Ashland Optimist Bulletin September 19 2026
Breakfast: (Sept. 26)- Brenda Austin, Bonita Lenger, and Bruce Glascock
Speaker: Dr. James Zielinski-brain health app
We hosted Bingo on Sept. 18th with 118 players, but we were still able to make deposits from the floor, along with an over $900 deposit from the kitchen. The next Bingo will be Oct. 2nd.
Our Club Social will be held on Sunday, Oct. 4th from 5:00-7:00 p.m. This will include installation of our officers, with 2026-27 East Missouri Governor Mary Hatfield and Governor-elect Gary Joe Hatfield, in attendance and will include a catered dinner at a cost of $5 per person for salisbury steak or parmesan chicken with all the fixings. We invite all Ashland Optimist members and family to attend. Please contact Ernie Wren (erniewren.gmail.com) if you are interested in attending so we have a head count for the caterers.
Barrett Glascock and Shawn Steelman provided a tasty, traditional breakfast this morning. This morning our speaker was E. Jane Rutter. She talked about her new book "Women of Spirit: Claiming our Ultimate Power", which is available for $24.99 through rutterreflections@gmail.com.
Jane comes from a grant writing background with the University. She did over 1,100 surveys during the early 1990-late 2000 on what business and personal items were important to people, including a 52-item inventory of possible terms, and compiled the results over 28 years to write this book. She noticed that women and men selected many of the same terms, with the biggest difference being relationship and respect for women and ethics and the tool to succeed being more important for men in the workplace. Women prioritized teamwork, whereas men seemed to focus on excelling. Unfortunately, because the screen was already in use for Jerome Glascock's celebration of life later today, Jane was not able to share the slides that she had prepared. She noticed a disturbing trend for people to rank spirituality extremely low on their lists, meaning that our home/work life is disconnected from the faith life, which led to her writing this book. Jane also shared about the process of authoring this book. She has other books on the market through the Missouri Dept. of Economic Development, but this title she published through Ingram Sparks to get it directly to the market.
When Jane finished answering questions, she drew the attendance drawing. Mary Ann Gowdy, Chase Thomas, and Donna Wobbe had their chance at riches, but with their absence, the pot will continue to grow.
Save the Date:
The First Quarter District meeting will be Oct. 23 & 24 and will be held in Jefferson City jointly with the East and West Districts. Let Barrett know if you are interested in attending.
Our Spooktacular will be on Saturday, October 31st from 4-6 pm. Ernie Wren has posted a link on Facebook for registrations. He will provide more information and will look for volunteers to help closer to time.
The Veterans Breakfast will be on Wed. Nov. 11th and will be spearheaded by Leigh Kottwitz. She will be looking for non-veteran volunteers to help.
Letitia DenHartog
ashlandoptimist.org
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