Meghan Adamski has been with A Touch of Understanding since May 2015. She graduated from California State University, Sacramento with a BS in Speech Pathology. She has always been around individuals with disabilities.
Back in 2008, a friend of Meghan's was doing her internship with ATOU, and asked for extra help to serve at a fundraising dinner. When she realized that Meghan wanted to educate others about disabilities, the name A Touch of Understanding rang in her head, and after some quick research, she realized their mission was directly in line with hers. She reached out to ATOU and found it was a perfect match. She brings passion and enthusiasm as well as extensive experience in working with individuals with disabilities into her role as Executive Director at ATOU. When she is not with my ATOU family, I love spending my time with my husband Michael, our son Benjamin, and our 4-legged child, Tana.
Our special guests at our last meeting were four senior girls from the undefeated, 25-0, Ponderosa High School Girl's Flag Football team. This accomplishment was especially amazing since it was the first year of the flag-football program at Pondo, and the last time there was an undefeated varsity team at Ponderosa was the football team in the early 1980's. The main speaker for the day was head coach Tyler Escobar (right). Other coaches in attendance were Steve Montoya (Offensive coordinator), Duane Brekke (Defense), and Jim O'Rourke (Assistant Coach). Tyler was already a successful coach at Ponderosa in Wrestling and Softball. He was familiar with many of these girl athletes from their softball team, and had a feeling that they could make a good flag football team.
The team finished ranked #3 in the state of California and #7 in the nation according to MaxPreps rankings.
From the left, the athletes are:
- Izzy Hampton-Teiber who plans to go on to the U. of Tennessee, Knoxville to major in biology; She had 12 touchdown receptions during the season.
- Brooklynn Nordquist was the QB and was MVP of the Sac-Joaquin Section tournament finals. She threw 6 touchdown passes in that final. She is going into Criminal Justice at Sierra College and will be playing softball there;
- Molly McFarland will be going to Cal Poly Humboldt and will play softball there. She caught 4 touchdown passes in the final.
- Maddy Breeden is a cornerback who seems nice but is known as "Mad Dog" on the field. She was 2nd on the team in tackles (flag-pulls) per game.
Coach Escobar emphasized that they want the game to be fun for the girls, emphasizing teamwork and sportsmanship, but that his tradition in all sports in to "set the bar high," and his teams always strive hard for to attain those high goals. The back of the sweatshirt, below left, shows more detail on this outstanding season.
These four seniors were all that were on the team, complemented by many juniors and sophomores, so the future looks bright for girls flag football at Pondo!
Cathy Dugan: 1) I urge each member to take 4-5 Rotary Club brochures to hand out to guests or potential new members.
2) The CPCC is making an effort to get us back to meet there. Think about whether and when you might want to do that.
3) On February 20th, we won't have a caterer available, so we will have a "Potluck Parley" cook-off. There will be voting on what is the best dish brought by a member.
Gary Clarke: 1) Two weeks from now, is Jan-30, the 5th Thursday of the month. We will be having a social at Boring Rose Brewery in EDH Town Center. Please join us any time between 5 and 7 pm.
2) I visited Doug Bisbee yesterday. He is in hospice and would like visitors. Please coordinate with Dottie Bisbee, whose contact info is in ClubRunner.
Steve Logan: On January 28, we will do the monthly haul of bikes from the dump to the prison.
Don Fuller: Please think about whether you would like to participate on March 13 or 20 on being a mentor at the Leadership and Ethics Forum involving Ponderosa and Oak RIdge High School students.
Guests:
Ponderosa High School Girls Flag Football: 4 coaches and 4 players (named in story above).
Happy (or Not) Bucks
Bill Hughes: (remotely) $62 Happy for 62 years of marriage with Cathe Hughes
Marlyn Pino-Jones: $20 happy to attend her step-son-in-law's retirement ceremony as a Captain in the Coast Guard in Washington D.C.
Adam Marshall: $50 Happy that his son's Boy Scouts troop raised over $11K by picking up Christmas Trees
Tom Elken: $20 happy to have the Ponderosa coaches and athletes from the Girls Flag Football team here today.
Dave Sargent: $20 happy to have the Ponderosa coaches and athletes from the Girls Flag Football team here today.
Don Fuller: $20 Happy if one of the coaches would tell a Dave Sargent story today (and Coach Escobar did this)
Cathy Dugan: $12 Happy to have 12 healthy puppies from one litter.
Birthdays in January
JoEllen Brooks
Anne Eckert
Bill Ettlich
Denise Leach
-----Spouses-----
Linda Grieco
Kathe Hughes
Anniversaries in January
Bill and Kathe Hughes
Upcoming Words of Wisdom/Greeter/Front Desk Assignments
Meghan Adamski has been with A Touch of Understanding since May 2015. She graduated from California State University, Sacramento with a BS in Speech Pathology. She has always been around individuals with disabilities. 
Our special guests at our last meeting were four senior girls from the undefeated, 25-0, Ponderosa High School Girl's Flag Football team. This accomplishment was especially amazing since it was the first year of the flag-football program at Pondo, and the last time there was an undefeated varsity team at Ponderosa was the football team in the early 1980's. The main speaker for the day was head coach Tyler Escobar (right). Other coaches in attendance were Steve Montoya (Offensive coordinator), Duane Brekke (Defense), and Jim O'Rourke (Assistant Coach). Tyler was already a successful coach at Ponderosa in Wrestling and Softball. He was familiar with many of these girl athletes from their softball team, and had a feeling that they could make a good flag football team.
These four seniors were all that were on the team, complemented by many juniors and sophomores, so the future looks bright for girls flag football at Pondo!.png)
