

Today we had the pleasure of installing Dr. Roz Dorlen into the position of President, Summit/New Providence Rotary. Roz will be the 97th Rotarian to hold this position since the Club’s founding in October 1922. Outgoing President, Rev. Don Steele, digitally passed the gavel to Roz during a Zoom meeting also attended by District Governor Ray Freaney and District Governor elect, Ann Walko as well as many members of the SNP Club.
Kudos to Don for a successful year and for maintaining the Club’s continuity by championing and supporting Club Secretary Joe Steiner’s efforts to move to a digital format.
We thank Don for his year of service in this most unusual of times and offer Roz our support and best wishes as she moves the Club into another year of uncharted waters.
Roz Dorlen
Today, the Summit/New Providence Rotary Club proudly celebrated its 95th consecutive year of awarding college/university scholarships to outstanding high school students from New Providence and Summit. This was also a first for the SNP Rotary as the presentation of the awards was made in a digital meeting using Zoom.
SNP President Don Steele introduced Mike Katz, co-chair with Jay Leatherbee, of the Scholarship Committee which selected the recipients. Mike then had the honor of introducing the superintendent of the New Providence Public Schools and a fellow Rotarian, Dr. David Miceli, who introduced the principal of the NPHS, Lauren Zirpoli. Ms. Zirpoli then introduced our first recipient, William Leo Mormile, who was awarded the Chan and Jane Coddington memorial scholarship. Leo will attend the College of New Jersey, where he will study music education.
Mike then introduced Robert Gardella, acting superintendent of the Summit Public Schools, who in turn introduced Stacy Grimaldi, principal of the Summit High School. Ms. Grimaldi introduced the recipients of scholarships from SHS. Isaiah Shakir was awarded the Wilbur Nelson memorial scholarship. Isaiah will attend Seton Hall in the fall and plans to major in chemistry. Michael Bermudez was awarded the Bud Smith memorial scholarship. Michael, who emigrated from Colombia at age eleven, will attend Rutgers in the fall to study biochemistry and hopes to pursue a career in medical research. Julissa Lopez was our next recipient. Julissa will attend Monmouth University, where she plans to study healthcare/kinesiology. Andy Toxtle was our final recipient. Andy will attend Rutgers Mason Gross School of the Arts, where he plans to study art and graphic design.
The SNP Rotary has been awarding grants to deserving young scholars from our local schools since 1926. The awards are based on four criteria: academics, extra-curricular activities, community involvement and financial need. We have never missed a year, not during the great depression or World War II, and had no intention of being impacted by a global pandemic in 2020.
We present the named scholarships to honor past Rotarians who have exhibited outstanding public service to the community. This year’s scholarships honored Wilbur Nelson, Watson “Bud” Smith, and Chandler Coddington. Wilbur, Bud, and Chan all served the community in multiple ways – through volunteering with many, many non-profit services, holding elected office, and through numerous generous donations. Each one of these Rotarians has exemplified Rotary’s primary tenet: Service Above Self. Members of the Smith, Nelson and Coddington families were present to observe today’s awards ceremony.
The Rotary would like to thank Mike Katz, Jay Leatherbee, Roger Mehner, Peter Bolton and Beth McKenna for serving on the scholarship committee and undertaking the considerable work required to vet all the applicants and make the final selection of the recipients.
And lastly, all the Rotarians want to wish our 2020 scholarship recipients our congratulations for earning these grants and for long and productive careers in their chosen fields and hope that they will always keep in mind Rotary’s basic tenet – Service Above Self.
Chandler (Chan) passed away on 16 November.
In addition to being an active Rotarian for many decades, Chan was a true pillar of our community. Among the many, many civic projects and organizations he actively supported were the Summit YMCA, the Overlook Foundation, the Chamber of Commerce, the United Way, the Morris Union Jointure Commission, the Autism Educational Foundation and the Reeves Reed Arboretum. Chan was always generous with both his time and his financial support. In addition to his community support activities, Chan had a successful 50 year career in the insurance industry as well as several lucrative venture capital endeavors.
A celebration of life will be held on Saturday, Jan. 18, 2020, at Marco Polo Restaurant, 527 Morris Ave., Summit, from 1 to 4 p.m. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the Rotary Club of Summit-New Providence, Scholarship Fund, 34 Ridgedale Ave., Summit, N.J. 07901 (or the non-profit of your choice).
Today, about twenty SNP Rotarians affixed 530 labels to as many dictionaries which were then distributed to all the third grade students in both the Summit and New Providence public schools.
The New Providence schools received 200 books and the Summit schools, 330.
The rotary has been supporting the Dictionary Project for over twenty years. The dictionaries are specifically designed to be used by students in the age range of 8 to tens years old. The teachers love the project. The dictionaries are a great teaching tool because in addition to the traditional word definitions, there are maps, statistics, many lists such as Presidents of the US and other items designed to appeal to third graders.
A special thank you to Lauren Nisenson and Jay Leatherbee who assisted in transporting to the Hotel for labeling and then distribution to the schools.
Today was scholarship Monday, and for the 94th consecutive year, the Summit/New Providence Rotary Club presented scholarships to six outstanding students from Summit High School and New Providence High School.
This year’s scholarship committee was headed by John Leatherbee. Committee members included Mike Katz, Roger Mehner, Swati Goorha and Peter Bolton. The committee reviewed thirty-eight applications from the two schools and culled the list down to the final six recipients. In addition to the three thousand-dollar scholarships, two special one thousand-dollar awards were added in honor of two Rotarians who recently passed away and were stalwarts of the Club: Watson “Bud” Smith and Wilbur Nelson. Bud was a 1949 graduate of Summit High, ran a successful electrical contracting business and among his many civic activities, served as president of Summit City Council. Wilbur was a US Navy veteran participating in the D-Day landings in Normandy as well as other theatres in WWII. He returned from the war to become a teacher in Summit and eventually principal of the Brayton Elementary school for the final thirty years of his teaching career. Both men were past Rotary Presidents, Paul Harris Fellows and recipients of numerous awards and recognitions from their community for public service – they typified the core value of Rotary: Service Above Self.
June Chang, Superintendent of the Summit Public Schools and Stacy Grimaldi, Principal of SHS, presented the scholarships to the four Summit HS students: Shah Faizan Alam, attending NJ Institute of Technology, LaShanti Starr Brown-Womack, attending William Patterson Univ., Evan White, attending the College of New Jersey. Sarah Flaherty received the Wilbur Nelson scholarship and will attend Fordham University.
David Miceli, Superintendent of the NP Public Schools and Lauren Zirpoli, Principal of NPHS, presented the scholarships to the two NPHS recipients: Justin Mathew Sullivan will attend Richmond University, and Julie Gertie received the Bud Smith scholarship and will attend Boston University.
A heartfelt congratulation to our scholars and to the scholarship committee that spent countless hours in the selection process.
Mr. Chang, Ms Grimaldi, Mr. Alam, Mr. White, Ms Flaherty, Ms Gertie, Mr. Sullivan, Ms Brown-Womack, Ms Zirpoli, Dr. Miceli
Today we celebrated our 93rd consecutive ‘Scholarship Monday’.
In attendance were our six recipients as well as several proud parents. Also present were Summit School Superintendent, June Chang, New Providence School Superintendent Dave Miceli, Summit HS Principal, Stacy Grimaldi and NPHS Assistant Principal, Brian Henry.
This year’s recipients are Michelle Leung, NPHS, attending RPI, Anthony Cusumano, SHS, attending Lehigh, Hamail Iqbal, SHS and recipient of the Wilber Nelson scholarship, attending Rutgers, Tatyana Lewis, SHS, attending West Virginia U., Steve Molina, SHS and recipient of the Bud Smith scholarship, attending Princeton, and Keyshawn Reese, SHS, attending Montclair State.
These awards are based on academic achievement, community service as well as financial need. The Rotary is proud to recognize the outstanding qualities each of this year’s recipients have demonstrated over the past four years and we wish you well as you move on to the next phase of your education – congrats!
From left to right: SNP Rotary President, Melanie Cohn, Keyshawn Reese, Anthony Cusumano, Tatyana Lewis, Michelle Leung, Hamail Iqbal & Steve Molina
This evening, Susan Haig passed her Presidential Baton to the incoming President, Melonie Franklin Cohn.
Susan took a few moments to review her year which included several significant accomplishments: a new, successful fund-raiser, the Vocal Showcase, a very successful Citizen of the Year awards banquet, where SNP Rotary honored the 17 librarians from our two towns, our first off-site evening meeting, and a profitable “Dollars for Scholars” 50/50 raffle. In addition, we added eight new members. Susan noted how she had partnered with Melanie from the start of her year, guaranteeing continuity when Melanie assumed the Presidency.
Susan then presented past President, Reagan Burkholder, with his Paul Harris award and he presented Susan with her “Past President’s” pin.
Finally, Melanie briefly spoke and pledged to build on the work she and Susan undertook, and told the Rotarians she would work with the following year’s president, Ellen Dickson, to a assure continuity of purpose and programs.
There were about twenty five Rotarians and guests, and as in the past, there was plenty of good fellowship accompanied by good food and drink. If you don’t attend these events, you’re missing one of our nicer gatherings.
Susan presents past President Reagan with a Paul Harris Award
Susan passes the "Presidential Baton" to Melanie
On Thursday evening, 2 March 2017, the SNP Rotary honored the librarians of Summit and New Providence as our Citizens of the Year. In all, seventeen librarians attended representing the New Providence Memorial Library, the NP Elementary Schools, NP Middle School and NP High School, and the Summit Free Public Library, the Summit Elementary Schools, the Summit Middle School and the Summit High School. In addition to the honorees, approximately eighty Rotarians and guests were in attendance.
We honor these accomplished individuals whose work insures that all of our citizens, young and old, have access to the information they need to enjoy the process of discovery and learning and to build skills in a vast array of subjects from the arts and sciences to business and technology, medicine and wellbeing, and government and civics.
There was a short program which included statements from the program Chair, Melanie Cohn, Rotary President, Susan Haig, and Scholarship Chair, Ellen Dickson. This was followed by brief comments from representatives of each of the several library systems. The librarians gave a very short description of the many, many activities and services offered by their respective facilities which are an extensive selection raging from story time for toddlers to film series for seniors, weekly concerts, a 3-D lab, extensive reference materials, CDs, music, audio book selections, magazines, periodicals, and excellent physical spaces which include large and small meeting rooms.
Our public and school libraries are core treasures of Summit and New Providence and Rotary is proud to honor the people who run them with efficiency and allow us unfettered access to the information we need on an ongoing basis.
And finally, this event is also the primary annual sponsorship for our Scholarship Fund. Through the enormous efforts of our program chair, Melanie Cohn and Rotary President, Susan Haig, and a dozen other Rotarians, we raised a little over $8,000. Thank you to all the generous donors who helped make this a wonderful celebration and a successful raise for another year of scholarships.
Our Citizens of the Year:
Cindy Abramov, Washington School, Summit
Ann-Marie Aymer, Summit Free Public Library
Abigail Brady, Summit Free Public Library
Colleen Byrne, Director, New Providence Memorial Library
Brandee Conover, Roberts Elementary School, New Providence
Michelle Demich, New Providence Memorial Library
Karen Doherty, Jefferson School, Summit
Lisa Florio, New Providence Memorial Library
Megan Hartley, Lawton C. Johnson Summit Middle School
Courtney Kaczynski, Brayton School, Summit
Paula McGraw, New Providence High School
Amelia Nagle, New Providence Middle School
Susan Permahos, Director, Summit Free Public Library
Judy Shue, Summit High School
Loreli Stochaj, Franklin School, Summit
Carole Stubeck, Lincoln-Hubbard School, Summit
Kerry Sullivan, New Providence Memorial Library
Beth Thomas, Lawton C. Johnson Summit Middle School
Rebecca Zarabi, Summit High School
On Monday, 13 June, the SNP Rotary awarded $21,000 in scholarships to seven deserving seniors from three of the area’s high schools. The awards ceremony was held at the Grand Summit Hotel and was attended by about fifty Rotarians, the scholarship recipients and members of their families. Rotary President, Reagan Burkholder and Scholarship Committee Chair, Ellen Dickson, emceed the program. In addition to awarding the scholarships, we also held the drawing for our annual Dollars for Scholars 50/50 Raffle which awarded three prizes. The Raffle garnered slightly over $10,000, with half the proceeds going to the three winners and the other half, into our scholarship fund. The Rotary congratulates all our scholarship recipients as well as the winners of our raffle. Our scholarship program began in 1926 and is now in its 91st consecutive year. We remain proud to invest in the futures of our local seniors as they pursue their undergraduate degrees.
Pictured below are five of the seven scholarship recipients:
From left to right: Reagan Burkholder, Rotary President, Samantha Hanley, SHS, winner of the Bud Smith Award, U of Indiana; Lorik Berisha, NPHS, Rutgers; John Berardi, SHS, College of New Jersey; Ife Campbell, SHS, U of New Haven; Juliana Nociara, SHS, winner of the Walter Eddy Award, NYU; Ellen Dickson, Scholarship Committee Chair. Not pictured are Aila Poticano, SHS, Rutgers and Cindy Weng, Union County Magnet School, NYU.
Click on the “read more” button to the lower left of this screen to view more pictures of the event.
Dave Miceli, Superintendant of New Providence Schools addresses the audience.
June Chang, Superintendant of the Summit Schools, addresses the audience
President Burkholder opens the Awards Ceremony
Today’s speaker, Rabbi Hannah Orden talked about her passage towards becoming a rabbi, as someone raised in a secular household, being a female, and ultimately choosing this path as a second career after being a teacher, actor and writer. She spoke of being a life-long “seeker” who felt the need to reconnect with her Jewish heritage after experiencing a traumatic event involving the tragic death of a seven year old student in the school where she was teaching and having to deal with the inevitable explanations required of her by her students and even other faculty members. Many years after this incident, she eventually had the opportunity to undertake the rigorous five year course of training needed to become a rabbi and was ordained in 2010. In 2014, she accepted her current position and described her desire to “. . . build communities where people can make connections with each other, with Torah, and with the divine spark in each of us and in the world.” The Rabbi offered an interesting portrayal of her journey to Summit, and Rotary welcomes Rabbi Orden to the community.
Today’s speaker was Julia Phelps, Director, Rotary International, representing North America, Russia, France (by a fluke of island geography) and Bermuda.
Julia began her career in education in 1976, and is currently the associate commissioner for the Center for Curriculum and Instruction for the state of Massachusetts. She served on the board of the Amesbury Educational Foundation, Inc. and the John Ashford Link House Inc.
A Rotarian since 1997, Phelps has served Rotary as Rotary Foundation alumni coordinator and district governor. She is a Major Donor, Benefactor, multiple Paul Harris Fellow, and a member of the Bequest Society, and a recipient of The Rotary Foundation's Citation for Meritorious Service.
Julia related several anecdotes from her global travels for Rotary including how local villagers in the Philippines look for creative ways to expand membership and how Rotarians in Pottsville, Pennsylvania created a “human school bus” to walk children to the local schools, safely, after the community could no longer afford to provide busing service – as always, SERVICE ABOVE SELF.
Of special note, this weekly Rotary meeting was one of the largest ever held in Union County. We had 105 guest Rotarians from 15 clubs in addition to the SNP Rotarians, roughly 130, in all.
Many thanks to the volunteers who made this event go off without a hitch.
Jim Kellogg passed away on New Year’s Eve – surrounded by his family. He was a long time (twenty years) and valued member of the SNP Rotary. In addition to being involved in many community and charitable endeavors, some of the more noteworthy being President of the Community Foundation of New Jersey and President of the J.C. Kellogg Foundation, he was from time to time a special benefactor to our Club (always surreptitiously – but one impact which must be noted was his generous establishment of our 501c3 fund within the CFNJ, seeded with a $5000 grant) . Jim had a deep and abiding interest in community and local politics and generously shared his knowledge and often gave insightful and illuminating presentations on the political goings on in Union County and New Jersey.
Jim was a graduate of Pingry, Princeton and Harvard Law and a partner in the NYC law firm of Townley & Updike. He also served on many, many non-profit boards.
A memorial service will be held on Friday, Jan. 8, at 12 noon, at Short Hills Community Congregational Church, 200 Hartshorn Dr., with a lunch to follow at the Short Hills Club at 144 Highland Ave.
We offer our condolences to Jim’s wife, Gail, and his three children, Jimmy, Kate and Elizabeth, and brothers Peter, Kelly and Rusty.
The SNP Rotary will miss our friend, Jim.
During November, the majority of our speakers were Rotarians. This week, Vito Gallo, retired head of the Summit Housing Authority as well as Paul Harris Fellow and past SNP Rotary President, discussed the major program Summit undertook in the seventies and eighties to redevelop a substantial swath of land near the center of town which transformed the City’s footprint and resulted in, essentially, a slum clearance project that replaced dilapidated dwellings (both commercial and residential) with modern housing which maintained the social fabric of the residents displaced and allowed for substantial development of new businesses as well as a major senior housing facility, one of the largest and most successful in the State. Vito presented a fascinating history of both Summit’s last century and its municipal evolution, and his large part in it. Thank you, Vito, for being a good steward of your City.
Today we had presentations by the two candidates running for Mayor of Summit.
Mayor Ellen Dickson, the Republican candidate and running for a second term, led off by presenting her platform and reviewing her past tenure. The Mayor then fielded questions.
Nora Radest, the Democratic candidate, then presented her platform and also fielded questions.
Both candidates bring impressive credentials to the contest and the Rotarians appreciate the presentations.
Monday’s speaker was Dr. Yaron Moshel, M.D., PhD., with Atlantic Health.
Dr. Moshel made a fascinating presentation on the current state of neurological surgery. He showed how the tremendous advances in tomography through MRIs, ultrasound, etc., have allowed surgeons to operate with accuracy unimaginable twenty years ago. Tumors in the brain, inoperable as recent as a decade ago can now be treated. In addition, the heightened accuracy makes these procedures much safer with considerably less likelihood of collateral damage to surrounding brain tissue.
He also described how some surgeries are conducted “awake” allowing the surgeon to better assess procedures while operating. New techniques were also described such as doing deep brain surgery by entering the brain through the nasal cavity, thereby having greater access with considerably less intrusive damage to the skull.
Finally, Dr. Moshel discussed cutting edge techniques such as radio surgery (the Cyber-Knife) and advances in chemotherapy which involve harnessing the body’s immune system (immunotherapy) to combat some tumors.
Dr. Moshel then took questions – there were many. All in all, a most interesting and informative presentation, and much appreciated by the Rotarians.
On Thursday, 25 June 2015, Reagan Burkholder was installed as the new President of the Summit/New Providence Rotary.
In the annual ceremony, retiring President, Jim Fleischmann, presented his predecessesor, Christy Hodde, a Paul Harris Award in honor of her excellent service as President for the fiscal year, 2013/14. Reagan then presented Jim with the traditional Past Presidents lapel pin.
In a short presentation, Reagan pledged to build on the work started by Hodde and Fleischmann, noting that the Club had regained momentum with increasing membership and community based service projects.
There was good food, good wine and lots of good fellowship amongst the Rotarians - an enjoyable evening for all those who attended.
Past Presedent Christy Hodde receives Paul Harris Award
Outgoing President Jim Fleischmann receives "Past President's Pin"
Today, Monday, 15 June 2015, the Summit/New Providence Rotary awarded its 90th consecutive series of scholarships to local high school scholars. This year we selected six outstanding students from Summit High School, New Providence High School and the Union County Magnet School for Math and Science.
In addition to the Rotarians, which included Superintendent of the Summit Public Schools, June Chang, Superintendent of the New Providence Public Schools, Dr. David Miceli and Mayor Ellen Dickson, the attendees included Paul Sears, principal of SHS, John Richter, Assistant Principal of NPHS, many parents, and one prior scholarship recipient, Claudia Kosiecki (2013), brother of Zachary, a 2015 recipient.
To see all of the recipients of our scholarships, going back to 1926, click on "Our Scholarships", under "Club Links", on the left column of this page.
In the front row, from the left, Claudia Hanley, SHS - Stanford University and next to Claudia, Ruth Kim, SHS - Drew University.
In the back row, from the left, Alan Payne, NPHS - University of Virginia; Zachary Kosiecki, NPHS - Rutgers University; John Stombous - Union County Magnet School - University of California @ Berkeley and Jared Chang, SHS - Cornell. Jared Chang was awarded the Bud Smith Memorial scholarship and Claudia Hanley was awarded the Walter Eddy Memorial scholarship.
Our speaker today was Chris Cotter, City Administrator for Summit, NJ.
Chris will be retiring next month after 39 years of service beginning at the Fire Department in 1976, where he started as an eighteen year old in the dispatch office and eventually rising to the rank of Chief of the Force. After an interim position in public works, Chris assumed the position of City Administrator in 2005. He reviewed his tenure with the City of Summit and touched on the many changes he has seen in his four decades of service covering such topics as advances in the efficiencies of the Fire and Police Departments to the most recent innovation of shared dispatch between Summit, Milburn and New Providence for emergency services. He also discussed the numerous people who influenced his career over the years and his great appreciation to many of the City’s leaders (several of whom were in the audience), both elected officials as well as administrative.
The Rotary wants to thank Chris for his many years of outstanding service to the community and offer our best wishes in his future undertakings.
Summit, NJ 07901
United States of America