Valentines swirled and danced last Saturday night as the Rotary Club of Wallowa County “Heartbeat Dinner and Dance” crowd enjoyed an evening of fund-raising for Project Heartbeat. The project hopes to place Automated External Defibrillators (AEDs) throughout the county – and Rotarians took a great leap forward in their goal when they added up the receipts of the dinner and dance. More than 90 folks purchased dinner and dance tickets to the luxury event held at Cloverleaf Hall and lined up to purchase tickets for the drawings.

“Our goal was $10,000 and we achieved that goal and more,” announced Rotary president Dick Burch at the end of the evening. In all the club had raised $14,500 with $2,000 coming from St.Luke’s Cardiology Department in Boise and another $1,200 donated by Inland Cardiology in Lewiston, Idaho. That amount purchases seven AEDs and gives Wallowa County the distinction of being the area with “the most AEDs per capita in the United States,” according to Burch.

Local individuals and businesses donated more than $11,000 in prizes for the event. The winner of the top prize, a vacation in Cabo San Lucas, was Troy Bergland of Joseph. Don Green won so many prizes that he turned back the jet-boat trip down the Snake and auctioned it off to raise another $425 for the cause. Don Swart led a vigorous bidding war for the prize.

Burch noted that Dr.Lowell Euhus brought in a huge portion of the donations by persistently working his contacts in cardiology departments in two states. “He’s my junk yard dog,” Burch joked.

The local Rotary Club has grown to include 70 members in 2008.