EVERYONE INVITED TO SHEPHERDSTOWN ROTARY 35TH ANNIVERSARY EVENT
The Rotary Club of Shepherdstown is inviting everyone to attend its 35th anniversary celebration, which will be held the evening of May 20 at Shepherdstown's Bavarian Inn.
The event will be held from 6:00 to 11:00 p.m. and will include food stations, hors d'oeuvres, a cash bar, and music and dancing.
Tickets are on sale now on the Club's website at www.shepherdstownrotary.org. The price is $80 per person.
"This will be a fun event, with great food and great music," said Club President Steve Campbell. "Rotary is about fellowship as well as service to the community, and we hope a lot of friends and neighbors will join us for this festive occasion."
The Club was founded in 1987 with 28 charter members. Today, it continues to thrive with 69 members. Three of the Club's original charter members are still active in the organization; two of them are shown in the accompanying photo taken at the Club's April 26 weekly breakfast meeting at the Bavarian Inn: Erwin Asam, left, and Bill Howard, right. The third still-active member is John Loeffler.
From its inception, the Rotary Club of Shepherdstown has been played a leadership role in many different kinds of community-service activities. In its first year, it pioneered the Adopt-A-Highway program locally and funded a major expansion of the Shepherdstown Library's "Talking Books" program.
In 1990, it helped establish the Good Shepherd Interfaith Volunteer Caregivers, a non-profit community organization that supports the disabled and elderly.
In 2000, it established a special fund that supports advanced training for local firefighters and emergency service personnel.
In 2007, it initiated Shepherdstown's July 4 parade and community picnic, which it continues to sponsor. Since 2013, it has organized the town's Christmas parade as well.
The Club also regularly assists other community organizations by providing them with financial and volunteer support. This assistance ranges from a Charity Ball that has raised more than $360,000 for local nonprofit groups, to annual participation in the United Way's Day of Caring, to a partnership with the Charles Town Rotary Club that distributes free dictionaries and thesauruses to all the county's third- and fifth-graders each fall.
SHEPHERDSTOWN ROTARY SPONSORS HIGH SCHOOL SPEECH CONTEST
The Rotary Club of Shepherdstown has named William Stacpoole as the winner of its 2022 Four-Way Speech Contest.
The contest was held March 22 at Shepherdstown's Bavarian Inn.
Stacpoole is a freshman member of Jefferson County High School's Air Force Junior ROTC and homeschooled academically.
Aimed at encouraging high ethical standards among young people, the contest is an annual competition that invites area high school students to present original speeches that analyze a topic of their choosing from the perspective of Rotary's core principles. Those principles subject every action to the following four-question test: Is it the truth? Is it fair to all concerned? Will it build goodwill and better friendships? Will it be beneficial to all concerned?
The topic of Stacpoole's speech was Horatius, a legendary Roman army officer who defended a bridge against an invading army in the 6th Century BC.
The contest's second-place winner was Alma Cedillo, a junior at Jefferson High and Vice President of that school's Rotary-sponsored Interact Club. Her speech was focused on the local and national impacts of teacher shortages.
The third-place winner was Lillian Riner, a Jefferson High freshman who is also a member of the Air Force Junior ROTC. Her speech was about commitment.
The accompanying photo shows, from left to right: Cedillo, Jefferson High School Principal Mary Beth Group, Stacpoole, Shepherdstown Rotarians Cara Keys and John Loeffler, and Riner.
Stacpoole received a $100 prize and earned the right to compete in a Rotary Regional Four-Way Speech Contest in Hancock, MD, on April 9. If he is successful there, he will move on to a final, Rotary District Contest in May. The grand prize for that competition will be $1,000.
Cedillo and Riner received prizes of $50 and $25, respectively.
SHEPHERDSTOWN ROTARY CLUB AWARDS READING GRANTS
The Shepherdstown Rotary Club has awarded "Rotary Reads" grants totaling $700 to two Shepherdstown institutions to promote reading.
One grant, for $350, was given to the Shepherdstown Day Care Center. The Center will use its grant to enhance diversity learning by expanding its classroom learning centers to include music, books, games and art materials that reflect the multicultural world
The other grant, also for $350, went to the Shepherdstown Public Library. This will help update its reference materials for children and teens.
The grant to the Day Care Center was presented formally at the Club's regular Tuesday breakfast meeting at the Bavarian Inn on March 22. The Library was unable to participate in that breakfast.
The accompanying photo from the March 22 breakfast shows Rotary Club Steve Campbell, left, and Day Care Center Board member Christina Mason, right.
The Shepherdstown Rotary Club's "Rotary Reads" grant program is one of several Club activities aimed at enhancing literacy among local children. It consists of cash grants, awarded annually, to worthy institutions for projects or programs that promote reading.
Enhancing literacy has been a major priority of Rotarians since their organization's founding in 1905.