Parade Recap and Community Impact

Ken presented a recap of the Rotary Memorial Day Parade. The second annual parade changed routes from Blake Street to the traditional parade path, increasing participation dramatically. Floats grew from 27 to 85; participants rose from 50 to 700–800. Media coverage expanded from radio to include television, with plans to partner with Community Seven for televised broadcast next year. The event generated 215,085 impressions (nearly a quarter-million) and 50,580 clicks from the website. $4,000 was donated to four veteran suicide prevention nonprofits: Horses Spirit and Healing (now in Hunting, formerly Red Lodge), Suicide Prevention Coalition of Yellowstone County, VFW Post 6774, and Warrior Wishes (who provided most barricades and volunteers).

Girl Scouts of Montana and Wyoming - Presented by Briana Rickman

Briana Rickman is the Director of Public Relations and Development for Girl Scouts Montana and Wyoming, with over 12 years of service. The Girl Scouts' mission is to build girls of courage, confidence, and character who make the world a better place. The council is one of 111 councils in the U.S., serving Montana and Wyoming (245,000 sq. miles) across 12 regions. Girl Scouts serves 7,000+ girls and nearly 2,400 volunteers. The first Montana troop was founded in 1918, and the first Wyoming troop in 1923. 

The Girl Scout Leadership Experience is based on four pillars: 

1. STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math)

2. Outdoors

3. Entrepreneurship

4. Life Skills

Girl Scouts of Montana and Wyoming has a Mobile STEM Learning Center, which is a custom van launched in 2023 to deliver STEM education to remote areas. In its first summer, it visited 88 communities offering 216 programs. The club also has Robotics teams and offers summer camps at three resident camp properties in Red Lodge and Butte (MT), Casper (WY). The Club has several models of outreach. These include the Traditional Troops, Outreach Troops - Programs delivered within existing youth organizations, including Boys & Girls Clubs, YMCAs, Friendship House, Billings Parks & Rec, Care Academy, and Audubon, Girl Scout Squads, which is the new in-school model - Formed within school districts and has twice-monthly after-school meetings. Briana encouraged alumni to sign up on their website, and asked that the membership get involved by volunteering, donating, sponsoring, joining a committee, or just sharing skills with the troops.

Six graduating seniors from area high schools have been awarded $1,500 scholarships from the Rotary Club of Billings. The scholarship winners are:

Luke Monson of Billings Christian School

Brynn Sogaard of Billings Central

Carli Seymour of Lockwood

Maclain Olson of Billings Senior

Ava Greenwell of Billings Skyview

Kellen Edward of Billings West

All scholarship winners were nominated by their schools as the best of the best, and invited to be a part of the Rotary Outstanding Student Guest program. The scholarship winners were selected based on an application and essay about how they live Rotary's motto of Service Above Self.