It was a very touching moment during last week’s Club meeting. One of our longtime members, Jim Booth, brought guests with him from the Florence Rotary Club. The guests were his cousin, Dick Booth, and the spouses of each of them. These visitors had arrived with a very special presentation in mind.

Dick approached the podium and began to talk with great emotion. He talked about his deceased father, R.A. Booth, who was a longtime Rotarian and Past President of his Club during the twenties. He held up a timeworn envelope. As he opened the envelope, he took out the Past President’s pin with a sparkling center stone that had belonged to his father. He presented it to his cousin Jim. Handwritten on the outside of this envelope were notes about when the pin had been given to Dick Booth, and now the date that Dick was passing it along to Jim.

For those of you who are brand-new in Rotary, please take note of how deeply rooted Rotary can become in all of our lives. In the case of the Booth family, those roots go back almost a hundred years. I hope you find meaning in your membership in Rotary – far beyond the social or entertainment value of our weekly meetings. Truly, we are not just a lunch club. We have a meaningful impact in people’s lives: both around Salem and around the world. And the more actively you participate, the more good we can do.