Events

BIO

Usually the 3rd Friday of the Month (rescheduled if there are conflicts).
Prior to regular Club Meetings

BIO

After nearly six years as Adventure Travel Specialist, with the proud accomplishment of leading efforts to secure Nebraska’s first International Dark Sky Park, Jenna will stay the course in helping Nebraska dream big. Her current role focuses on educating stakeholders on the importance of tourism and its role in community vitality, collaborating on statewide tourism initiatives, and creating a destination development program to support Nebraska’s dynamic tourism industry.

Jenna graduated from Georgia College with a bachelor's degree in Environmental Science. Pursuing her love of travel and passion for the outdoors, she secured an internship within the Science and Resource Management Division's Vegetation Program at Grand Canyon National Park. One year was not enough to soak up the thrills of Grand Canyon! After nearly five years working in various roles within the park, she concluded her time there as Day-Tour Program Coordinator for the Grand Canyon Conservancy Field Institute.

Jenna moved sight-unseen to Lincoln, Nebraska in the fall of 2018. She now lives in the beautiful East Campus neighborhood with her husband + two dogs and serves on her community organization board. When she's not busy tending to her garden, you may spot her cycling Lincoln's world-class trail system.

Dean is a native Nebraskan and can best be described as a musical entrepreneur involved with a variety of arts organizations and musical activities. He received his Bachelor of Music and Master of Music degrees from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and served on the faculty of Nebraska Wesleyan University in Lincoln for 31 years. He is President of Arts Incorporated, a business that provides management services for the Association of Nonprofit Executives, Capital Jazz Society, Lincoln Municipal Band, Lincoln Jazz Series, Monday Night Big Band, Nebraska Brass, Nebraska Jazz Orchestra and the Nebraska Trumpet Ensemble. It includes the American Music Corporation, the Nebraska Symphony Chamber Orchestra, and also contracts professional musicians for a variety of musical events, from classical to jazz throughout the region.

Dean is Executive Director and lead trumpet of the Nebraska Jazz Orchestra. He is also the founder, Executive Director, and first trumpet of the Nebraska Brass. He serves as the Executive Director and first trumpet of the Lincoln Municipal Band, Executive Director of the Capital Jazz Society and Nebraska Trumpet Ensemble.

Dean is a member of the International Trumpet Guild and has been a frequent performer at their annual conferences, including Sydney, Australia in 2010. He has served on the board of the American Federation of Musicians, Local 463, Lincoln, the Lincoln Arts Council and review panels for the Nebraska Arts Council. In 1997, he was named Nonprofit Executive of the Year by the Association of Nonprofit Executives and currently serves as their President.

As a busy freelance trumpet soloist and artist, he has been involved with many musical organizations, including the following: Omaha Symphony Orchestra, Lincoln Symphony Orchestra, Opera/Omaha, Nebraska Brass, Irie Caribbean Jazz, Nebraska Trumpet Ensemble, FCLT Brass, and the Nebraska Jazz Orchestra, along with well over one hundred other groups since he began his career. He has performed on numerous radio and television commercials and documentaries, was a back-up vocalist in the major motion picture, The Cotton Club starring Richard Gere, and appeared as an actor in the television production, Amerika starring Kris Kristofferson. Dean has performed and been a soloist with a number of groups throughout the United States, Europe, East Asia, and the Caribbean. He has also performed with a diverse group of artists, including: Bob Hope, Aaron Copland, Bright Eyes, Doc Severinsen, Cursive, Jay McShann, Maroon Five, George Burns, Duck, Freddie Hubbard, Marilyn Maye, Marvin Stamm, Walter Cronkite, Bob Newhart, The Four Tops, The Smothers Brothers, Doris Day, Carol Channing, Clark Terry, Frankie Valli, Wayne Bergeron, Don Menza, Bobby Watson, Sammy Davis, Jr., Wayne Newton, Fresh Aire/Mannheim Steamroller, Wayne Bergeron, The Temptations, Karrin Allyson, Claude Fiddler Williams, Frankie Avalon, Rod Stewart, Bobby Watson, Red Skelton, Third World, Liberace, The Nelson Riddle Orchestra, Claudio Roditi and Big Bird, among many others. He has performed on a number of cruise ships and can be heard on American Gramophone, Visual Music, Saddle Creek and American Music as well as other recording labels. He performs often with touring Broadway productions in Lincoln and Omaha, including The Producers, Chicago, South Pacific, Peter Pan, All Shook Up, White Christmas, The King and I, Something Rotten and Wicked, among others.

His hobbies include gardening and a love of animals, raising exotic tropical fish in more than forty aquariums at home and work, two cats (Kit & Kat) and a rescue parrot at his office, a Goffin Cockatoo named Sophie.

We encourage everyone to attend the Lincoln South Rotary Club Foundation Social and Silent Auction Friday 8-14.

The noon meeting of Rotary has been cancelled that day.

Click here to preview the auction items.

Click here for the website story
Click here to register or donate

The Lincoln South Rotary Club Foundation (LCRF) has scheduled a social with silent auction for August 14 from 4-7 PM. The noon meeting for the Club has been cancelled that day - you are encouraged to attend the LCRF event.

BIO

Margaret Jacobs became the Director of the Center in 2020. She has been at UNL since 2004 and is the Charles Mach Professor of History. She is the author of four books and over three dozen articles, most of which focus on the history of Indigenous child removal by the governments of the United States, Canada, and Australia, from the late nineteenth century up to the present.

Since 2015, Jacobs has been researching how these three nations and everyday citizens in them are reckoning with and making redress for human rights abuses against Indigenous peoples. She held an Andrew Carnegie Fellowship from the Carnegie Corporation of New York from 2018-2020 for her project, Does the United States Need a Truth and Reconciliation Commission? She published After One Hundred Winters: In Search of Reconciliation on America’s Stolen Lands in 2021 and has co-founded a multimedia project with journalist Kevin Abourezk called Reconciliation Rising.

Jacobs also is co-director with Dr. Susana Grajales Geliga (Sicangu Lakota), an Assistant Professor of History and Native American Studies at UNO, of the Genoa Indian School Digital Reconciliation Project. She was the 2015-16 Pitt Professor of American History and Institutions at Cambridge University in England. She was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in October 2019.

"I relish the interdisciplinary nature of the Center for Great Plains Studies and I love working with fellows and affiliates from all four NU campuses," Jacobs said. "I’m particularly enjoying our partnership with the Otoe-Missouria Tribe of Oklahoma on the Walking in the Footsteps of our Ancestors project."

Usually the 3rd Friday of the Month (rescheduled if there are conflicts).
Prior to regular Club Meetings

Gretchen Bren’s life has been profoundly impacted by her Rotary journey.  Through her experiences she has seen how much power each of us has through Rotary to impact our world.
  
She joined The Rotary Club of Omaha (aka Omaha Downtown) in 2007 and served as Executive Director there for 10 years.  In 2019, she joined Omaha Night Rotary Club and is a past club president (2020-2022). At the District level, she has been the End Polio Now chair and an Assistant Governor. Gretchen has been a past District Trainer and is a facilitator for the Rotary Leadership Institute and for RI Club Visioning.  Outside the District, Gretchen is the secretary for the Rotary Wine Appreciation Fellowship. 

Gretchen is a Paul Harris Fellow+8, a Level 1 Bequest Society member and Major Donor Level 2 and spearheaded the Polio Plus Society in District 5650. Her spouse—Gary Bren—is a former District Governor for District 5650 (2016-17) and is also a facilitator for Rotary Leadership Institute and Visioning, and took over as the End Polio Now chair for District 5650.

Gretchen received the Citation for Meritorious Service from the Rotary Foundation and the International Service Award for a Polio-Free World. In 2019, Gretchen was honored with the District 5650 Cadwallader Award – the District’s highest honor for someone who has made monumental contribution in one or more areas of service with Rotary.

Outside of Rotary, Gretchen has worked in the computer industry doing training, programing and web design. She is a Microsoft Certified Application Specialist Master Instructor and Microsoft Certified Professional.  Since 2016, she has been at Turner Technology as the Director of Special Projects.  Gretchen has been married to Gary since 1989, and is the proud mom of two cats, Artemis and Shadow. In her free time, she loves to read, drink fine wines and travel, and recently started stand up paddleboarding.  

Usually the 3rd Friday of the Month (rescheduled if there are conflicts).
Prior to regular Club Meetings

BIO

Dr. Darrin Good was named the 17th president of Nebraska Wesleyan University effective July 2019.

Prior to this appointment, Good served as vice president of academic affairs and dean of the faculty at Whittier College, located near Los Angeles, Calif. Whittier College is one of the country’s most ethnically / racially diverse private national liberal arts colleges with an enrollment of 1,700 students.
Prior to Whittier College, Good served as the associate provost and dean of science and education at Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, Minn., from 2012-2015. 

Prior to that he was a biology professor at his alma mater, Augustana College in Rock Island, Ill., where he assumed administrative roles including director of service learning and leadership initiatives, director of summer academic programs, director of Nicaragua Medical Service Learning Program, chair of the Division of Natural Sciences, chair of the Governing Board of the Pre-Health Professions, and admissions coordinator for biology and pre-health professions. 

Good earned his bachelor’s degree with a major in biology from Augustana College and his master’s degree and Ph.D. in biology from the University of Kansas. Good and his wife, Diana, have an adult daughter.

Usually the 3rd Friday of the Month (rescheduled if there are conflicts).
Prior to regular Club Meetings

https://www.endpolio.org/world-polio-day

BIO
BULLET POINTS FOR INTRODUCTION
• Rotary
o Past President of Suburban Omaha
o Past Chairman of Suburban Omaha Foundation Board of Trustees
o Omaha Suburban-Past Seargent-at-Arms, Fundraising Chair, Car Show Chair, Community Service
Chair
o Past Assistant Governor District 5650
o Paul Harris Fellow Plus 1
• Community
o La Vista Community Foundation Past Chairman, current Secretary
o Sarpy County Chamber of Commerce- Past Chairman, Volunteer of the Year & Excellence Award
o Charitable Gift Planners of Nebraska-VP of Marketing/Sponsorships
o Leadership Sarpy Class of 2003
o Friend of La Vista Award 2011
o Omaha Estate Planning Council
o Angels Among US Board of Directors

Tom Kerfoot joined Children’s Nebraska in January of 2016 as a Director of Development for Philanthropy. Tom
attended Bellevue University for Marketing Management and has thirteen years of experience in healthcare
fundraising, working previously for the CHI Health Foundation. Tom has a long record of successfully working with
private donors, foundations and corporate sponsors to secure funding for projects and programs. He has extensive
experience in event planning and management, and collaborated with a team to develop the planned giving program
at CHI Health Foundation.

Tom completed the Certificate in Fundraising Management through the University of Nebraska at Omaha. He is
currently the Vice President – Marketing & Sponsorships for the Charitable Gift Planners of Nebraska and is a
member of the Omaha Estate Planning Council. Tom earned the designation of Chartered Advisor in Philanthropy in
2016 through a year-long program with The American College of Financial Services and the Omaha Community
Foundation.

Tom has served in leadership roles for a number of area organizations, and is Past-President for the Suburban Rotary
Club of Omaha and Past-Chairman of the Suburban Rotary Board of Trustees. Tom served on the Board of Directors
for the Sarpy County Chamber of Commerce and was the Chairman of the Board in 2019. Tom has served on the
Board of Directors for the La Vista Community Foundation for the past twenty years, serving as Chairman of the
Board twice and is currently the Board Secretary.

Tom has received numerous awards and recognition for his volunteer work in the community. He was recognized as
the Volunteer of the Year in 2007, 2013 and 2014 for the Sarpy County Chamber of Commerce. He received the
highest honor of Chamber Excellence Award in 2016 for the Sarpy County Chamber of Commerce. He was honored as
the Volunteer of the Year in 2009 for the La Vista Chamber of Commerce. He was recognized as the Friend of La Vista
in 2011 for his work with the foundation and volunteer work in the community.

Usually the 3rd Friday of the Month (rescheduled if there are conflicts).
Prior to regular Club Meetings

Usually the 3rd Friday of the Month (rescheduled if there are conflicts).
Prior to regular Club Meetings