Allene Arthur • Special to The Desert Sun • May 11, 2009 The subject of my talk was “Confessions of a Columnist.” The place
was Rancho Las Palmas Country Club. The occasion was the weekly breakfast meeting of Rotary Club of Rancho Mirage. Rotary, a nonprofit service organization, is like the engine of a utility vehicle among flashy cars. While other charities may have more flash, it’s an efficient, quiet engine that makes things go. Rancho Mirage Rotary funds literacy and educational projects, helps eradicate polio, supports programs to help at-risk kids and develops projects to address poverty, the environment and violence. Rotarians do serious work and have fun getting things done. Digging into their scrambled eggs, bacon and muffins were Joe Manhart, owner of Advanced Hearing Systems Tom Head, McCallum Theatre executive and Dave Parsons, who is retired from law enforcement. I began by giving my credentials: writing 2,200 columns for The Desert Sun over the last 30 years under a succession of six publishers and seven executive editors and previously writing 600 columns for the La Jolla newspaper under a succession of three publishers and three executive editors.
The title of that column was “Rambling About With Allene Stout.” Wasn’t that cute