James "Louie" Filkins provided Rotary with an overview of the US Public Land Survey System and the role of the county surveyor.  Louie's first slide showed us Mount Rushmore, which he said most people see as four presidents. A surveyor sees “three surveyors and another guy”. George Washington and Abraham Lincoln both worked as surveyors. Thomas Jefferson’s father was a land surveyor, and Thomas Jefferson created the land survey system that is used in the US except in Texas and in the territory of the original 13 colonies. In 1803 Jefferson undertook buying the area around New Orleans and wound up with Louisiana and the middle of America North America all the way up to Canada (2400 times what he planned to buy). Being a surveyor back in that day was very lucrative because the surveyors were often paid in land and they knew where the best land was since they had just surveyed it.

Zonta International is a 104 year-old service organization whose purpose is building a better world for women and girls.  Zonta and Rotary have some overlapping goals and a shared vision of creating a better world.  Zonta’s goals are to 1) promote peace by ending gender-based violence, 2) help women and girls by ending child marriage, giving birthing kits and doing service projects, 3) support education by granting scholarships and expanding access to education, 4) fighting diseases like obstetric fistula, neonatal/maternal tetanus, and HIV/AIDS.