At the February 15th meeting club member Lynn O'Neal had a copy of a story from February of 2003 announcing his intention to create a new Rotary Club in Lawrence. A link to the original story by Chad Lawhorn is here, but we've also re-posted it below.
Area business professionals interested in joining a Rotary club should have a third choice by May, according to the
leader of a group interested in starting a new Lawrence chapter of the international organization.
Ed Samp, president of Lawrence's CornerBank, is leading a group of area residents who hope to form the Lawrence Central Rotary Club.
It would be Lawrence's third chapter of Rotary International, which is a service organization comprised primarily of business owners, managers and professionals who meet weekly to support charitable causes.
Samp and several other area residents began talking in November about the idea of forming another chapter. They had heard of several people who were interested in joining a Rotary club but the meeting time, location or size of the existing two chapters wasn't appealing to them.
Both clubs meet each week at the Hereford House at Sixth Street and Wakarusa Drive. The Lawrence Rotary Club meets at noon Mondays. The Jayhawk Breakfast Rotary Club meets at 7 a.m. Thursdays.
"I had talked to several people who were a little reluctant to come all the way out to the west side of Lawrence for lunch," Samp said. "That's why we thought a club that met somewhere more centrally located might be popular, hence our name."
Samp said the group, which has grown to 17 people, meets at noon each Wednesday. The group hasn't selected a permanent meeting place, but it is considering the Lawrence Holidome, 200 McDonald Drive; the Eldridge Hotel, 701 Mass.; and the Lawrence Arts Center, 940 N.H., Samp said.
According to Rotary International rules, the new group needs at least 20 charter members before it can become an official chapter. Samp said he expected the group to get its 20th member within the next week, allowing it to file the formal paperwork this spring.
He said the chapter hoped to be officially chartered by Rotary International in May.
The presidents of Lawrence's two existing Rotary clubs said they didn't have any objections to the new chapter.
"Rotary is always interested in increasing its membership, so my thinking is the more the merrier," said Vickie Randel, president of the Lawrence Rotary Club. "We understand that a lot of why a person decides to join Rotary has to do with the when and the where of the meetings."
Ron Hurst, president of the Jayhawk Breakfast Rotary Club, said he also understood that some people were interested in belonging to a smaller club. The Jayhawk Club has about 90 members and the Lawrence Rotary Club has slightly more than 200 members.
"When we started our club about nine years ago, the thinking was that the original club had grown pretty large and it was difficult to get to know everyone," Hurst said.
Samp said the new group hadn't decided what membership fee to charge, but he said it likely would be $100 a year or less, in addition to a weekly meal fee of about $10.
Originally published at: http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2003/feb/04/cornerbank_leader_forming/
Colonel LaGrange is a retired army officer who commanded Fort Riley during 
Desert Storm. He served for 28 years including multiple tours in Viet Nam and Laos. He has a passion for helping children in difficult places. He has been in leper colonies, refugee camps, orphanages and children’s hospitals around the world. He firmly believes that education is an essential ingredient in bringing about the stability and order that we seek. He firmly believes that helping children learn properly and gaining their trust helps the society that they are part of mature and move toward order.
He has formed “Help us Learn . . . Give us Hope” whos mission provides school supplies to Big Red One (Fort Riley) soldiers for children in conflict areas of Afganistan and Iraq.
- Based on a successful effort in Viet Nam 40 years ago, the corporation has multiple objectives:
- Supports Iraqi and Afghan school aged children by providing basic school supplies and sponsorship. Their education is the greatest hope for their future and the stability we seek.
- Enables soldiers to win hearts and minds by focusing on children. Good will builds through direct distribution and relationship building.
- Directly engages US citizens in the process of assisting children and our soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. You can make a difference while helping our country achieve its objectives in Iraq and Afghanistan.
- Builds on a similar Viet Nam experience. Focusing on children has a profound effect.
Endorsed by the Governor of Kansas, all 50 National Guard armories state wide have been opened as collection points and a statewide marketing campaign is underway.
The vision is to provide each child with a back pack filled with basic supplies and to provide the teachers of the schools with sufficient basic stock to sustain them for a period. The items included are: Back packs or book bags, pencils, sharpeners, erasers and pens, paper ( notebooks, reams of paper, writing pads), crayons, coloring books, construction paper, scissors, rulers, calculators, chalk and blackboard erasers, tape, staplers, small toys that fit in a back pack (beanie babies, stuffed animals, cars, Frisbees, jump ropes, chess, checkers, soccer balls), tooth brushes and tooth paste.
For more information or to contribute to “Help us Learn . . . Give us Hope” visit their website at: http://www.helpuslearngiveushope.org/
Lawrence Central Rotary has our 2012 kick-off meeting at the Eldridge Hotel Wednesday
1/4 and we discussed all the exciting events we are working on for 2012. Just a few of them include:
- Expanding the RideLawrence.com
- The Lawrence Community Bike Ride scheduled for this summer
- A new bike rack design competition and installation for VanGo's facility
- Our Shelterbox fundraising drive
It's exciting to help people both locally and globally and we'd like you to be a part of it!
We meet Wednesday's at noon at the Eldridge hotel in downtown Lawrence.
For more info on our club Download our two page brochure, just click on the picture in the right margin.
You can also go to our "Reasons to Join Rotary" Page.
The Journal World's Chad Lawhorn spoke to LCR Nov 30th and talked about being a
reporter in Lawrence since 1992 and the changes he's seen discussing everything from the South Lawrence Trafficway (one of his first stories) to the happenings at City Hall.
Chad says from his bio, "I mainly cover city government and neighborhoods, but I've also previously served as business editor for the Journal World, and have undertaken a variety of first-person journalism projects. In parts of 2007 and 2008, I received some national publicity for a series of articles detailing how I purchased a handgun, received a concealed carry license from the state, and carried the weapon around for a few days." Chad also writes the popular Town Talk on the LJworld.com's website.
provides safe-shelter, peer counseling, advocacy and other services to survivors of domestic violence in Douglas, Franklin, and Jefferson counties. 
