The "Manhattan Optimist Club Bulletin": Vol. 2024 #36: 6-5-24

                                        VOLUME 2024            JUNE 5         NUMBER 36

President Bill Wisdom, welcomed everyone and gave us some sports analogies, followed by the Pledge of Allegiance.  

ACHES & PAINS:  Be kind to one another, you never know what others may be going through.  Keep those suffering in your thoughts and prayers.        

PROGRAM:  Mike Fincham introduced our speaker, and one of our newest members of the club, Brad Horchem.  Brad grew up in Ness City Kansas and was the middle child of three boys.  In high school, he played football, basketball and ran track.  As a sophomore, he became the starting quarterback and played that position along with linebacker for the next three years.  As a senior, he was selected by the Wichita Eagle and the Topeka Capital Journal to their all-class, all-state football team.  A highlight was attending Len Dawson football camp.  Brad also played in the second Kansas Shrine bowl for the winning West team.

He came to Kansas State as a freshman in the fall of 1975 but a summer farming accident that shattered his left elbow kept him off the field that season.  He later was granted a medical redshirt, so he was still able to play four seasons for the Wildcats.  At K-State, Brad met his wife, Cindy, who was a cheerleader for two years and the sports editor of the Collegian during the fall semester of her senior year (while they were engaged, and he was a captain of the football team).  They married in July of 1980 before both graduating in May that year. 

While in college, Brad was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa honorary, he was a member of the Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity and despite an injury that cut his senior season short, he earned honorable mention all-Big Eight as a defensive back and was named to the Academic All-American team.  While his knee injury ended any dreams of professional football, a longtime family friend asked Brad after he and Cindy graduated and moved to Seneca Kansas if he had ever considered officiating football.  That led to a journey from junior high and high school officiating to junior college and small college officiating.  Eventually many years as a Division 1 football official.  He was inducted into the Kansas Collegiate Officials Hall of Fame in 2020 and retired from officiating after the 2021 season.  While officiating, he said two of the nicest coaches were Bill Snyder and Tom Osborn, they would simply ask what they saw that made them make the call and then let it go.  They were great to work with. Bo Pelini, not the nicest!

Brad earned a degree in Natural Resources Management with an emphasis on soil and water conservation.  A summer internship with the Soil Conservation Service before his senior year led to a permanent position after college.  He worked for the SCS, which later became the Natural Resources Conservation Service, for 22 years then moved to a water quality position with the Environmental Protection Agency regional office in Kansas City for another 17 years and retired in 2018 and he and Cindy moved back to Manhattan. 

Brad and his wife have two adult daughters and a son-in-law.  His parents graduated from K-State, his oldest daughter graduated from K-State while her husband graduated from the University of Missouri.  Their youngest daughter attended K-State but transferred and graduated from Pittsburg State for her major.  When asked if his daughters were athletic, he said they played softball and ran track but he always just told them to do what makes them happy. 

Thank you Brad for sharing your story!

CLUB STUFF/ANNOUNCEMENTS and UPCOMING EVENTS:

June 14th, Juneteenth Celebration at the City Park, Mike Fincham could use a couple more volunteers.
Tree Lot Survey was handed out today, please kindly fill them out and get them back to Steve Boeckman and/or Greg McCune in the next week or so.  If you would rather fill it out online, it will be available soon.
Optimist Park Workday was great, Jim Franke would like to thank Bill Wisdom, Paul Dittmar, Doug Jardine, Ashley Urban, Larry Fox, Greg McCune, Brad Horchem, Steve Springer, Mike Fincham, Bob Seymour, Susan O’Neill, Gary Lloyd and Greg Wurst.  Another thank you to the newest members of the “Push Mowing Crew”, Steve Springer and Brad Horchem.
 

SAVE THE DATE: June 14th – Juneteenth Celebration Project, September 28th-KSU Football Parking for the OSU game, October 19th – Aggieville Chili Crawl

GUESTS:  Jerry Banaka introduced his guest Terry Tiede, thank you for joining us this morning, please join us again!  

Meeting adjourned with the OPTIMIST CREED.

JUNE PROGRAMS:           Program chairs:  Mike Fincham, Clyde Scott, Mark Knackendoffel, Heather                                                           Peterson

                                                                Coordinator: Clyde Scott

                                                                Coordinator: Mark Knackendoffel

                                                                Coordinator: Heather Peterson

JUNE BIRTHDAYS