ur Rotarian of the Day today is Keith James. Keith was born December 29, 1954, in Memphis, Tennessee. He graduated from Glendale High School in Springfield, Missouri, in 1971 and went on to Southwest Missouri State University, where he graduated in 1974. He is president of Business Computer Center.

Keith was proposed by Ben Gorrell and joined Southside on February 18, 1993. He loves to travel and to collect coins, and he is a Paul Harris Fellow and Benefactor. Keith is serving our club this year as vice-president and has done some mighty fine work coordinating the Dictionary Project.

Keith, thank you for arranging today’s program.

This Week’s Program

Al Proo

ur speaker today is Al Proo, the founder and executive director for Happy Hands Education Center, which caters to deaf and hard-of-hearing children. Happy Hands is a vision which resulted from Al’s work within the deaf community as a professional freelance interpreter and as a pastor of a church for the deaf in Tulsa.

Hearing impairment is a physical disability that afflicts approximately 1,400 children in the Tulsa metro area. Al saw a great need to improve literacy among deaf children and better prepare them for entry into the first grade. After investigating, he found that no one in Oklahoma was providing for the early developmental needs of deaf and hard-of-hearing children on a full-time basis. Al has left the pastorate to devote full-time to the Center.

Happy Hands was incorporated in the State of Oklahoma on April 3, 1993, and approved by the IRS as a 501(c)(3) charitable organization.

Happy Hands began serving children on September 1, 1994. Since then, Happy Hands has grown 500%. It was only recently that Happy Hands was granted funding to build a new state-of-the-art facility.

Al retired from the Tulsa Police Department as a sergeant in 1991.

Al is a published author, with the book God’s Timing: Are Your Hands Tied? He is currently working on his second book. All proceeds from the sale of his book go back to Happy Hands. He has also been published in an Early Education Journal for ACSI (Association for Christian Schools International).

Al, the Rotary Club of Southside Tulsa welcomes you today. Thank you for being with us.

Southsider Quick Notes

Last week…
- Last week our ROD was J. David Hughes and our speaker was Greg Douglass.

- Bob Cales was presented with his fourth Paul Harris Fellow. Congratulations, Bob!

- Don’t forget to get your dictionary lists from your principals. The books are at Ti Amo’s, just waiting for you.

- The Salvation Army bell ringing is Dec. 12 and Dec. 19, at the south door of Macy’s at the Woodland Hills mall. See Phil Scott to sign up for a time. The teams that collect the most money will be eligible to win prizes!

- Here are the scores for conference championship games:

• Big XII Championship: OU vs. Missouri
  Bob’s pick: OU, 49-35. The real score: OU, 62-21.
• Conference USA Championship: TU vs. East Carolina
  Bob’s pick: TU, 42-28. The real score: East Carolina, 27-24.

- The Broken Arrow club is having a trivia challenge in January. It’s $500 for a team of 6 people to enter.

- Southsiders delivered coats to Springdale Elementary on Dec. 3. They handed out about 50 coats and 10 $100 Goodwill gift certificates to the kids there.

- We’ll be sponsoring the building of a 2.5-acre dog park in Hunter Park in South Tulsa. We had a meeting on Dec. 8 to discuss some of the finer details. We’ll be doing fundraising for it, and we’ll have naming rights.

- Next week, our speaker will be Rich Rehberg from USIS.