The Ville Platte Rotary Club today (Tuesday) heard from LSU basketball great Rudy Macklin, who is in charge of the Governor’s Office on Physical Fitness. Macklin urged rotary club members to get involved in the fitness challenge between the City of Ville Platte and the City of Opelousas.

    Club members and citizens of Ville Platte are urged to login to Own Your Own Health at oyohla.com and sign up. The challenge is to become more physically fit by keeping track on how many steps you make a day. Participants can get a pedometer and win t shirts.

    Macklin said many of our health problems can be solved by fighting obesity through becoming more physically active and eating healthy.

    The challenge begins January 23 and will end April 23. The winning city will have bragging rights over the other losing city. Macklin said several other cities in the state are competing against other neighboring municipalities. The  speaker was the special guest of Rotarian Eric Gil.

    In other rotary news, Club President Peter Strawitz announced the local rotary club has grown by six additional members, three new and three returning members.

    The club has made donations to the following groups: new furniture for the Casa agency and welding supplies at the Coreil Campus of Louisiana Technical College.

   The Rotary Club is planning a major clean- up project with the Interact Club in the spring at the Heritage Garden Park across from Walmart and is planning a Choices program at parish schools.