Alexandria Rotary Club

at the Minnesota Lakes Maritime Museum

Coaching

Dave Harris, the head coach of the Cardinal girls golf team, shared his thoughts on the past season and the girls' second place in the State Class AA Tournament.

"They won the Central Lakes Conference title for the sixth straight year, the Section 8AA championship by beating the top ranked team in the state, Detroit Lakes, and finished second at the state tournament to a team that was ranked second in the state all season long. I'm really proud of this group of girls and the best part of all this is that we have all of them coming back next year", said Harris.

On June 4th, Dave Harris was inducted into the Minnesota Golf Coaches Association Hall of Fame.

 

Trees

In lieu of a program at today's meeting and in honor of Arbor Day(the last day of April), Alexandria Rotarians drove to Fillmore Park after lunch and planted a Northfire Maple, a Greenspire Linden, a Royal Red Maple, a Pin Oak, a Heritage Birch, a Red Sunset Maple, a Sunburst Honey Locust, a Fiesta Maple and a Showy Mountain Ash.

While planting the Greenspire Linden, Rock Anderson recalled that many years ago before there was even a baseball field at Fillmore Park, our club planted trees along 15th Avenue (just west of where we were planting). After finishing, Rock kindly posed for an "after" photo of our club's community service.

Wetlands Reserve Program

The Morris Wetland Management District, a land management office of the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, was established in 1964 to preserve and protect habitat critical to waterfowl and other prairie wildlife. They manage 244 separate parcels of federally owned land called Waterfowl Production Areas (WPAs) within an eight county district.

The Morris Wetland Management District coordinates an exciting program to restore wildlife habitat on private land through voluntary agreements between the government and private landowners. John Hellerman is with the United States Fish and Wildlife Service and was at our meeting today to share information about the program with Alexandria Rotarians.

Together, the 244 WPAs encompass over 50,000 acres of land dedicated to wildlife and wildlife dependent public recreation. The Morris Wetland Management District also oversees over 20,000 acres of privately owned wetlands protected by permanent easements prohibiting wetland destruction and 2,500 acres of wetlands and surrounding grasslands that, while remaining privately owned, are managed by the Fish and Wildlife Service and forever protected by conservation easements.