverside in 2002. He continues in service with his second term

as Chair, Political Science.  His teaching responsibilities include courses in both international and national politics,

international security and terrorism, state and local politics, campaigns and elections, and

political behavior.

Major Andrew M. LeMarquand will present on the “Effort to posthumously seek a Presidential Pardon for Petaluma native Medal of Honor recipient Sergeant Richard Penry.”

Eric Gray is the author of 2 books, “Backyards to Ballparks” & “Bases to Bleachers”.

These personal baseball stories are a tribute to why baseball remains the American pastime, how it connects friends, families, and communities. These memories all have baseball as a setting, but speak to how baseball provides joy and anguish, nourishes family traditions, creates friendships, and can profoundly affect you.

Eric is originally from Plainview, New York and got his BA from SUNY New Paltz in 1974. He made his way to San Francisco and his first job with the Department of Labor became his life-long career. His passions are baseball, rock and roll, politics, conversation and most of all, family and friends. His wife, Lynn, daughter Rachel, son David, daughter-in-law Lisa and granddaughter Juliet are all baseball fans.

Our speaker will be Rich Walcoff, who spent 32 of his 40 year sports broadcasting career at KGO Radio 810, which was the ABC flagship station on the west coast.  He hosted the San Francisco 49ers pregame and postgame shows for over 20 years, plus sideline coverage for 10 years.  Rich also covered the high scoring Superbowl XXIX on January 29, 1995, when quarterback Steve Young was named the MVP, making the 49ners the first NFL team to win five Superbowl championships.

The author of Mornings With Madden: My Radio Life With an American Legend is a
well-known broadcaster whose career spanned six decades. Best-known as the
anchor of the top-rated KCBS Morning Newswatch, Stan is a member of the Bay Area
Radio Hall of Fame.
Stan was born in San Francisco and raised in the Santa Clara Valley before anyone
started calling it the Silicon Valley. He’s a graduate of West Valley College (Saratoga,
CA) and San Francisco State University.
Mornings With Madden is Stan’s first book. It relies upon the author’s own memories of
his interactions with John Madden, thousands of recordings of their on-air interactions
on KCBS, and interviews with others who were part of John Madden’s Bay Area radio
career. The book includes a foreword by pro football legend Peyton Manning and an
introductory recollection by Gene Nelson, the first Bay Area broadcaster to spend his
mornings with Madden.
Mornings With Madden: My Radio Life With an American Legend (ISBN:
9781637276549) is published by Triumph Books

Misty Zelk, M.D.

Medical Director; Best Defense Foundation

I am an Internist and currently the Medical Director for Spring Lake Village in Santa Rosa. I’m also a veteran of the Army National Guard and Air Force for a total of 23 years. My combat tours included Baghdad and Balad, both in Iraq. I’ve lived in Sebastopol since 2010 and proud to call it home. The Best Defense Foundation is a non-profit organization that returns veterans to their battlefields to help find resolution. Currently, we are conducting programs with WWII veterans to Normandy, Iwo Jima, Bastogne and The Netherlands. We have been working on a Vietnam program and hope to start within the next year. My presentation will focus on our return to Normandy for the 80th anniversary of D-Day.

As the consultant project manager for the Caltrans’ grant-funded Downtown Revitalization Study, Geoff leads a team of planners, engineers and urban designers to identify, analysis, and design a new downtown Sebastopol, leveraging Caltrans’ recently updated complete streets design standards, and input gathered from a comprehensive public engagement process. 

With over 20 years of experience as a registered civil and traffic engineer, Geoff Rubendall effectively delivers thoughtful, context-sensitive ideas and solutions for evaluating and enhancing the built environment. He understands the critical importance of considering a combination of safety, equity, and local context for every project to improve access and circulation for all travelers within a community. Geoff’s experience spans a wide spectrum of planning and engineering project areas—including traffic and safety studies, multimodal/complete streets concept development, traffic engineering assessments, and preparation of construction documents.

In early 2015 Bill and his oldest son, Pete, flew back to Asheville, NC and a friend drove them to Amicalola Falls State Park in Georgia where they began their 2,200 hike north from Springer Mountain, GA, the Southern terminus of the AT, treking all the way to Mount Katahdin in Maine, the northern terminus. They both shaved their heads, mustaches, and beards just before they left CA and six months later they truly looked like “Mountain Men”. Bill wiil share is adventure with us!

Kaare Iverson, born in Canada - now based in San Francisco, is a photographer, videographer + director. He specializes in outdoor lifestyles & fitness.

His presentation, "The Last Coho" is a fine-art, editorial crossover project that highlightes the plight of the salmon in California's Russian River and the incredible effort to recover them.

He will show some of his beautiful salmon portraits that are framed to illuminate their iconic importance and personality, and display his unique storytelling power of photography.

Barbara McChesney enjoyed a 35-year long career as a special educator and has always been passionate about protecting the environment.  Barbara joined Rotary nearly 5 years ago and in that found a way to engage in environmental work.   She is president of the Rotary Club of Windsor, chair of the environmental committee for District 5130, and regional board member for End Plastic Soup.   Barbara is particularly passionate about the environmental crisis created by the abundance of single-use plastic.  

Barbara in collaboration with her two sisters Beverly and Frances are co-authors of McSisters Tackle Plastic (www.mcsisters.org), a blog designed to share information about the plastic crisis and inspire others to make a difference.

Barbara lives in Windsor and is married to David Doht her biggest cheerleader.  Her 2 year old grandson Bentley is her greatest inspiration.

In keeping with this year's ongoing series of  programs highlighting activities of the club leading up to the Centennial celebration, this program will focus on club social events--- activities that we do for ourselves.  We have community and international programs, and sometimes we do stuff just because we like to!

Please contact Jack Blasco to volunteer to help with the Crab Feed on Fri 2/14/25 at Gill Landscape or on Sat 2/15/25 at the Holy Ghost Hall.

Serafina Palandech, the artistic owner of Luminarium and Bubbles Boba and Tea, took over the leadership of Sebastopol Center for the Arts (SebArts) in June 2023 as the new Executive Director. SebArts' programs include Art at the Source-Open Studios, Sonoma County Art Trails, and the SDFF.

Sebastopol Documentary Film Festival is an Oscar ® qualifying Film Festival for documentaries in the short form. Sebastopol Documentary Film Festival is proudly progressive, often featuring spotlights on social justice, journalism, current issues. When the right films come through we’ve programmed different POV’s of the same story. Given the proliferation of AI, documentary might become our only touchstone for what was ‘real’ at a moment in time. What better platform than a non-fiction film festival to encourage fresh and critical thinking?