William Hunt - Insights Into the Middle East
It was a very internationally flavored meeting last week as we had William Hunt speak on life & business in the Middle East and a number of Rotary Youth Exchange students were in attendance.
Ken Vos had his sister Judy Parrott as a guest. Bill Battjes' guests were his wife Deb, Bill & Sue Hunt, Sue & Don VerHolst, Jane Murvin, Frances Johnson, and Larry Kaplan. Larry is also a Rotarian.
RYE Inbound Joel Olsmats from Sweden was with us for the last time before he returns home after an exemplary year. Joel attended WOHS was very active in Boy Scout Troop 43 from Beechwood Church.
Rebounds Kierian Overbeek (HHS/India) and Dee Rumpsa (HHS/just home from Argentina) and Outbound Etta Leedy (Potter’s House/going to Japan) came.
Bill was a very engaging speaker as he recounted many interesting and entertaining stories about his time working in a very young country that is working hard to modernize while retaining their culture. Founded only 45 years ago, the UAE was then Bedouins in tents and now they have beautiful cities filled with skyscrapers. They are recruiting talent worldwide to build their country~~there are only 400,000 Emiratis in a population of 9 million. The Sheik that Bill worked for would say, "It is better to make a blessed profit than a profit.”
Bill is shown holding a solid silver traditional dagger that was a gift.