US Army Sergeant First Class Wade Mitcheltree will be our featured guest on April 5.

Mitcheltree grew up in Pennsylvania. He enlisted in the Army during high school and left for basic training two weeks after graduating. Wade spent several years at Ft. Bragg and Ft. Richardson before deploying overseas. He served three tours, one in Iraq and two in Afghanistan. His platoon worked with local police to ensure the security of their surrounding areas. On August 31, 2012 near Kandahar, Afghanistan, Wade was severely injured by an improvised explosive device (IED). He lost his right leg above the knee and his right arm below the elbow. He also suffered muscle and nerve damage in his lower left leg, a snapped pelvis, and ruptures to both ear drums.

A month later, Wade was flown to Brooke Army Medical Center with his wife, Katie. His two sons and family soon joined them. In January 2013, Wade was discharged and began rehabilitation at the Center for the Intrepid. His progress in rehabilitation has continued to improve and his outlook on life has been positive. In 2016, due to the severity of Wade's injuries, his left leg was amputated below the knee.

“My biggest desire now is to be there for my wife and children as much as possible,” Wade said, explaining, "I have missed so much.” The Gary Sinise Foundation was proud to welcome the Mitcheltrees into their specially adapted smart home on August 11, 2017.

Eric Lucescu will introduce Wade at this meeting.

The return of Dancing With the Local Stars to Clark County’s inventory of favorite fundraisers was a success last night at Windy Hills Winery.

Scot Brantley and Jeff Swanson would agree.

Brantley, project manager for Clark County Public Works earned the mirror ball trophy as Grand Champion of the event, raising nearly $3,000 for Rotary youth programs and community service projects. Swanson, Battle Ground city manager, was given the award for Best Dance at the event. Both dancers earned perfect scores of 40 from the judges.

The fundraiser brought in donations totaling nearly $13,000 from the Local Stars, who solicited donations over the two months that they also learned a dance and rehearsed for the event.

“This was our first major fundraiser, and we are so proud of the way it turned out,” said club President Susanne Holmberg. “Our first class of local stars was amazing, the professional dancers were fantastic, donors were generous, and the venue was beautiful.”

Local Stars included Brantley, Clark County Councilmember John Blom, WSU Vancouver Professor Dr. Dene Grigar, Legacy Salmon Creek Public & Community Relations Consultant Kelly Love, Sweet Spot Skirts Owner Stephanie Lynn, and Swanson.

First Dance LLC, owned by Vancouver’s Ralph Stevens, produced the event and provided dance instructors Aaron Siebol, Brett Graham, Galaxy Slight, Kristina Hendrickson, and Susan Vandervlugt. Stevens also instructed and emceed.

Celebrity judges were Holmberg, La Center Mayor Greg Thornton, Battle Ground Mayor Mike Dalesandro, and professional dance instructor Melinda Piekstra.

Love and Stevens kicked off the evening with a waltz to Phantom of the Opera; Lynn and Graham performed a foxtrot to New York New York; Brantley and Hendrickson spiced up the event with a salsa to Viva; Blom and Slight channeled the King of Pop with a cha cha to Pretty Young Thing; Grigar and Siebol brought the beach with a rumba to Kokomo; and Swanson and Vandervlugt brought down the house with a west coast swing to Jailhouse Rock.

The event, which was produced in Clark County for the first time since 2014 when The Historic Trust last conducted it, sold out two weeks early. Historic Trust CEO Mike True was one of the 130 people in the full house.

Frontier Landscaping was the title sponsor of the event. Other sponsors included Prestige Development, Paul Montague Tax Preparation, Ginn Realty Group, Waste Connections, Principal, American Family Insurance Tina Vlachos Agency, Impact Wealth Management, Northwest Personal Training, Specialty Graphics Solutions, Vesta Hospitality, The Historic Trust, Corwin Beverage, Riverhouse on the Deschutes & Wunderlust Tours, Best Western Agate Beach & The Bay House restaurant, Double Fifth Dragon Boating, Ethereal Meads, the Hydroplane & Raceboat Museum, and Windy Hills Winery.

Members (and prospective members) as well as some family members of the Rotary Club of Three Creeks spent a little over an hour Saturday, March 10 planting trees at Columbia Springs Environmental Education Center.

It was the club's service project for March, and it fulfilled Rotary International President Ian Riseley's wish that each club would plant one tree for each of its members during the current Rotary year.

Members Susanne Holmberg, Scot Brantley, Kristi Straight, Steve Pash, Kerrie Cloyd, and Kelley Campbell were in attendance, helped by Brantley's son Nolan, Campbell's daughter Caroline, Straight's husband Tommy and their children, and prospective members Charlie Hanson and Zack Goldfinch.

Paul Montague, Business Services Coordinator with the Greater Vancouver Chamber of Commerce will be speaking on the Chamber’s partnership with WorkSource in providing free recruitment and training services to Chamber members. When Chamber members need help finding candidates for open positions,WorkSource and the Chamber can help them refine their job postings, get them posted, screen candidates and (in some circumstances) provide on the job training for new workers, and incumbent worker training for existing workers.

This offsite meeting will be held at Vancouver Fire Station #7, located at 12603 NE 72nd Avenue in Vancouver.

After more than 22 year in the telecommunications industry, Paul began working at the Greater Vancouver Chamber of Commerce in April of 2005. Since then, he has served as Membership Development Director for the Greater Vancouver Chamber of Commerce, President and CEO of Identity Clark County, and Executive Director of the Battle Ground Chamber of Commerce, prior to returning to GVCC in October 2017.