Zoom Fellowship Meeting

American Shawn Johnson was a Zoom guest speaker.  Shawn, from Little Rock, Arkansas, was a Rotary scholar at St Andrews University in 2000-01.
Past-president George McIntosh had helped Shawn settle in at university and introduced him to Scottish life and culture.
Shawn said it wonderful to reconnect with old friends after so many years, and thanked the club for making his one year stay so memorable.
He came to St Andrews after college and then a two-year internship at the White House in Washington DC working for President Bill Clinton.
After returning to the US in 2001 he went to law school for three years becoming an attorney.
He joined a law firm for a couple of years before working for the Arkansas Attorney General as a civil lawyer. For the past seven years he has specialised in the field of consumer protection helping people who I have been scammed in phone calls and emails.
Now aged 44,  Shawn is bidding to become a state circuit judge and hopes to be elected in November.
Shawn, who became a Rotarian just a couple of years ago, also gave an insight into the history of racial strife in America highlighting events in Little Rock in 1957 where nine black students stood up to local white opposition to a 1955 law ending segregation in schools.
President John Fernie thanked Shawn for his presence at the online meeting.
Earlier, member James Yule said that he had recently presented £250 cheques to four foodbanks—East Neuk, Levenmouth, Cupar and St Andrews—part of the proceeds from his personal Couch-to-5K fund-raising event.