The Fayette Rotary Club was granted a charter as club number 4148 by Rotary International on February 18, 1937. Rotary International itself was founded in Chicago on February 23, 1905, by Paul Harris, a lawyer. Early Rotary International club meetings were held in rotation at the members' places of business - hence, the name ROTARY. Today, Rotary International has over 22,000 clubs and over 1 million members in 160 countries.

The charter for the Fayette Rotary Club was presented at a banquet on March 23, 1937, at the Parish House with about 200 in attendance. The charter was presented by Lester B. Wikoff, Governor of District 14, Rotary International, and was accepted by Anson B. Barber, first president of the Fayette Rotary club. L. E. Ziegler of Boonville, the supporting club, was master of certain ceremonies area.

Of the charter members of the Fayette Rotary club, four are presently members of the club: L. W. Jacobs, Junior, Dan Miller, Robert Summers and James Weathers. Other charter members were: Dr. W. E. Ackerson, and Anson B. Barber, Dr. William A. Bloom, Howard E. Bruner, Ralph A. Carr, Robert M. Fox, Charles H. Lee, Wirt Mc. Mitchell, Fulton Moore, Walker Pierce, Robert Ricketts (now living in a Fayette), Nat Tracy and J. Marvin Turner. During its 50 year history over 275 business and professional men have been members of the Fayette Rotary Club. The current membership of the club is 54. One former member of the club, Ralph L. Woodward, served as District 607 Governor in 1973-74. Meetings are held each Wednesday at noon in the East/West room on the Central Methodist College campus. Meetings include a luncheon, fellowship, club business and a program, usually presented by an outside speaker, on local, state or international cultural or socio-economic topics.

As a service organization, the Fayette Rotary Club during its history supported many projects: among these are Fayette street signs, trash baskets around the city square, lighting of playgrounds, Boys State, Girls State, 4-H, AFS, scholarships to attend CMC for Fayette High School and foreign students and the Fayette Public Library. In support of the Rotary Foundation scholarship program, 22, Fayette club members, including several Rotary Anns, have become Paul Harris Fellows and 12 members have become Paul Harris Sustaining Members, making total contributions to the Foundation of more than $30,000. As an example of the work of the Foundation, Keith Young, CMC' 86 graduate sponsored by the Fayette club, was awarded the Rotary Foundation scholarship and is currently studying at the University of New South Wales in Australia for one year. He will attend Johns Hopkins Medical School upon his return to the United States.

In celebration of the 50th anniversary, the Fayette Rotary club, two special service projects have been adopted by the club: (1) RGMM (Rotarians give the Meal a Month), which will produce an annual contribution of $1300 for Rotary International's PolioPlus program to erode eradicate polio among the children of underdeveloped countries and (2) the donation of 50 volumes to the Fayette Public Library.

The Fayette Rotary Club looks forward to another half-century of

Service Above Self