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By Lynn Hotaling
Sylva Rotarians this week are celebrating 75 years of service
to their community.
Sylva Rotary President Bob Carpenter recently received a certificate
honoring club members' three-quarters of a century of dedication
to improving the area where they live and work.
Chartered in 1928, Sylva Rotary's first president was Dr. C.Z.
Candler, and the club held its first meetings at the Chamber of
Commerce Hall, located on the second floor of the building that
now houses Livingston's Photo.
A hallmark of the club's 75 years has been its tradition of distinguished
community service.
A notable example is the playground at Sylva's Poteet Park, which
was completely rebuilt during one September week in 1999 through
the leadership of local Rotarians. Club members still donate a
day a year to maintain the play area, Carpenter said.
Sylva
Rotary Club past presidents include, from left, Fran Webster,
Gerena Parker, Reg Moody Sr., Jay Coward, Charlie McConnell, Bill
Stump, Harold McGuire, Jay Spiro, Jim Moore, Wade Wilson, John
Kevlin, Jimmy Childress, Stedman Mitchell, Orville Coward and
Raye Parker. The local club recently celebrated its 75th year
of service to the Sylva community. Current president Bob Carpenter
is not pictured. - Herald photo by Kelly Timco
The big project currently under way is a landscaping
project at Smoky Mountain High School to develop a courtyard outside
the new cafeteria. Club members raised $15,000 last spring,and
county commissioners matched that amount, Carpenter said. Rotarians
plan to landscape the area between the cafeteria and gym this
spring, he said.
Ongoing Rotary projects include the flower beds on the traffic
island at the Business 23/N.C. 107 intersection and maintenance
at Pinnacle Park. The group also plans to work with Project Care
to construct handicap ramps.
Rotary has long been a leader in supporting local young people
through grants and scholarships, Carpenter said. Club members
annually give to New Century Scholars and award a savings bond
to a "Student of the Month" from either SMHS or Southwestern
Community College each month.
The group encourages and sponsors exchange students as well, Carpenter
said, and is currently sponsoring Karem Ayude of Argentina, who
is staying with John and Robin Kevlin.
Sylva Rotarians have met on a weekly basis since the club was
founded. Sylva Herald Publisher Jim Gray remembers meeting on
Tuesday evenings until 1988 when members chose to switch to noon
Thursday sessions.
Club meetings were held in the Allison Annex of Sylva Methodist
Church for a number of years, Gray said.
Church women catered the Tuesday evening meals as a way to raise
money for church projects. A longtime church member said Rotary
meals paid for new carpet the Methodists installed in 1950 and
new furniture when the parsonage was remodeled in 1954.
Rotary meetings moved to Dillsboro's Jarrett House in the early
1960s, Gray said. The publisher's most memorable Rotary gathering
came during that time.
One evening in the spring of 1967, Gray was a little late for
a meeting and parked his brand new Chevelle station wagon right
in front of the Dillsboro landmark beneath one of several large
maple trees that once stood in front of the restaurant. Near the
end of the meeting, Gray said, Reg Moody Sr. came in and asked,
"Who has a Chevy station wagon out front with a tree across
the top?"
When Gray looked, one of the tall trees (almost 36 inches in diameter)
had flattened his new car.
"There was no wind, no storm," Gray said. "The
tree's roots had apparently rotted after the area was paved."
The remaining trees in front of the Jarrett House were soon removed.
It was also during the years the club met in Dillsboro that then-secretary
Raymond Sutton put his notebook full of club records on top of
his car and accidentally drove away. Those records were never
found, Gray said.
The next stop on the Rotary tour was Western Carolina University's
Dodson Cafeteria, where club meetings were held until the early
1980s. The club met at Comfort Inn for a year or two and then
began to gather at the Western Sizzlin' steakhouse around 1983.
Though Gray has saved a number of programs over the years, his
collection isn't complete and exact dates of when the group switched
meeting places are hard to pin down. It appears the club met at
the Point After (Dale Phillips's former restaurant located near
the Quin Theaters, now Colima's Mexican restaurant) during 1992-93.
Gray remembers that change as the result of remodeling at the
steak house.
Rotary meetings had been back at Western Sizzlin' for several
years when the restaurant was destroyed by fire in April 1996.
The brass Rotary bell, inscribed with the names of all club presidents
since the local chapter was chartered, was the only item salvaged.
After the fire, club members returned to the Jarett House for
a few weeks before moving to the basement of First Baptist Church,
where the group met until moving to Ryan's several years ago.
Rotary International, which began in Chicago is 1905, has grown
into one of the largest service organizations. It has a worldwide
membership of more than 1.2 million in 28,000 communities. A group
of businessmen who had the idea they'd get together on a weekly
basis to discuss ways to improve their community met at each other's
establishments on a rotating basis, said Gray, giving rise to
the club name - Rotary.
Current members of Sylva Rotary are listed on page 12C. Past club
presidents, in chronological order, are:
Charles Candler, Scroop Enloe, Daniel Bryson, Kermit Chapman,
Hiram Hunter (district governor), Claude Allison, Thomas Cox,
Daniel Moore (Governor of North Carolina, 1964-68), Jack Walters,
Lyndon McKee, Ernest Bird, Reginald Enloe, Raymond Sutton, Clyde
Blair, Phillip Elliot, T.N. Massie, Paul Ellis, Ralph Sutton,
William Ensor, Delos Hooper, Coleman Cannon, Bill Fisher, Harry
Ferguson, Clinton Dodson, Herbert Gibson, Harold McGuire, Ramsey
Buchanan, Stedman Mitchell, Keith Hinds, Wayne Terrell, Newton
Turner, Woody Hampton, Charles Stewart, Rosar Taylor, Ralph Morgan,
Joe Evans, Creighton Sossoman, James Childress, Paul Reid, Robert
Vodak, Paul Holt, Jim Gray, Donald Morgan, Roger Bisson, Reg Moody
Sr., Wade Wilson, David Rice, James Simpson, Bill Stump, Aaron
Hyatt (district governor and secretary of Rotary International),
James Maxey, Conrad Burrell, Paul Haberland, Albert Gilman, Nagui
El-Bayadi, Orville Coward, Bill Serjak, Archie Crawford, Bob Holt,
Fran Webster, Jim Moore, Hal Dennis, Bob Stewart, Ken Mostella,
Ken Wood, Raye Parker, John Kevlin, Bill Stump, Mark Reeser, Howard
Allman, Jay Spiro, Gerena Parker, Jay Coward, Charlie McConnell
and Shelly Lackey.
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