Our club president, Rev. David Shelor, is adding a feature to our weekly meetings. Due to all the new members who have joined our club, David will add "Member Spotlight." This will allow our older members to introduce themselves to our new and older members. The spotlight member will have five minutes to speak with our members and answer five arranged questions.
Meet Pat Bauer. She joined Rotary in November 2004. Pat is a past president of our club, currently serves as its Secretary, and chairs the Literacy Committee.
Pat's Spotlight:
To begin at the beginning, I was born and raised in Ft. Myers, Florida, and educated in three great Florida schools: Stetson Univ., USF, and FSU.
Belonging Having grown up surrounded by a large extended family, I have always felt a need to join groups organized to achieve common goals. I’d have to say my affiliation motive is very strong.
Because I needed to belong, it was natural for me to choose education as my profession. I worked first as a classroom teacher, then as a school librarian, and finally as a college professor.
Serving I met Tom Bauer while teaching in Atlanta and we moved to Chesterland, Ohio, where Tom started a rep agency. After five hard winters in Cleveland, I convinced Tom we should move back south. A most happy accident led us to Dunedin in 1972, where our son Eddie was born, making him a 5th generation Floridian. Then, I took seven years off from teaching to be a full-time mom and volunteer in the community. Serving as a Dunedin Jr. Service League member, Dunedin Fine Art Center and the Dunedin Friends of the Public Library offered excellent opportunities to belong, serve, and develop as a citizen of a delightful community. During those seven years, I also earned a Master of Arts Degree from USF College of Education.
When I returned to Pinellas County Schools as a library media specialist in the early 80s, I became active in the Pinellas Classroom Teachers Association and the Florida Association for Media in Education. During this time, I also served on the Pinellas Public Library Cooperative board and earned my PhD in Library and Information Studies from FSU. Later, while teaching at USF, I was kept busy lobbying for the Florida Library Association. I loved serving on governmental relations committees.
Developing When I retired from full-time teaching at the USF School of Information Science, it was time to become more actively involved in my community once again. In November 2004, Gemmy Brown, literacy chair of the Dunedin Rotary Club, invited me to a luncheon meeting where I met Rotarians who were serving or had served in city, county, and state government and leaders in local not-for-profits. I loved the idea of joining an organization that gave me the opportunity to hang out with such leaders. At one of my first Rotary meetings, a speaker from the Literacy Council of Upper Pinellas recruited me to volunteer as a tutor. Soon I joined the board of directors and as they say, “The rest is history.”
Over the past twenty years, while belonging to the Rotary Club of Dunedin, I have made many friends, served as literacy chair, and gained leadership skills while serving on the board of directors and several different committees.
In my day job for the past 15 years, I have served as President of the Literacy Council of Upper Pinellas. If you would like to join our learning community, see me regarding what it takes to begin.
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