Grandfather's very old now and cannot drive anymore but wants to remain active in the club. So I took him down to Stockton to spend some time with him and to see if I wanted to join myself. The club is made up of a few different clubs from Lodi, Stockton and Manteca.

Walk into the room to see a bunch of farmers with blaze orange hats, realtree jackets and 6" buckles. I mean a bunch. The first thing on the agenda was the Pledge of Allegiance. It was safe to say I was surrounded by Republicans. The numerous “W” stickers on vehicles in the parking lot was a good indication too.

Every third Wednesday of the month they give out scholarships towards students pursuing environmental and conservation type degrees. We had about 4 Doctoral students from UCD (2), UCLA, UC Berkeley, 6 MS students, 12 Undergrads and a few highschool students.

Had the PhD candidates give a 10minute powerpoint presentation each on how they're using the money and what they are pursuing. Two of the doctoral candidates got completely stumped by the old timers in the crowd. Both issues dealt with the delta and how the salmon and threadfish shad population are being damaged by re-routing water to Southern Ca. I was impressed...

They gave all the students a round of applause, handed out the checks and took pictures. From what my Grandfather told me it was an unusually small amount of scholarships for that month. Turns out these good 'ole boys aren't cheap either. Most of them own vineyards in Lodi (etc). The scholarship fund was mentioned during the treasury report portion of the meeting which still had $285,000.00 remaining. All of which is to be exhausted by the end of the year!

Don't give into the hype that these F250 driving country boys do nothing.

 

hmmm... im wondering if my wife could dip into that. she is entering grad school to get her master's degree in global environmental health (man and our relation to the environment). it is a pretty hot sector of public health at the moment