10 years ago former Lawrence Central charter member Ed Samp had an idea. Samp and several other area residents began talking in November 2002 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.
A decade later the current members of the Lawrence Central Rotary celebrated our 10th anniversary. On March 13th, instead of our usual haunt at the Eldridge All American room, we descended upon Famous Dave’s banquet room and discussed the past and the future of our club. Members old and new brought their significant others and families for some time together to celebrate. Many thanks to Lynn O’Neal for putting together a slide show of memories and taking pictures.
Below pictures from the event and a scan of the program from the Rotary Charter Night held March 12, 2003. We’ve also posted our current President Bob Swan’s remarks to the attendees below. Thanks to everyone for coming!
10th Anniversary Dinner Remarks
Bob Swan, President of Lawrence Central Rotary
Wednesday, March 13, 2013
Today we are celebrating the 10th anniversary of the founding of Lawrence Central Rotary by twenty professionals, business owners and managers in 2003 seeking a more centrally located Rotary Club, and a smaller club than the other two that were meeting out on the western frontier at the Herford House. The beginnings of our club go back to the fall of 2002 when a core group of a dozen or more began meeting weekly, in Rotary fashion, moving from a pizza place in the Westridge Shopping Center to the Arts Center to the Holidome, not necessarily in that order, and finally to the Eldridge Hotel. Ed Samp remembers that the members thought it would be quite appropriate to make the first location of the first Rotary Club in Lawrence the meeting site of their new club. This original club, the 200-member Lawrence Rotary Club, sponsored
Lawrence Central Rotary’s application, and a charter for membership was approved in the spring of 2003. Glen Davis remembers that Carolyn DeSalvo’s father, Stan Teeter, a very prominent Rotarian from Topeka, attended the installation of the club’s new members as did a vice president of Rotary International.
Tonight we are expressing our gratitude to those who have gone before us and helped build this club, and who have been with Lawrence Central from the beginning, Glen Davis, Jane Huesemann, Lynn O’Neal, Kevin Kressig, and Becky Castro. Would our founding members with us tonight, Glen, Lynn and Becky, please stand to be recognized? I wish to express our deepest gratitude to Becky for her many years of service and present indispensable work as club secretary. Over the years other Rotarians have joined us from other clubs in other cities, such as John Wilkinson from Topeka, George Brenner from Tulsa, and Steve Kesler from Austin and they have provided invaluable leadership to our club. I would like particularly to thank Steve for his time and effort in helping make this evening such a positive reality.
I have been with Lawrence Central Rotary half of this decade, returning to Rotary after a forty year span from my year as a Rotary Foundation Fellow in Argentina in 1966. It has been a great honor to serve as president. During these past nine months I have remembered the words of Paul Harris, Rotary’s Founder, who once wrote, “But he who has once given himself to dreaming is not easily satisfied.” I have always been a dreamer and brought this quality to my service as our club’s president. Before taking office, often at the special training sessions given incoming presidents of Rotary, I visualized ways that I could help our club become larger, more dynamic, and more meaningful to our members. With inspiration and hard work from many members, we have done some very good things in this 10th year of our club’s life.
We made membership and retention our first priority and have taken our club from an at times shaky twenty in size to a solid thirty—well, twenty-nine, in the past year. With Kate Campbell’s leadership we given high priority to increasing our numbers, and therefore the impact of Rotary’s mission. And we have brought into our membership such an outstanding group of individuals. As the proud father of two daughters, I am very proud of the exceptional women whom our club has attracted. Would all of our members who have joined in the past year or so please stand and be recognized. We are so glad to have you with us.
We have also, with Scott Wagner’s leadership, developed a new member orientation program to get our recent recruits off to the best possible start, assigning mentors, getting new members involved in club activities, and tracking their club experience over the first essential months of membership.
With Glen Davis’ prodding, Shon Qualseth’s assistance, and Scott Wagner’s monitoring, we have written a fine new set of bylaws and gotten all aspects of club’s meetings and other activities consistent with our new guidelines.
With the help Becky Castro and several others, we have rewritten the Induction Ceremony and added panel discussions for new members that work really well in helping new and older members get to know each other better, enhancing the closeness and commitment within Lawrence Central Rotary.
In the international area, our club has become more involved, sponsoring or co-sponsoring three Shelter Boxes that are so urgently needed in all corners of the world. In this process, the club received its first District Simplified Grant under the leadership of Fred Atkinson and Carolyn DeSalvo. It is my sincere hope that this international work of our club, the heart and soul of Rotary International, will greatly increase in the future, for the world needs our dedicated involvement now more than ever. So we have had a very good year so far and together have made some real improvements that will serve Lawrence Central Rotary for years to come. We can celebrate this 10th anniversary with a lot of pride in our past and anticipation for our future “Service Above Self” in Rotary.
Tonight I would like to mention another important occasion worth remembering.
Thirteen years ago this month Scott Wagner began his work with the City of Lawrence, so we remember his 13 years today on the 13th. Congratulations, Scott.
Today something truly historic and hopeful happened in Rome. As a former Foundation Fellow to Argentina, I shared the excitement that a humble Jesuit
Archbishop of Buenos Aires, my home in 1966, was named the first Pope ever selected from the Western Hemisphere. Jorge Maria Bergoglio, now Pope Francis the First, with his unassuming commitment to those less fortunate and to peace and brotherhood among all nations and peoples, reminded me today of Rotary’s founder Paul Harris and all that he stood for and labored for all of his life. I couldn’t help but feel that Paul Harris, as 1.2 Million Rotarians worldwide, would be very pleased with this new Pope and this truly historic choice to lead 1.2 Billion Catholics worldwide with a sense of humility, concern for the poor, and deep commitment to peace.
My amazing wife Irina, who sends her greetings to you from Moscow this evening, told me to inject a little humor in tonight’s proceedings, since we have much to celebrate this day. So I will conclude with her prophetic YouTube video I received yesterday, appropriately sung and subtitled in Spanish, that I hope you enjoy as much as I did. For truly we Rotarians need to have more fun, particularly on our 10th anniversary!
A Toast to Lawrence Central Rotary, to her worthy past and dynamic future!
