It's a lot of fun, the food is good, and it's a chance to see half the town – but in the end, it's all about the kids. And that's what makes the Kiwanis Club of Durango's Pancake Day one of the most important days of the year.
It's not a task for the faint of heart. Master pancake flipper John Gamble arrived at 5:30 a.m. and was still going when I left shortly before 7 p.m. I understand he was there until 9 p.m., and I'm betting he slept in Friday. Not only did he help keep the kitchen on task, he kept them laughing while they were getting the food on our plates.
Which led me to ask one of those quandary questions that plague me upon occasion. Why are they called flapjacks when you flip them? Shouldn't they be flipjacks?
According to my friends at Webster's, it's just another term for pancakes, but the folks at Collins English Dictionary elucidated a bit more. The term dates all the way back to 1590 or so, and is derived from “flap,” which was the term for toss or flip way back in the late 16th century. So the flap makes sense – we're the ones who stopped flapping and starting flipping – but “jack,” in the meantime, shows no definitions for a small, flat cake, so there's another mystery.
Ah, well, maybe that's something to investigate next year for the 59th annual Kiwanis Pancake Day.
In the meantime, it turns out people love pancakes, eggs and ham anytime of the day, morning, noon or night. It helps to have Durango Joe's coffee and the continuing support of Honeyville with its syrups and honeys is invaluable. (Bumbleberry is my favorite, but I tried the Apricot Nectar for the first time, and that was pretty tasty, too.) McDonald's always comes through with the orange juice, and Meadowgold Dairies provided the butter and milk.
CJ's Diner donated a new addition this year, salsa and Hatch's green chiles. They added a true Southwest touch. Durango City Councilor Sweetie Marbury was on hand to top off the eggs with a spicy touch. It was hardship duty with the chile fumes, but she performed it with a smile. And that was after she spent the previous day running all over town picking up the donated food items.
Countless businesses opened their hearts and donated silent auction items and door prizes.
Judy Michalski, who served as chairwoman of the event, tells me they estimate they served at least 1,000 people. (Children under 12 eat free, so that count is a tad tough to guess.) They grossed around $12,000, but still have some expenses to pay off.
Ken Leavitt handled the event's marketing and gave out the door prizes. Reg Graham, a retired Fort Lewis College professor, put his people skills to good use and sold the most tickets on the day. (Michalski kept ticket sales brisk in the weeks leading up to the event by giving her fabulous homemade peach pies to the top seller each week.)
Mary and Don Southworth, along with Kiwanis President Lisa Barrett, were in charge of the silent auction. They obtained the various items, displayed them, and, by the end of Thursday evening and a long day, had called all the winning bidders and arranged for them to pick up their items.
This is the club's largest fundraiser of the year, and the money will go to some great causes, many of them youth-oriented. Among them are the Durango Youth Soccer Association, Southwest Colorado eSchool, The Durango Foundation for Educational Excellence for its Exploring Books for Children (for parents of young children), Bright Beginnings through the La Plata Family Centers Coalition, Reading is Fundamental, Tri-County Head Start Summer Scholarships, the Boys and Girls Club of La Plata County, the Kiwanis Florida Mesa Elementary School Imagination Library, Youth Baseball and the Science Fair.
They have also given money to Chapman Hill for an improvement project as well as donating to the Eye and Ear Program in honor of longtime member Bob Tyner, who recently died, and Music in the Mountains in memory of the reigning champion of Pancake Day ticket sales, Jim Garofalo, who died at the beginning of the year.
Kiwanis, like Rotary, Lion's and Civitan, is a service club, and these folks believe in service in all its forms. Members track the time and talent they contribute around town.
Some of their causes this last year have included United Blood Services blood drives; the Dave Spencer Ski Classic for the Adaptive Sports Association; cleaning up the new baseball fields in Bodo Park for Youth Baseball; the Community Thanksgiving Dinner; ringing the bell for Salvation Army; Project Merry Christmas; iCleanmyDurango; reading to children through its many projects; Boys and Girls Club; Relay for Life for the American Cancer Society; Climb a Peak; Bowl for Kids' Sake for Big Brothers Big Sisters of La Plata County; the Jungle Mobile – safety field trips for second graders in Bayfield and Durango, to name just a few.
I'm exhausted just writing about it!
Thanks to all of you for another great day and for all you do for our community and our kids.
HHH
Happy Virgo-Libra cusp birthday wishes go out to Lori Jackson, Pat Campbell, Andy Kraftherfer, Ward Lee (glad you're here to celebrate), Peggy Herrera, Todd Sieger, Steve Jackson, Danica Dudley, Bonnie Nicholl, Joelle Ward, Tyler Ruetschle, Jaylynn Schoch, Gabe Fry, Janine Bulen, Ulys Gardella, Lucille Smith and Anna Marie Bishop.
HHH
While I'm thinking about service clubs, it seems like a good time to remind readers that the Key Club, the high school version of Kiwanis International, and Interact, the Rotary International version for young people, are joining together to hold an enormous garage sale to benefit Habitat for Humanity. It will run from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. today at the Durango High School parking lot.
The students will accept donations from 6 to 10 a.m. at DHS, but please only bring truly saleable merchandise – no televisions, electronics or paint. They will accept large appliances in good working order.
This is how young people become committed to lives lived in service to others. It's up to the community to help them experience success, so they want to keep doing it.
HHH
Time has a way of slipping away, and before you know it, you have missed something you really wanted to attend.
Durango Friends of the Arts is holding its largest fundraiser, a luncheon and fashion show, of the year beginning at 10:30 a.m. Friday at the DoubleTree Hotel. The theme is the Little Black Dress or Le Petite Robe Noire if you want to get all French about it, which should inspire some absolutely smashing hats for the hat contest.
DFA has confronted the ongoing challenge of the lack of RSVPs in our community by not accepting walk-ins at the event, so they don't pay for meals in the “just-in-case” category. That means reservations are required, and to give the hotel an accurate count, they need to get reservations confirmed no later than Sunday.
Call Myriam Palmer at 375-0804 now – and I mean now – to grab one of the last available seats for an event that is always a blast. You can make arrangements for payment at that time.
HHH
One of my favorite things in town is the Lifelong Learning Lecture Series put on by the Professional Associates and Office of the President of Fort Lewis College. The best days are those where I learn something, and the lectures tend to be full of interesting new things. And they're free!
The first lecture of the fall semester was held Thursday and featured Jay Harrison, director of the Center of Southwest Studies, speaking about the interactions between the Spanish and Native Americans during the late period of the colonial era.
The fact that most stuck with me was that the Spanish clearly viewed the world as an “us-and-them” proposition, with a word for every potential ethnic background. For example, the offspring of a Spanish father and indigenous mother was a mestizo. A castizo was the offspring of a Spanish father and mestizo mother, and so on. It was a rather obsessive way of tracing bloodlines, one I understood to some extent as a Latin American studies major, but not to the extent the Spanish actually codified the concept.
Coming up this Thursday is a look at the history of West Nile virus and how it's still a public health concern by Dr. Don Bruning. My colleague Judith Reynolds is addressing “Opera for Dummies, Snobs and Everyone In Between” on Oct. 3. All lectures begin Thursdays at 7 p.m. in Noble Hall Room 130 at FLC unless otherwise noted.
To see the full schedule, visit www.fortlewis.edu/professionalassociates. I pray for no breaking news every Thursday so I have a chance to get away to hear this week's insights.
HHH
Hoping for some crisp fall weather for their anniversaries are Will and Carol Connelly, Nick and Anne Spence, Curtis and Anne Swanson, Mark and Jennifer Daigle, Jeff and Peggy McElwain, Mic and Sharon McGrath and Chris and Jill Choate.
HHH
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