Rotary President Tom Midkiff (left) receives a banner from District Governor Bill Haslam.

December 9, 2008

In keeping with the holiday season, Bill Haslam, Governor of RI District 7550, brought gifts of both praise and encouragement to Putnam Rotarians during their luncheon meeting at Scarlet Oaks today.

"I congratulate you on being a very active club," said Haslam. "At the last district meeting almost every other award went to the Putnam club."

Active in Beckley's Rotary since 1981, "we did projects chiefly by the pocketbook," said Haslam.

"They told me that they had no service projects. They bought brooms; or they bought light bulbs. They did not sell them. We just took out money from our pocketbook.

"So for many years I was a Rotarian that just opened my pocketbook. I was a busy person. I did not know what the true spirit of Rotary meant.

"Then I had an opportunity to go with a group to help clean out the Mullins Presbyterian Church [after a flood]. Our club at Beckley went through a metamorphosis. We were changing. We had many active service projects. Instead of buying our way out of purgatory, we were serving our way out."

Haslam noted the tragic fact that some 30,000 children each day had been dying needlessly because of contaminated water, poor nutrition and other health problems.

He called on the Putnam group to join the 28 other clubs in southern West Virginia in raising $100,000 over a three-year span as part of the effort by Rotary International to match a grant of $100 million offered by the Gates Foundation. The money would wipe out infantile paralysis and provide children with innoculations and protection against other disease threats.

Haslam noted that the need was not only in third-world countries in Africa and Asia. We have some places in our area, he said, "that make third-world countries look good." He talked about open sewers and polluted water in many old coal-camp areas.

Rotary Foundation has made a grant ot $45,000 for clean water and sewerage treatment in eastern McDowell County, he said.

Efforts by RI and many partnerships with Rotary have made inroads in needless child mortality, he said. The number is now down to 26,000 who die needlessly each day.

Putnam Rotary presently is a partner in a District 7660 project to eradicate a parasitic worm from the water supply in Ghana.

The local group is seeking matching funds in partnership with a club in Uganda to support an orphanage with educational equipment and food. A church and other civic groups are pitching in to push the project forward.

Bill Haslam was accompanied on his visit to Putnam by Assistant District Governor Larry Nelson.

Left to right are Larry Nelson (Assistant District Governor), Bill Haslam (District Governor), Tom Midkiff (club president), Cheryl Rust, Bob Keely, and Randy Lucas (club board members).