History of the Sharon Rotary Club

Sharon Rotary Club was born on May 28, 1918, in the 13^th year of the Rotary movement.  It was the 411^th club of an international organization that had fewer than 40,000 members.  In 2005, its 100^th year, Rotary International had grown to 1.2 million members in 31,000 clubs in 168 countries.

The Sharon club, sponsored by the New Castle Rotary Club, was organized at meeting at Sharon Country Club with 15 charter members.  Roy Neville, a lawyer, was elected president.

Four years later, Neville became the first of four Sharon Rotarians who have served as district governor.  In 1921 the district, No. 6, consisted of 42 clubs in Western Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia.

The forerunner of Rotary International was founded on February 23, 1905 after Paul P. Harris, a 37-year-old Chicago lawyer, invited three young business acquaintances to his office to explain his idea of a different kind of businessmen’s club -- one in which the various businesses and professions of a community would be represented.  They derived the name from the practice of rotating meetings from one member’s place of business to another’s.  That practice was dropped when the size of the club made it unwieldy and luncheon meetings were initiated.

One of the few things to survive the fires is a Rotary bell, still in use, that was presented to the club at its first official meeting by the Grove City Rotary Club.

Through the years, Sharon Rotary Club focused much of its attention upon the treatment and rehabilitation of crippled children, initially led by Dr. Marshall and Dr. Howard Moses.  That interest culminated in 1957 with the construction of a 15,000-square-foot clinic and school in Hermitage.  The Sharon club led the effort to build the $500,000 building with the cooperation of five other Mercer County Rotary Clubs and the Mercer County Building Trades Council.

Long associated with the club’s work with crippled children was Rotarian William A. Armstrong who operated a wholesale grocery distribution company.  For his humanitarian service to handicapped children, the Pennsylvania Medical Society presented him with the Benjamin Rush Award.

In 1965, club members contributed more than $6,000 to build an activity center at the new 500-acre Boy Scout camping reservation along French Creek near Carlton.  Sharon Rotarian Robert D. Rung, a Westinghouse executive, organized a fund campaign among other county Rotary Clubs for the camp development.

With the impetus provided by Dr. John E. Stefanick, club president 1964-65, Sharon Rotary was an early supporter of Rotary’s international Youth Exchange Program in 1965.  A year later, he successfully won support of the district for the exchange program.  Largely through Jack Stefanick’s efforts, an organization of Rotary districts in the eastern United States operates the program and for 35 years sponsored a five-week bus tour through the U.S. for visiting exchange students.  More than 300 students throughout the East assembled in Sharon each June for the start of the tour.  Through the years numerous area Rotarians and other families provided overnight accommodations for the students and chaperones.  In 1999, the annual tour was canceled because of rising liability costs.

Since the first incoming students from Australia and South Africa in 1965, more than 65 foreign students have been hosted by the Sharon Rotary Club, several hundred host families and the high schools of  Sharon, Kennedy Catholic and West Middlesex. A like number of local students have spent a year in foreign countries, sponsored by Sharon Rotary and hosted by Rotary Clubs throughout the world.

Others  programs designed to further international understanding have included visitation by wives of foreign embassy officials in Washington, annual sponsorship of Sharon High students to the World Affairs Institute in Pittsburgh, summer short-term exchanges of students, and the hosting of group student teams of young people from other countries.

The club sponsored Michael Roknick, Herald business and industry reporter, as a member of an outgoing study team to Brazil in 1989.  Sixteen years later, as an editor, he became a member of Sharon Rotary Club.

Two local students, proposed by the Sharon club, were selected for Fellowships by the Rotary Foundation for one-year college graduate studies abroad -- Eugene Matthews in Japan in 1980-81 and Nora Dowling to Spain in 1990-91.

Golf also has provided an international flavor, especially when the exchange is with Scotland.  Ever since Dr. William A. Booth won the first Jackson-Christy Porridge Bowl in 1962 at the famed St. Andrews course, the Sharon club and golfers from District 7280 have participated in the golfing and social exchange with Scotland’s District #1010 in Dundee.  Dick Livingston won the trophy at a district conference in Franklin, Pa., in 1989.

More than 500 have taken part in the exchange between the two districts and 10 times that number have been involved in the fellowship.  The trophy carries the name of Rotarians from Dundee, Scotland, and Butler, Pa., who instituted the competition.

One of Sharon Rotary’s most significant participation in furthering international understanding and the health of millions of children throughout the world was the contribution of $43,677 in Rotary International’s Polio Plus campaign in the late ’80s. That was part of nearly $900,000 raised in District 7280.

Internationally, Rotary members have contributed more than $600 million to help immunize 2 billion children throughout the world.  The effort by 2004 had reduced the global incidence of polio by more than 99 per cent -- from an estimated 350,000 cases in 1988 to about 1,200 cases in 2004.

In other efforts, Sharon Rotarians have contributed funds for clinics in Haiti, Mexico and the Philippines.  The club also sent hundreds of used school text books and medical equipment to the Philippines.  The club, working with area hospitals, has gathered and sent equipment  to medical clinics in Belize , a joint effort with the Hingham (Mass.) Rotary Club and the Orange Walk Rotary Club in Belize.

A pledge of $10,000 for capital improvements at Buhl Farm was completed by Sharon Rotary in 1991.  When the need for Rotary memorial benches in the area of the Performing Arts Center was fulfilled, Sharon Rotarians dedicated a plaque in the Julia F. Buhl Garden in the park as a memorial to deceased members.  Sharon Rotary has continued to support Buhl Farm with proceeds from its Buhl Day food concession and in a 2005 pledge to participate in the capital fund campaign for the park..

Other recipients of the club’s financial support through the years have been youth-related organizations such as the Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, Little League, YMCA, the F.H. Buhl Club, Association for Children With Learning Disabilities, as well as other community groups such as the Salvation Army,  Meals-on-Wheels, Community Action Agency,  and the local food warehouse for the needy.

In 1995 Sharon Rotary Club became the court-appointed trustee for the Dr. Fred Belland Scholarship fund from which an award is presented annually to a Sharon High School graduating senior. Criteria include academics and community and school involvement.

The club also presents an annual leadership award to a Sharon High School senior and sends two area high school students to the RYLA  Rotary Youth Leadership Awards conference each year at Westminster College.

In 1992, the club began the sponsorship of a Rotary Interact Club at Sharon High School.  Such service clubs for youths from 14 to 18 years old in secondary school were launched by Rotary International in 1962.

Funds raised from successive annual dinners, supported by Rotarians, spouses and many persons in the community, have grown to more than $10,000 each year.  The dinners and the food concession on Buhl Day, funds of which go to Buhl Farm, have become the club’s principal fund-raising projects through the ’90s and into the new century. 

Three Sharon Rotarians have served as district governors since Roy Neville in 1921-22.  A. W. Reimold was governor of the club’s former District 259 in 1955-56. Robert D. Rung in 1968-69 and John E. Stefanick in 1987-88 were elected governors of District 7280, encompassing Western Pennsylvania north of Pittsburgh.

Three district conferences have been hosted by Sharon Rotary,  in 1959, 1968 which was the 50^th anniversary of the Sharon club, and in 1987.  The club’s 75^th anniversary was observed in 1993 with a special dinner with spouses.

Women became eligible to be proposed for membership in Rotary clubs in 1988.  The first woman member of Sharon Rotary was Dr. Tamara J. Lowe, A Farrell dentist and a daughter of a former Rotarian.  The Sharon club was in the forefront of area clubs in inviting qualified women as members.  In 1999, Judy Achre became Sharon Rotary Club’s first woman president.

Since the mid-50s, John G. Fabian had been Sharon Rotary’s most active member.  Despite a heart attack and surgery, he maintained a perfect record of attendance.  Such an achievement was possible through makeups, often two and three times a week, at meetings of area clubs throughout northwest Pennsylvania and eastern Ohio.

He traveled to 40 conventions of Rotary International throughout the world until he was past 90 years old.  He was president of Sharon Rotary in 1976-77.  Death came on Aug. 26, 2004.

Hugh M. Gamble, retired executive director of the F.H. Buhl Club, was honored at a special program in 1992 for 60 years of membership in Sharon Rotary Club, a record tenure that is unlikely to be equaled.

In 2003, James Goodwin became the first son of a past club president to become a club president.  His father, David Goodwin, was president in 1977-78.  Dorothy Bieber, in 2004, was the first spouse of a past president, elected to that position.  Her late husband served in 1958-59. 

The club has continued to receive Avenue of Service Awards at the annual district conferences.

Broadening its children’s reading program, the club added its support of “Buddy Books,” providing a book for every third grader in Sharon schools and a companion book for their parents, and “A Book for Baby, “ for every new-born at Sharon Regional Hospital.

Exemplifying the motto of Rotary International, the Sharon club instituted the Service Above Self Award in 1999.  Presentations to non-members as well as Rotarians became a feature of the annual Gala Dinner.  In 2006, the award was renamed in honor of long-time Rotarian John Fabian.