History: a study of the club archives

“The 1990s: as remembered by Wilbur Tichenor ”

In the early ‘90s we began using the Rotary Prayer printed in the bulletin each week. We used that prayer today. Do you remember who wrote that prayer? Yes, it was Bill McLemore, then rector of Auburn’s Holy Trinity Episcopal Church, and a member of this club.

We had several very interesting service and money-raising projects:

Adopt-a-Mile. This was a project where a group or organization picked up trash on both sides of an assigned Auburn street. The mile assigned to our club was on North College Street—from Mitchum Avenue, just north of the railroad tracks to Laurel Drive, just beyond Shelton Road and North Cary Drive. Teams of two persons picked up trash every two weeks, except during football season when we picked up every week. We found many interesting and surprising things!!

How many of you remember Santa’s Cannery at the Village Mall, which had its genesis in 1993? We canned small Christmas gifts for a charge. And I mean we sealed those cans!

How many helped ring the Salvation Army Christmas kettle bells at the Village Mall? Lots of fun!

Many of you remember, and some of you would like to forget, selling Vidalia onions. The project began in 1992 and lasted several years. Peter Harzem even gave a program on the “History of the Onion.”

Regardless of what you thought of those projects, they provided money for our community needs and, maybe, even as important, provided great opportunities for fellowship!

A couple of other things of interest about the ‘90s:

Our club provided two district governors during this decade; they were Jim Duncan and H. C. Morgan, both of whom are deceased.

Women were admitted to Rotary membership in the late 1980s and our club was one of the first clubs in this district to admit them. Do you remember who the first woman admitted to our club was? Yes, it was Jude Peterson, who was director of the local United Way. Ever since, we have had a stellar group of women join us who have served, and who continue to serve, our club and district in extraordinary ways. Ladies, what would we do without you?

In the ‘90s the Rotary bulletin had a weekly feature called “Quips and Quotes” and I will close with a couple of them:

“Truce is better than friction.”

“Plan ahead. It wasn’t raining when Noah built the ark.”

“The penalty for bigamy is two mothers-in-law.” And, finally,

“A speech to be immortal, does not need to be eternal!”

Report of the History Committee for June 2006