Story Published:
Jul 1, 2010 at 11:22 AM CST
Story Updated:
Jul 6, 2010 at 4:28 PM CST
Meeting on Wednesdays at the Leslie Town Center, this group of men and women gather to help out Cookeville and Putnam County with time, money, and service projects.
They, along with the other hundreds of Rotary Clubs around the world, do many service projects, one of the leading ones being to eradicate polio throughout the world.
This polio project is nearly completed as the Rotarians International finish up in the final few African outposts.
They also dig and install fresh water wells to needy tribes throughout the world.
The local Rotarians meet at the Leslie Towne Centre, and this past Wednesday's meeting was special as they changed officers.
New Officers
From left to right, we see:
Donna York, President-Elect
Tom Short, Service Projects Director
Pat Bagley, Membership Director
Vince Taylor, Immediate Past President
Glenn James, President
Bobby Garrison, Treasurer
Leisa Stanberry, Secretary
Susan Vandergriff, Public Relations Director
Phillip Baker, (not pictured) Vice President
Mike O’Mara, (not pictured) Foundation Director
Nicole Ziegler, (not pictured) Administration Director
More on Rotary:
Taken from the Cookeville Rotary Website: (For more info, click here.)
Our members, like other Rotarians all over the world, consist of local community, business, and professional leaders interested in providing humanitarian service in many different ways. Rotarians serve with the motto SERVICE ABOVE SELF.
Each year our members volunteer hundreds of hours and contribute tens thousands of dollars to improve Cookeville and PutnamCounty and to the benefit of several world wide service projects. Our service projects cover the whole spectrum of those benefiting a single individual to a large community.
We had our First Annual Cookeville Rotary Soccer Classic on April 10 and 11, 2010. The Soccer Classic brought over 2000 visitors to the Highlands. Additionally, children learned the value of teamwork by competing for the Tournament Trophy. We are already gearing up for our fall Soccer Classic!
Taken from the Rotary International Website. For more info, click here.
The world's first service club, the Rotary Club of Chicago, was formed on 23 February 1905 by Paul P. Harris, an attorney who wished to capture in a professional club the same friendly spirit he had felt in the small towns of his youth. The Rotary name derived from the early practice of rotating meetings among members' offices.
Rotary's popularity spread, and within a decade, clubs were chartered from San Francisco to New York to Winnipeg, Canada. By 1921, Rotary clubs had been formed on six continents. The organization adopted the Rotary International name a year later.
As Rotary grew, its mission expanded beyond serving club members’ professional and social interests. Rotarians began pooling their resources and contributing their talents to help serve communities in need. The organization's dedication to this ideal is best expressed in its motto: Service Above Self.
By 1925, Rotary had grown to 200 clubs with more than 20,000 members. The organization's distinguished reputation attracted presidents, prime ministers, and a host of other luminaries to its ranks — among them author Thomas Mann, diplomat Carlos P. Romulo, humanitarian Albert Schweitzer, and composer Jean Sibelius.
The Four-Way Test
In 1932, Rotarian Herbert J. Taylor created The Four-Way Test, a code of ethics adopted by Rotary 11 years later. The test, which has been translated into more than 100 languages, asks the following questions:
Of the things we think, say or do
- Is it the TRUTH?
- Is it FAIR to all concerned?
- Will it build GOODWILL and BETTER FRIENDSHIPS?
- Will it be BENEFICIAL to all concerned?
