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Kiwanis to demonstrate holiday spirit

With its new officers in place, the Steubenville Kiwanis Club is demonstrating the Christmas spirit in two respects, including with its annual Christmas party the members throw for first-graders at East Elementary School, which I still tend to think of as Garfield Elementary.

That will be held Dec. 17 at the school and include pizza, the presentation of shirts and visitors from Oglebay bringing some critters the children always enjoy.

Another Christmas activity is when some of the Kiwanians will ring the bells as part of the Salvation Army of Jefferson County’s Christmas kettle campaign. They’ll be hoping to generate funds for that from their station at Kmart in Steubenville.

The club’s recently installed officers, are George Pugh, taking the reins as president; Mike Emmerling as first vice president; Kris Haught as second vice president; and Tom Timmons as secretary-treasurer. Caz Adulewicz is immediate past president and a representative to the soccer club as is Haught.

Serving on the board of directors through Sept. 30, 2014, are Paul Brandt, Anita Jackson, David Henderson and David Mosti.

On the board of directors through Sept. 30, 2015, are Larry Coleman, Duke Rakich, Phyllis Riccadonna and Chrissy Taylor.

Pastor Calvin McLoyd of Second Baptist Church has been the program chair for November, lining up speakers for the month with today’s meeting featuring Nita Hughes, branch manager of First National Bank in Follansbee.

Renita Lavender, Walmart Distribution Center human resources manager, also was a guest speaker earlier this month as was Edward Littlejohn, a member of the Steubenville City Schools Board of Education and longtime owner of the Academy of Tae Kwon Do in Wintersville.

McLoyd said Littlejohn was one of the first people he met when he came to Steubenville 22 years ago.

Introduced by his wife, Vicki, Littlejohn at the Nov. 12 gathering delivered an upbeat message to the Kiwanians, focusing on how to develop a “Yes I Can” attitude.

He stressed the importance of having a positive attitude; developing discipline; being respectful; believing in yourself; and embracing the three rules of concentration – focusing your eyes, mind and body.

Three guests were in attendance at this meeting, there with Ross Ivkovich, Steubenville High School Key Club adviser. They were aide Bill Walters and students Matt Firm, a senior at Big Red who was lauded at the football team’s senior night, and Sha Chiles, also a senior who told the Kiwanians what an “honor and privilege” it was to be with them and how blessed he is to have so many caring people in his life.

At a recent round-table session, the Kiwanis set the dates for two important fundraisers. First up in the new year would be the annual trivia competition set for March 8 so get your teams ready for that, and then comes the golf scramble on June 8, also a team-forming event.

In other Kiwanis news, the club has joined forces with Kiwanis members across the globe in an effort to eliminate maternal and neonatal tetanus, a painful disease that kills one baby every 9 minutes or about 160 newborns each day.

The club has secured $2,500 toward its goal of raising $5,000 by 2015 for the Eliminate Project.

“We are working hard to achieve our goal,” Pugh said. “It is a very worthwhile cause, and we are doing our part to eliminate this deadly disease,” Pugh added.

Kiwanis International is working to raise $110 million by 2015 for this project, which will ultimately protect more than 61 million women and their future babies and make Kiwanis the world’s single largest donor to maternal and neonatal tetanus elimination efforts.

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