Newsletter - Archive  Jul 15, 2009

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Rotary Club Business and Member News

July 15, 2009

Opening:

Pledge               Richard

Prayer               John B

Song                 Joe M

Visiting Rotarians and Guests:

Carl Wathne      RC of Salem, MA

Will                    Grandson of Bill D

Sue Ellen          Spouse of Bob McD

Announcements:

 Pres Rich        We've received thank-you notes from all of our scholarship

recipients now

    Town Manager Todd Selig sent along a thank-you note for our

work on the July 4th celebration

    The Board will have a special meeting next Tues to review

the new breakfast location options; 5 PM, Mariner

    The July 4th recap meeting will be next Thurs; 6 PM, Rich's

    Chip has volunteered to be our new Foundation Chair

    Doug has offered his resignation for business reasons

Scott                Thanks to all who made the 4th a great success

Sean                We have four Isle of Shoals tickets ($25 value) which we'll

auction off next meeting

Happy Bucks:

Chip                 Loved working with the kids at the 4th; dibs for next year

Amos               Mother-in-law is oldest citizen of Sanbornton; daughter is

returning from Alaska by road

Jud                  Sure happy Chip stepped up for The Rotary Foundation

Bob W             Great walking weather

Sean               Congrats to Papelbon; and to Rich (Strafford Cnty Realtor of

the Year)

Scott               Pin

John B            Discovered seaweed works great vs slugs

Will D              American League win (again!)

Bill D               Will be pruning at Camp Sunshine after the meeting next

week; cutting trees on Sep 8th & 29th; all are welcome

Dave VA         Clay Buchholz opening the second half of the season

Warren           The in-laws coming!  The in-laws are coming!

Henry             Welcome to Will for the summer

Program:

Ralph Gault, FBI Agent

Ralph interviewed with the FBI when he was a 1st Lt and joined the bureau in 1969, seven days out of the Army.  After training at Quantico, VA, his first assignment was chasing deserters out of the office in Syracuse.  They showed amazing creativity in their selection of hiding places.

Following that probationary year, Ralph received what was considered a plum assignment to the Boston office, and MaryAnn delivered the first of their nine sons (and two daughters) upon arrival.  His initial position was on the "New Left" Squad which monitored demonstrations looking for infiltration by subversive organizations.  He dutifully filed reports to Washington after each one but was never sure that anyone ever read them.

That must have gone well, because he was promoted to the Bank Robbery group.  Kids from Charlestown figured largely in the ones he investigated.  They would do a "Eddie Coyle" kidnapping of a bank official and drive down to the bank to open the vault.  Red dye packs were the most effective tool used to foil their work.  The bank burglars were a higher class, and mainly Canadians.  They liked to test bank alarms on Sunday nights to see if anyone responded.

With all the work in Boston, Ralph wasn't seeing much of his growing family so he took an assignment in the Portsmouth office in 1978.  A lot of the work up here involved the theft of construction heavy equipment.  The keys to the equipment are largely generic, so it was easy to load it up and resell it in Florida. 

He spent a fair amount of time chasing con-man Frank Rossi, who cooked pretty good Italian and operated "Rossi's", the restaurant located where McIntosh College is now.  Rossi preyed on single women and got them to invest in his schemes here in the US and in Canada.

The disappearance of Tammy Belanger came on his watch, and was finally solved by persistent police work, especially by an officer who is now a chief in a small town here in NH.  The circumstances of this case prompted a new school procedure requiring officials to check up on the whereabouts of any child not in class in the morning.

The FBI has a mandatory retirement age of 55, so Ralph left the bureau in 1996.  He joined Progressive Insurance Co and now investigates insurance fraud.

Megabucks:

Rich looked for the six of clubs for $39, but couldn't find it.

Upcoming Programs:

Jul 22       Adam Melvin, the Peace Corps in the Middle East

Your Scribe:Ric