Columbia’s Capital Rotary Club has honored three members for donations to The Rotary Foundation, the international service club’s charitable corporation that funds programs for world understanding and peace. In the photo are (from left) Trey Boone, cited as a Paul Harris Fellow plus-one, representing an initial $1,000 donation, plus an additional gift of $1,000; Bob Davis, a Paul Harris Fellow plus-three ($1,000 with three additional gifts at the same amount); Neda Beal, who joined the Paul Harris Society recognizing contributions of $1,000 or more each year; and past president Scott Wallinger, the club’s chairman for Foundation giving.
Helping Hands for Harvest Hope
Helping Hands for Harvest Hope
Columbia’s Capital Rotary Club members showed they “have a heart” in February by volunteering at Harvest Hope Food Bank. Nearly 20 Rotarians from Capital Rotary Club helped pack groceries for distribution to the needy and elderly in lieu of a weekly club meeting. Harvest Hope is headquartered in Columbia but works to meet the needs of hungry people in the Midlands, Pee Dee and Greater Greenville regions of the state. It feeds more than 35,000 people weekly.
In the first picture below, bagging donated drinks are (in background from left) Blake DuBose, Jay von Kolnitz, Mark Bokesch, Trey Boone, John Guignard and Ann Elliott, along with (foreground left) Ione Cockrell and Denise Holland (foreground right).
Leeza Gibbons speaks to Capital Rotary
Capital Rotary welcomes new member, Ben Carlton
New Capital Rotarian Ben Carlton (center) is welcomed into club membership by president Mark Bokesch (right) and sponsor Bryan Goodyear. Carlton, who practices corporate law with the Columbia firm of Richardson, Plowden & Robinson, is a graduate of North Carolina State University and the University of South Carolina’s Law School, where he was associate editor in chief of the Law Review. Carlton is an Eagle Scout and serves as a regional selection committee member for NC State’s Park Scholarship. He’s a member of the SC Bar and the Young Lawyers Division, plays in the Columbia Tennis League and received a “Key to the City” of Hickory, NC, where he grew up.
New Paul Harris Fellow for Capital Rotary
Scott Wallinger (left), immediate past president of Columbia’s Capital Rotary, congratulates Dr. Tommy Gibbons, the club’s most recent member to be named a Paul Harris Fellow in acknowledgement of a $1,000 contribution to the Rotary Foundation. Gibbons, a native of Clarendon County’s Turbeville community, is President of Doctors Care and Chief Medical Officer at UCI Medical Affiliates, Inc. and Doctors Care, PA in Columbia. He has degrees from the College of Charleston, the Medical University of South Carolina and earned an MBA from the Darla Moore School of Business. A member of numerous medical professional organizations, he’s also been a volunteer for The Children’s Trust SAFEKIDS South Carolina, the DHEC Disease Prevention Committee and the Pandemic Influenza Task Force. He and his wife, Lorri, have two grown children.
Scholarship Recipient Attends Capital Rotary Meeting
University of South Carolina junior Travis Bookert (second from left) and his girlfriend, Alex Bradley, are welcomed to a weekly Capital Rotary Club meeting by president Mark Bokesch (far right) and Darren Foy, chairman of the club’s Scholarship Committee. Bookert – a Sport and Entertainment Management major at USC – is one of eight recipients of annual college scholarships the club awards in conjunction with the Rotary Club of Columbia. Proceeds from holiday Christmas wreath sales by Capital Rotarians help provide scholarship funds.
Commanding General visits Capital Rotary
Our speaker on Wednesday morning was Major General Bradley A. Becker, the Commanding General, U.S. Army Training Center and Fort Jackson. General Becker was commissioned in May 1986, following graduation from the University of California at Davis. From June 2012 to August 2013, General Becker served as the Deputy Director for Joint Training, Joint Force Development, Joint Staff J7, where he worked closely with NATO’s Allied Command Transformation and other multinational partners. Other joint assignments include a tour as Chief, Commander’s Initiatives Group, U.S. Forces – Iraq, from June 2009 to July 2010; and special assistant to the Commander, United Nations Command, Combined Forces Command, U.S. Forces Korea, Eighth U.S. Army, Korea, from November 2008 to June 2009. General Becker also served as the Deputy Commanding General – West, 25th Infantry Division, U.S. Division – Center, during Operation New Dawn, Iraq, from December 2010 to December 2011. From July 2007 to October 2008, General Becker served as the Commander, 3rd Battlefield Coordination Detachment, Eighth U.S. Army, Korea. General Becker also served as commander of 2nd Battalion, 8th Field Artillery, 25th Infantry Division, Fort Lewis, Washington, and led that unit during Operation Iraqi Freedom.
His awards include the Defense Superior Service Medal, the Legion of Merit, the Bronze Star Medal with Oak Leaf Cluster, the Defense Meritorious Service Medal, the Meritorious Service Medal with four Oak Leaf Clusters, the Army Commendation Medal with Oak Leaf Cluster, and the Army Achievement Medal with three Oak Leaf Clusters. He has earned the Combat Action Badge, Parachutist and Air Assault identification badges, and is Ranger qualified.
Capital Rotary Distributes Dictionaries to Schools
Capital Rotary Club members John Guignard (left) and Jenks Mikell (center) huddle with third-grade students at Arden Elementary School after distributing paperback dictionaries as part of the club’s annual participation in The Dictionary Project.
The project, begun by a non-profit organization in Charleston in 1995, aims to help students become good writers, active readers, creative thinkers and resourceful learners by providing them with their own personal dictionary.
Capital Rotary donated dictionaries to 840 students in 12 Richland County District One schools for 2014-15. Over the past 10 years, the club has purchased and given dictionaries to 10,500 third-graders in the Columbia area.
A number of clubs in South Carolina and throughout the country are Dictionary Project sponsors. One of Rotary International’s six major goals is improving basic education and literacy.
Capital Rotary Tours Nephron Pharmaceuticals
Nephron Pharmaceuticals Corporation CEO Lou Kennedy (far right) conducts a tour for Capital Rotary Club members during a field trip to the 408,000 square foot West Columbia facility. Though still in start-up stages, Nephron represents a $313 million investment and presently has over 100 employees at the SC location. It will manufacture and distribute respiratory products, eye drops that are preservative and additive free, sterile injectable drugs and oral vaccines. Capital Rotary periodically tours various points of interest throughout the community.
Capital Rotary Adds New Member
Denise Holland, CEO of Harvest Hope Food Bank, is welcomed as the newest member of Columbia’s Capital Rotary Club by president Mark Bokesch (right) and by Chip Hardy, her sponsor for induction. Denise is a past board chair of the South Carolina Association for Non-Profits and worked for the American Red Cross for 16 years. A Palmetto State native and University of South Carolina graduate, Denise also has been a volunteer for the Souper Bowl of Caring and for Airport High’s School Improvement Council.