December 2 2009

Notes from the Lake Murray Irmo Rotary Club 12-2-09 Meeting

After President Ginny Barr called the meeting to order, Lynn Campbell led in prayer. Darren Bouknight introduced the guests. Jacqueline Kleynenberg led the group in Health and Happiness and a time of Happy Dollars. During Happy Dollars, Jeff Baldwin provided an update on Bill Kopelman. Joel Collins provided the club with information on the Rotary Foundation and Patty Cavanaugh handed out individual foundation contribution status pages. Joel challenged the club to become 100% Paul Harris Fellow contributors.

The last adopt-a-highway for 2009 will be held this Saturday, December 5. Please meet at Blount Sheperd’s office at 8:00 am. The club Christmas party will be held Monday, December 14 at 6:30 pm at the Chestnut Hills Club House.

Our speaker for the morning was Dr. Burk Dial, who talked about the Palmetto Richland Gamma Knife program. Richland has had the only gamma knife in the state for ten years. The gamma knife offers an alternative to whole brain radiation treatment for metastasized tumors in the brain. The gamma knife provides 192 low dosage penetrations which converge on the tumor providing a high dosage radiation to the tumor without damaging the cells through which the laser passes. According to Dr. Dial, whole brain radiation treatment can only be applied to a patient one time while gamma knife radiation treatment can be applied multiple times. The accuracy of the gamma knife is less than one millimeter and the success rate is very high. We need to thank Maris Hargrave for arranging this very informative program.