Kirk A. Calhoun, M.D., President of The University of Texas Health Science Center at Tyler

Dr. Kirk Calhoun has been president of U. T. Health Science Center at Tyler since November 2002.  He is very active in the Northeast Texas area, including service on the Tyler Economic Development Board and the Tyler 21 Public Facilities and Services Working Group (for the future planning of Tyler).  U. T. System has utilized his services on the state Task Force on Medical Indigent Care, Task Force for Financial Exigency and he served on the selection committee to evaluate nominations for the Chancellor’s Entrepreneurship & Innovation Awards. He most recently served on the Presidential Search Committee for M.D. Anderson Cancer Center.   He serves on the Texas Hospital Association Board of Trustees, Teaching Hospitals of Texas Board of Trustees, and is Chair of the National Association of Public Hospitals Executive Committee.  Dr. Calhoun serves as co-chair of the Health Disparities, Education, Awareness Research and Training (HDEART) Consortium. Governor Rick Perry has re-appointed him as a member of the State Health Services Council and previously completed a two-year appointment on the Texas Emerging Technology Committee.

Dr. Calhoun, a native of Chicago, Illinois earned a bachelor’s degree in biology from the University of Illinois at Chicago Circle and an M.D. from the University of Kansas School of Medicine.  He served an internship and residency in internal medicine at Northwestern University and Medical Center in Evanston, Illinois, as well as a fellowship in clinical nephrology, hypertension, and metabolism at the University of Chicago.

Fellow Rotarian Henry Bell presented our program on November 13th.

Our own foundation presented its annual report.

Sue Gleason is our speaker for October 17th.
She is with the attorney general's office working in the child support
division.

With the current economic situation, lots of child support is going unpaid so
this should be a very interesting program.

Alex Volverding presented a great program to the South Tyler Rotary Club about his Freshman year in college.  Alex is the son of STR member Wes Volberding and gave a very spirited presentation about his adventurous life in China.

David is an award-winning songwriter and itinerant peace activist. A veteran of ten CDs and 2000 concerts on four continents, he suspended his eighteen-year music career at its peak in 2008 to accept a Rotary World Peace Fellowship to study International Relations, Peace and Conflict Resolution at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia. As part of that study, he also spent three months in rural Andhra Pradesh, India working with a Gandhian development organization.

For eighteen years David toured full-time as a singer/songwriter, spending nearly 200 days per year on the road. In that time, he developed a large and loyal following around the world. His music has been honored with numerous awards and grants as well as artist sponsorships from Taylor Guitars and John Pearse Strings.

According to the Boston Globe, his music“…pushes the envelope with challenging lyrics and unusual tunings, but he also pays homage to folk tradition.” The Washington Times says that David’s “…guitar-spanking open-tuning
grooves as well as gentle folk-tinged pop. His lyrics range from insightful image-driven stories to equally insightful humor.”