Los Banos Rotary Club History
Diversified Rotary Program

A diversified program of the lumber business, traffic safety, farming, plumbing and medicine, plus a generous song fest, provided the entertainment at the Rotary Club luncheon Tuesday noon. Capably arranged by program chairman R. Lindemann, five members were called on for brief vocational talks, with lumberman Newt Olson as lead-off man.

Sketching briefly his experiences, shortage troubles, etc., in the year since he arrived in Los Banos. Olson expressed himself as highly pleased with the city itself and his associations here. The lumber business, he said, was becoming less acute, but it will still be some time before it returns to a competitive selling basis. Referring to his personalized advertising that appears each week in the Enterprise, Olson called attention to his one man campaign to keep the Seventh street railroad crossing free for car traffic, and intimated that he would appreciate the support of other townspeople to this end.

Marshall Jose, scheduled to tell the group just when and how they all could take delivery of new automobiles, sidetracked the issue to urge that all motorists be particularly careful in their driving over the holidays so they might live to enjoy another Christmas. High speed and seeming indifference to impending disaster were cited by Jose as primary causes for California's all-time high traffic toll during the past year.

Painting a conservative but highly optimistic picture of agriculture's future in the San Joaquin valley, George Nickel envisioned a bright future for agriculture in general and dairying in particular through the coming years. Improved scientific farming methods, ideal climate, and abundant water were primary factors cited by Nickel in declaring that this area will soon become the center of the dairy business for the entire state.

Not so optimistic was the resume of the plumbing business by Richard Gardner. With production of plumbing materials equaling only 60 per cent of the demand the outlook for this market is dismal for some time to come. As a specific instance, Gardner stated that two and a half million bathtubs will be needed for 1947. Actual national production will be slightly less than one million. A continuing labor shortage will also hamper installations and servicing, as will strikes and labor troubles within the raw steel manufacturing industry.
Dr. George B. Pimentel reflected a highly optimistic note, as he told of tremendous strides made in medicine to provide new and more effective drugs, including penicillin and streptomycin, the latter of which has been used with success in Army hospitals in combating tuberculosis and strep infections. Dr. Pimentel showed samples of several of these new materials, including a newly perfected absorbable cellulose that may be used in surgery and left within the body without ill effects.

In keeping with the Christmas season, an impromptu quartet of O. R. Zentner, Joseph J. Silva, Robert Reis and D. O. Germino gave forth with a bit of Christmas caroling, and Silva and Germino, with pianist Lola Alden, led the group singing.

December 24, 1946

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