The Rotary Club of Hickory, North Carolina, the first service club organized in Catawba County, celebrated its 89th anniversary in 2010. Founded during the first sixteen years of Rotary International, and ranked as the largest club in its district, the Club has earned recognition from its Rotary peers and other community organizations for its spirit of service. Its contributions have also given direction to the advances of the city and county it serves. In contrast to its uncommon reputation and influence, however, its origin was ordinary: its birth emerged from the vision of a single individual.
The founder of the Hickory Rotary Club was Watt Shuford (1873-1935), a member of one of Hickory's pioneer families who pursued interests in dairying and farming. He managed the Hickory Seed Company for 20 years. In 1912, he helped organize the Catawba Creamery and, for many years as its president and manager, guided its growth into one of the largest cooperative creameries in the South. Shuford served on many local agricultural boards and was appointed by two state governors to terms on the State Board of Agriculture, serving for ten years.
While in Asheville for a 1920 creamery convention, Shuford attended a Rotary club meeting and became interested in forming a club in Hickory. Members of the Asheville club encouraged him to do so, helping with their guidance and assistance.
Ten members of the Asheville club, led by International Sergeant at Arms Emmet E. Galer, attended the organizational meeting of the Rotary Club of Hickory. The meeting, held on Friday, Feb. 11, 1921, at Hotel Huffry, was attended by 18 charter members. Shuford was named president. Elected vice president was Kenneth C. Menzies, cashier of First National Bank. The position of treasurer was filled by George R. Wootten, secretary-treasurer of the First Building & Loan Association. Albert C. Hewitt, president of Hickory Ice & Coal Company, was elected sergeant-at-arms. Named secretary was Frank A. Henderson, vice president and treasurer of Hickory Overall Company. Also elected to the board of directors were Neil W. Clark, president of Yoder-Clark Clothing Company; and George L. Lyerly, manager of Shuford Hardware Company.
The other charter members were: Fred A. Abernethy, livestock dealer; Bascom B. Blackwelder, Shuford Mills executive; John H. P. Cilley, manager of Piedmont Foundry & Machine Company; J. Lenoir Cilley, assistant cashier of First National Bank; Hugh D'Anna, manager of Hickory Hosiery Mills; Joseph D. Elliott, president and treasurer of Elliott Building Company Contractors; Sam H. Farabee, editor of the Hickory Daily Record; Rusk G. Henry, city manager; Robert E. Martin, partner of Whitener & Martin Retail Grocery; A. Alex Shuford, secretary and treasurer of A. A. Shuford Mill Company; and Jake H. Shuford, surgeon and owner of Richard Baker Hospital.
The charter for the Club, issued by Rotary International on Mar. 1, was formally presented at a regular meeting on May 12 by District Governor Buck Perrin of Spartanburg, S.C. The Club was the 485th to be formed by the international organization. It was placed in the 280th district which, in addition to Western North Carolina, included the state of South Carolina and some clubs in Virginia and Tennessee.
At its first regular meeting, over a 1 p.m. lunch on Feb. 17 at the hotel, the Club voted to meet every Thursday at the same hour except on the last Thursday of each month when it would meet at 7:30 p.m.
In its first December as an organization, the new Club demonstrated its service potential. It distributed 50 cents in new 5-cent pieces to each of the 23 residents in the County Home and gave 28 baskets--consisting of flour, chicken, nuts, fruit, candy, sugar and toys--to the needy. On the day following Christmas, it treated more than 1,000 children to a moving picture show in the City Auditorium. At its next regular meeting, the members took a collection of $34 to supply fuel and food to five families who were in "dire circumstance."
Eighteen months later, in 1923, the Club chose for its secretary Edgar L. Fox, an insurance agent. Fox later set a record for tenure in office, serving for 25 years. He set aside the duties for only one year, in 1935-36, when he served as president. One of his successors, George Warlick, served as secretary for 19 years.
Two club decisions in 1926 set precedents for many years to follow. The meeting site was shifted from the Huffry Hotel to the new Hotel Hickory, where the Club continued to gather for 44 years. The Club also engaged as its pianist a Hickory music teacher, Mary McFarland, who provided background lunch music at the meetings for more than 51 years.
In one ten-year span, the new club sponsored the organization of five other clubs: Jefferson (1928), Lenoir (1930), Marion (1934), Granite Falls (1936), and Taylorsville (1938).
The prominence of the Club in the life of the community was boosted by the publicity it received in the Hickory Daily Record. When Editor L.C. Gifford joined the club in 1930, the daily newspaper gave front-page space to the club's weekly meetings, initiating a practice which helped keep the organization in the public eye for more than 60 years.
At the tender age of twelve, the Hickory club in 1933-34 stepped into the District 58 spotlight by contributing the services of one of its members - H. Brent Schaeffer, president of Lenoir Rhyne College - for the position of district governor. The 34-member club also undertook the hosting of 800 Rotarians and Rotary Anns attending the 1934 conference of the district. Registration headquarters were established at Hotel Hickory, and the conference sessions were held in the City Auditorium. In later years, the Club hosted district activities in 1940, 1950, 1958, 1964 and 1975.
The Club first attempted to establish a weekly bulletin in 1941, but the publication - named "Spokes" - died after one year when the editor, George Warlick, re-entered military service. The project was revived in 1946 by James Shuford under the title of "The Rotary Spoke of Hickory." Shuford's professional approach to the task resulted in a lively publication that was quoted in other club publications throughout the world, in Rotary International magazine and in Reader's Digest. His retirement as editor in 1966 attracted more than 100 letters of tribute from Rotary leaders.
One distinctive tradition of the Hickory Rotary Club - presenting out-of-state visitors with a hickory stick - began about 1947. At one time, in the 1950s, the stick was decorated with a plastic cord manufactured by Shuford Mills.
Under the guidance of Walter Nau, a Lenoir-Rhyne College professor, the Club in 1949 designed an international scholarship program for the Rotary district. Since then, it has led the district in the program's support and implementation. The scholarship, later named to honor Chan Gordon of the Asheville club, has funded the college study of more than 60 district and foreign scholars. In addition, the Club has operated its own scholarship program for local students and supported the Ambassadorial Scholarships of Rotary International. Nau's service to the district in 1949 was only a beginning. He gave leadership as district governor in 1950-51. He served in other capacities for 45 years, becoming known throughout the district as "Mr. Rotary."
Over the years, Ladies Night programs often highlighted the Rotary year. In 1953, the speaker was Andy Griffith, of Chapel Hill, who directed a scene from Shakespeare's "Hamlet" with the aid of "volunteers" from the audience.
Programs for the weekly Rotary meetings usually featured guest speakers. One of the more popular speakers in 1954 was Billy Joe Patton, the Morganton amateur golfer who almost won the Masters Tournament at Augusta several weeks earlier. Other noted speakers over the years included Carl Goerch, editor of "The State" (1941); North Carolina Lieutenant Governor Luther Hodges, a trustee of Rotary International (1954); Bill Friday, president of the University of North Carolina (1971); and Jesse Helms, a candidate for U. S. Senate (1972). Charles Snipes has shouldered the blame for presiding over the longest meeting: at a 1972-73 session, because of the induction of new members and the introduction of student visitors, the speaker - Coach Clarence Stasavich of East Carolina College - did not begin speaking until five minutes before the scheduled adjournment, and the meeting did not adjourn until 1:50 p.m., 20 minutes late.
The Golden Anniversary of the founding of Rotary International in 1955 was celebrated by the Hickory club with an inter-city dinner meeting at Hickory Junior High School. Three hundred Rotarians and their guests from the Hickory, Newton-Conover, Valdese and Granite Falls clubs attended. Speaker for the event was Percy Hodgson, former President of Rotary International and a globe-circling industrialist and civic leader of Pawtucket, R. I. To James Peden, the Hickory club president, fell the duty to host the speaker for the weekend and wrestle with his "steamer trunk and seven pieces of luggage" from and to the Charlotte airport. On Hodgson's departure, the guest commented on the youth of the Hickory president, to which Peden responded that "over the weekend I've aged quite a bit."
An unusual number of distinguished visitors dropped in on meetings of the Club during the 1956-57 year. The guest list included the surprise visitors of Coach Frank McGuire and his champion University of North Carolina basketball team, which was enroute from Cullowhee to Chapel Hill on Jan. 31; John Morley, foreign correspondent and world traveler and lecturer (Apr. 11); and Richard Simmons of Englewood, Calif., better known as Sergeant Preston of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (May 23). Among the meeting guests in other years was Hon. Claude Pepper, U. S. Senator from Florida (Sept. 22, 1941).
Archie Shuford, operator of Whiting Hosiery Mill, was elected district governor for the 1963-64 year, becoming the third member of the Hickory club to serve in that capacity. At the time, District No. 767 was comprised of 41clubs stretching from Hickory, Statesville and Charlotte west to the Tennessee state line. During the year, the Hickory club inducted its 100th member.
The Club celebrated its 50th anniversary in 1970-71 by initiating the development of the 19-acre Rotary Park and exploring the potential for organizing a second Rotary club in Hickory. It also moved from its Hotel Hickory meeting place - first to Lenoir-Rhyne College, then to the Holiday Inn and finally to Mom & Pops Restaurant, trucking a piano to some meetings. Later, in 1993, the meeting place was moved to Lake Hickory Country Club.
Following delays caused by problems in defining territories, the Hickory East Rotary Club (later renamed Lake Hickory Rotary Club) was organized in 1973 under the sponsorship of the Hickory club. The event increased the number of area clubs organized by Hickory to seven.
In 1982, the Club joined hands with the City of Hickory to develop a second park - a 60-acre natural-area park near Lake Hickory. The development of the park, later named for Rotarian and City Alderman Glenn Hilton, included construction of picnic shelters, a children's playground, and four trails. The project was recognized in 1984 as the best project in the Rotary district. The Club also received that year a district Presidential Citation Award for its success in adding 15 new members, increasing the membership to 187.
In 1987-88, the Club initiated Rotary Unlimited, an auction of contributed items designed to raise funds for scholarships and other club projects. The following year, it inaugurated the Christmas Project, including the contribution of food and Christmas trees to needy families and a Rotarian-guided shopping spree for needy children.
In 1994, the Club instituted the practice of closing each meeting with an affirmation of the Four-Way Test. Prior to that, the meetings adjourned without a recitation, although in the very early years, the meetings closed with the repeating of the motto, "He profits most who serves best." The Club also published its first pictorial directory of the membership in more than 20 years. In other procedural changes, the Club in 1991 renewed the wearing of nametags and altered the process of nominating members of the Board of Directors.
In 1995, the Club-sponsored Interact Club at Hickory High School, which had become one of the largest in the Rotary district, was recognized as the most outstanding in the district.
Throughout its history, the Club has made annual gifts to charitable organizations and interests. The club's giving philosophy locally is focused on education: Service Above Self Scholarships, Wilmer Jenkins Teacher of the Year, Southwest Elementary School, Hickory Museum of Art, Catawba County Council for Adolescents, Catawba Valley Community College, City of Hickory Glenn Hilton Park, Family Guidance Center, Adult Life Program, Family Care Center, and Salvation Army Boys and Girls Club.
Over the years, the Hickory Rotary Club has grown from 18 to 185 members. Its early focus on the local organization has broadened to embrace the district. Its benevolent concerns have shifted from the agrarian to the urban community and expanded beyond the city limits to attend to international needs. But, through the changes, the Club has maintained its basic commitment to service. And, as it looks to the future, it acknowledges that its continued effectiveness rests on its renewed dedication to the object of Rotary: "to encourage and foster the ideal of service as a basis of worthy enterprise."