About Our Club - Club History & Awards

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Click on an underlined link to move through this page   CLUB ORIGINS   PAST PRESIDENTS ... and COPs    ROTARIANS OF THE YEAR and criteria   SERVICE ABOVE SELF AWARDS and guidelines   CHILDREN OF THE WORLD MONUMENT   MEETING LOCATIONS
	2008-09 Rotarian of the Year Cathy Toth with 2007-08 Rotarian of the Year Robin Textor

 

TENNESSEE'S FIRST BREAKFAST ROTARY CLUB

Our club banner depicts the hills and water of East Tennessee and highlights the  "Children of the World"  sculpture donated by the Club to the City of Oak Ridge in the mid-1990s.

The Oak Ridge Breakfast Rotary Club was organized in April 1980 with the assistance of Red Williams, a member of Oak Ridge Rotary Club who was serving District 6780  as Governor.

ORBRC was officially chartered at a meeting at the Elk’s Club on the evening of June 27, 1980, as the state’s first breakfast Rotary club.

Ken Sommerfeld was installed as the first president. The other officers installed that evening were: Clyde Hopkins, Vice President and Director of Club Service; Tom Southard, secretary; Karl Butcher, treasurer; Chuck Spath, Director of Vocational Service; Ewin Kiser, Director of International Service; Keith Cole, Director of Community Service; Clark Meredith, Director at Large; and Keith Craft, Sergeant at Arms.

The club had 33 charter members. In addition to the officers listed above, other members were Jeff Bostock, Jim Bryson, Charles Campbell, Dale Channell, Dave Coffey, Richard Dew, Jerry Duncan, Bill Feldkamp, Jeff Friar, Tim Friar, Jim Hutson, Frank Jamison, Mickey McArthur, Dave McCoy, Jim McMahan, Jackie Pope, Roy Pruett, John Rhea, Tom Stanley, Rick Stooksbury, Robin Textor, Joe Williams, Travis Witherington, and Johnny Wray.

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PAST PRESIDENTS – A HISTORY OF SERVICE

Those who have served the club as president are:

The Council of Presidents – COPs – was organized during the 2007-2008 club year by then-president Karen Bridgeman. The group, which counts 20 past presidents (including Jerry Young, who served as president of the Stowe-Munro Rotary Club before joining ORBRC) and the current president and president-elect among its members, supports the club as needed and requested by the current board of directors and oversees awards, recognitions, and special projects.

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ROTARIANS OF THE YEAR

Cathy Toth was named 2009 Rotarian of the Year at the July 1, 2009, annual meeting. Her award was presented by Robin Textor, who earned the award in 2008 and 1990.

In 1986, Clyde Hopkins was named the club’s first “Man of the Year.” The honor was changed to “Rotarian of the Year” in 1991 when the award went to the club’s first woman member (and in 1995, its first woman president), Wanda Craven.

Nominations come from club members and the criteria are many. The most important may be that the choice be recognized with nods of agreement at the annual meeting. This truly is an award that is earned by service and recognized by club members as significant.

The honoree:

• is an exemplary Rotarian and a good representative of ORBRC.
• has a sustained record of participation and contribution with the club.
• works for the betterment of the community.
• exhibits strong participation in ORBRC and Rotary International.
• has a good attendance record.
• is involved in and contributes to one or more of the club's four areas of service.
• willingly responds to requests for help or participation.
• contributes ideas and suggestions to benefit the club.
• brings visitors and/or candidates for membership.
• has had especially strong involvement, contribution, and/or participation in our club during the current club year.
• will be accepted by most members of the club as a good choice.

Cathy Toth was honored at the 2009 annual meeting as the 2008-2009 Rotarian of the Year, nominated by a five club members who cited her work as leader of the Youth Services Committee and her support in establishing the Robertsville Middle School YouthAct Club.

Winners over the years include:

  Click here to download a copy of the nomination form.

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SERVICE ABOVE SELF AWARD

Mary Helen Rose was awarded the Service Above Self Award at the Oct. 27, 2010, meeting.

Wilbur "Dub" Shults established the award to honor those who have performed exceptional and sacrificial service to others or to the community over an extended period of time. The award has been presented 10 times since 2000. Members of the club are not eligible for the award.

In the context of this award, "service" designates personal effort of a volunteer nature that is not a component of an individual's occupation and covers an extended period of time.  In essence, the award strives to recognize those who do wondrous things for others, but are likely to go unrecognized. The award carries with it a $1,000 contribution to the effort or charity designated by the winner.

Mary Helen Rose was presented the Service Above Self Award at the October 27, 2010, ORBRC meeting.  She has been and continues to be a well regarded and much sought after volunteer worker in many Oak Ridge organizations.  Her eagerness to help others, desire to do things right, level headedness, and great administrative skills have led her to serve the community in many ways.  

In times past, Mary Helen has been a volunteer for Contact Helpline, the Methodist Medical Center of Oak Ridge, Community Mediation Services, and the Prisoner’s Aid Society.  She has been Treasurer of the Oak Ridge Institute for Continued Education, Service Director and then President of the League of Women Voters, and Recording Secretary of the Oak Ridge Charter Review Committee.  Currently, Mary Helen is a member of the Oak Ridge Elder Citizens Committee, a filer for the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance program, Secretary of the Coalition of Oak Ridge Retired Employees, Secretary of the Board of the Free Medical Clinic of Oak Ridge, and Secretary of the Church Council of the First United Methodist Church.

Mary Helen also serves others on an individual basis.  On three separate occasions, she assumed responsibility for the care of 90-year old women in Oak Ridge, providing personal assistance as long as they could remain at home and helping them to move to assisted living facilities when it became necessary.She managed their personal affairs, their finances, and their estates as long as needed, gratis.

ORBRC provided a grant of $1000 along with the Service Above Self award. Mary Helen chose to donate her grant to the Free Medical Clinic of Oak Ridge.

Diantha Paré (left) was the 2007-2008 winner of ORBRC's Service Above Self Award. She was nominated  by Emily Jernigan, who presented the award at the club's annual meeting, and Jake Morrill.

Diantha Paré was selected as the 2008 recipient of the award for her tireless work in the Oak Ridge community.

Paré has helped start several community initiatives, including the Sallie McCaskill Fund, which helps gifted students of color attend college; the Anderson Health Council and Healthy Start, a program that helps children born to at-risk families receive social services. She has twice served as president of the Oak Ridge League of Women Voters and helped organize the local chapter of Tennesseans for Fair Taxation.

In 2003, she was recognized as a Community Hero, and she helped found and still tends the Memorial Garden at the Unitarian Universalist Church. Her love of nature has made her a long-time board member of the UT Arboretum Society.

"Indeed, Diantha Paré is a gardener working throughout the community, planting the seeds of justice and tending them with the water of compassion," Emily Jernigan and Jake Morrill wrote in their nomination. "Her vision and her care are abundantly evident in all of her days."

Along with a plaque, ORBRC awarded Paré $1000 to donate to her designated charities. She has chosen to divide the funds between Healthy Start and the Sallie McCaskill Scholarship Fund.

Previous winners of the award include:

To download a copy of the guidelines for the Club's Service Above Self awards, click here.

Click here for an article published in The Oak Ridger about Hugh and Lucy Parker, the first winners of ORBRC's Service Above Self award.

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CHILDREN OF THE WORLD SCULPTURE

One of the projects that most visibly connects ORBRC to the community is the "Children of the World" sculpture on the corner of Oak Ridge Turnpike and South Tulane Avenue.

Eric Anthony Nuchols (1961-2007) was the sculptor who created “Children of the World,” a gift to the City of Oak Ridge from Oak Ridge Breakfast Rotary Club.

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According to his obituary in The Oak Ridger on July 30, 2007, “Mr. Nuchols worked for many years with Pathway Bellows, which became Senior Flextronics Pathway. He was part of a specialty welding team, which took him to many different countries around the world.

“He was a local artist who received tremendous recognition throughout East Tennessee for his works of art using the medium of stainless steel and heat and spent months heating, cooling, pounding and rolling a sheet of stainless steel into a dramatic art work of religious art.”

He was a 1980 graduate of Oak Ridge High School and served with the U.S. Army, 82nd Airborne Division, spending time in the U.S. and in Italy.

The sculpture was conceived and created in the mid-1990s when Wanda Craven was president of ORBRC. Wanda, who served the club with distinction in each of the four avenues of service, had a special interest in children and the children of the world, involving the club in service to an orphanage in Russia, among other projects.

Wanda also started our Christmas Angels project (which serves Willow Brook Elementary School students and their siblings who might otherwise face a bleak holiday) and the Mystery Dinners (which place trusting Rotarians on a bus and delivers them to a surprise location for a wonderful evening out), and remains an honorary member of our club. 

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MEETING LOCATIONS

ORBRC originally met at the Ridge Inn, a motel on Illinois Avenue. As membership grew, it moved to the Holiday Inn, then to the Nancy Stanley Room at the YWCA, then to the Community Room at Oak Ridge Mall (1998). On November 2, 2005, the club moved to the Wildcat Den in the historic Midtown Community Center on the corner of Oak Ridge Turnpike and Robertsville Road. We began meeting at Inspiration Point, the event center space at The Flatwater Grill, just off Melton Lake Drive on Oak Ridge’s east end, on March 7, 2007.

On Oct. 4, 2011, the board voted to move to the Unitarian-Universalist Church, 1500 Oak Ridge Turnpike, with the first meeting held there Oct. 12, 2011.

The club has a long and storied history of early gathering. Coffee and fellowship start the day, with some members arriving as early as 6:30 to visit with one another and help set up the meeting space. The breakfast buffet line opens shortly after 7.

Meetings begin promptly at 7:30 with a song, a prayer, and the Pledge of Allegiance. After club business and a program, the meeting adjourns at 8:15 a.m. We have closed by reciting The Four-Way Test since July 2007.

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