Atlanta Rotarian and portrait painter Ross Rossin paints Ronald Reagan - the portrait was auctioned at the conference for $10,000 - all proceeds went to polio.

Held in Sandestin, FL in April, Rotacon 2018 included more than 530 attendees - 385 Rotarians, 120 spouses and other guests, 23 GRSP students and several Rotary Youth Exchange students. Joe DeSantis and Jo and Dale Covington and Barbara represented the Rotary Club of Marietta.

DG Alec Smythe along with Alicia Michael, ROTACON’s Master of Ceremonies, led the four general sessions of the conference. The wonderfully innovative session on Saturday morning hosted by Art MacQueen, Rotary Coordinator for RI Zone 34, easily ranked as the most outstanding general session in recent years. The speakers were Georgia Tech Professor Pinar Keskinocak; Brigadier General (ret.) Stewart Rodeheaver, founder of Vizitech; and Aimee Copeland, director of the Amiee Copeland Foundation. Aimee is a psychotherapist, brilliantly recovered from a zip-line accident and flesh eating bacteria attack that left her with no hands, no leg and no foot on her other leg. The packed house was on its feet applauding the speakers and their respective presentations on breakthroughs in quantitative analyses for modeling the spread of infectious diseases, using computer-generated augmented and virtual reality technologies to eclipse traditional student and industrial educational courses, and creating dynamic opportunities for handicapped individuals to enjoy the outdoors and experience fuller, richer lives.

Dale worked with Fred and Julie Monacelli from the RC of North Atlanta as 3-person team in the conference’s Rise Against Hunger service event packing 30,000 meals for distribution in Mozambique. This hustling team was opening and filling an empty meal bag in ten-seconds flat. Among other highlights of ROTACON 2018 were the presentation by Shan Cooper, former General Manager of Lockheed Martin, Dave McCleary’s impassioned appeal for Rotary to end human trafficking and the projections of Ken Grabeau, RI Director from New Hampshire, about Rotary’s outreach 25 years from now. Casey Patrick from the Rotary Club of Vinings Cumberland (in red in the third photo) was awarded the “Follow Me” award as Assistant District Governor of the Year.