Waynesville Rotary turns 100: Local service, global impact
The Wayneville Rotary club's logo features a caricature of a mountaineer. Waynesville Rotary photo
Few volunteer service organizations can claim a century of community engagement alongside world-changing influence, but as Waynesville’s Rotary club rolls into its second century, its leaders are looking to bolster the personal, professional and philosophical ties that have brought the organization to where it is today.
“It’s kind of exciting where we think we’ve come so far that 100 years from now, they’re going to think that we were ancient and we didn’t know what we were doing and that it’s going to be so much more advanced at that point,” said Bronwen Talley-Coffee, current president of the Waynesville Rotary club.
Rotary was established in 1905 by Chicago attorney Paul Harris, who was looking for a way to turn his professional relationships into a wider network of personal friendships dedicated to fellowship, goodwill and community service. Originally named for its practice of rotating meetings among members’ offices, Rotary quickly grew beyond Chicago.
In 1908, the second Rotary club was founded in San Francisco and by 1910, there were 16 Rotary clubs across the nation. To manage the growth, club representatives met that year to form the National Association of Rotary Clubs. Just five years later, Rotary had expanded to 20,000 members in six countries and 200 clubs.
Asheville’s Rotary was one of them; in late 1914 George E. Lee, who worked for the Aetna insurance company, brought eight acquaintances together to discuss forming a club after hearing from a friend about a club in Richmond, Virginia. A month later, at the club’s first organizational meeting, it had already grown to 18 members, and when the application for a charter was submitted that March, it had grown to 42. Around that same time, Rotary’s influence continued to expand by establishing clubs in the United Kingdom, Cuba, the Philippines and India.
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Waynesville Rotarians volunteer on a project for 2024's Day of Caring. Waynesville Rotary photo
A decade later, Haywood County was still rough, rural country well off the beaten path, but that was changing rapidly. Population was less than 25,000 people, with around 2,000 calling Waynesville home. The newly-built Lambuth Inn at Lake Junaluska beckoned visitors with its electric cross, Bell Telephone had begun connecting customers, the now-Historic Haywood Hospital was just a year old, Waynesville Country Club was about to be formed and the first conversations about establishing a national park in the Great Smoky Mountains were taking shape.
It was in that moment that a group of Haywood County businessmen decided to apply to the National Association of Rotary Clubs, now called Rotary International, to form the first Rotary club west of Asheville. The Asheville club sponsored Waynesville’s application. Waynesville’s charter was issued on Feb. 21, 1925, and presented to the group on March 7 by the Rotary district’s governor G. Heyward Mahon of Greenville, South Carolina.
In attendance that day at the First United Methodist Church in Waynesville was the club’s first president, FUMC’s Rev. J. Thomas Mangum, along with founding officers Samuel H. Bushnell, a grocer, Ernest L. Withers, a real estate and insurance salesman, Hilliard B. Atkins, who was in banking and insurance and W.A. Coble, a jeweler. The board of directors consisted of clothier Theo McCracken, attorney J. Hardin Howell and Hazelwood merchant J.M. Long.
Rotary has amassed a substantial collection of archives. Waynesville Rotary photo
A Feb. 26, 1925, brief in the The Carolina Mountaineer and Waynesville Courier that described the meeting says that “The local club is comprised of 25 of the leading and professional men of Waynesville, and by virtue of the standards of its ideals will no doubt soon become a vital factor in the life of our community.
The list of charter members of the Waynesville club read like a who’s who of prominent residents whose names remain familiar even today — Hyatt, Killian, Medford, Plott and Stringfield, among others.
The International’s rapid expansion was briefly disrupted during World War II, particularly in Nazi-occupied Europe, where Rotary was banned or forced to align with the ruling regimes. In Germany, members were pressured to exclude Jewish members and clubs across multiple European nations, including Austria, Italy, Poland and Spain, were disbanded.
Despite these challenges, Rotary played a key role in post-war rebuilding and humanitarian efforts. It worked closely with the United Nations from its founding in 1945, promoting peace and diplomacy. Rotary also grew significantly in Africa and Asia, integrating into newly independent nations. During the Cold War, Rotary was banned in Eastern Bloc countries but returned after the fall of the Soviet Union, with Moscow establishing its first club in 1990.
Today, Rotary International has expanded into a global network of some 46,000 clubs, with 1.4 million members operating in more than 200 countries and regions, all helping to maintain its status as a leading service organization. While membership numbers have fluctuated, Rotary continues to be a major force for humanitarian work.
Rotarian and Positively Haywood publisher Mike McLean headed up Waynesville Rotary's centennial history research. Waynesville Rotary photo
“When you really research the history of Paul Harris and his thoughts about not just doing business, but also having the friendship and the social atmosphere among the people you work with and see every day, that’s really what we’re trying to achieve, from a historical viewpoint, to continue that vision,” said Mike McLean, a Waynesville Rotarian and head of the club’s history team. “I think that’s a big part of it — the continuation of something that has been so successful.”
Perhaps Rotary’s most significant and successful initiative is the PolioPlus program, launched in 1985 with a $120 million pledge. The program aimed to eradicate polio through global immunization efforts. During the 1950s, polio peaked in the United States with more than 57,000 cases. After the introduction of a vaccine in the 1960s, the number of cases steadily dropped to near zero in most of the world. The last case in the western hemisphere was reported in 2000 and by 2011, Rotary International had contributed nearly $1 billion toward the cause, playing a crucial role in reducing polio cases worldwide. Only four cases were reported in 2020, and polio today remains endemic in only two nations, Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Throughout the 20th century, Waynesville’s Rotary club had worked to establish its own legacy of service that would define the club’s central role in a growing community.
Waynesville Rotary held its first charity golf tournament in 1934, began support of Haywood Vocational Opportunities in 1972, sponsored an offshoot club, the Haywood Rotary Club, in 1979, and then another, the Sunrise Rotary Club, in 1987. Along the way, Waynesville’s Rotary began collecting and distributing Christmas baskets for the needy, launched its annual blanket drive and started delivering weekly backpacks of food for schoolchildren.
Club members can be found volunteering in familiar places around the county. Waynesville Rotary photo
Today, Waynesville Rotary members can be found helping organizations like the Haywood Pathways Center and Habitat for Humanity or ringing bells for the Salvation Army at Christmastime. Recently, Waynesville Rotary participated in the downtown chili cook-off and revived their annual poor man’s supper, an event open to all regardless of ability to pay.
Although the club will hold a 100th anniversary gala on April 5, the club’s major centennial project is the installation of a “peace pole.” Inspired by a Rotary International initiative to promote peace, the 8-foot steel structure will be a permanent symbol of the club’s commitment to community service.
Waynesville Rotary President Bronwen Waynesville Rotary President Bronwen Talley-Coffey speaks to her group (above) during a meeting at Laurel Ridge Country Club on Feb. 28. Cory Vaillancourt photo
“I think they’re going to laser cut it and put lights inside of it,” Talley-Coffey said. “It will be on the art walk that Haywood Community College is doing, near their rhododendron garden. That is our gift and our service project this year, for our centennial. It’s a big project but it’s going to be absolutely beautiful. It is our relationship with Haywood Community College, and they’re celebrating their 60th year this year, that is how this has come about.”
Rotary’s impact extends beyond service projects. The club’s weekly luncheons feature guest speakers from various community organizations, providing a platform for dialogue and connection.
Rotary International’s guiding principles are encapsulated in the four-way test, a set of ethical questions recited at every meeting, that should be contemplated before thinking, saying or doing anything — Is it the truth? Is it fair to all concerned? Will it build goodwill and better friendships? Will it be beneficial to all concerned?
“Those four questions apply to everything in life, and when you’re in any difficult situation, if you have somebody trying to convince you of something, if you just go through those four questions it pretty much gives you the direction you need as a human being,” McLean said. “Rotarians are humanitarians in many ways, and I think those four questions get right to the heart of it. If you pass the four-way test, you feel pretty safe with what you’re engaging with or who you’re working with.”
Rotarians have established a legacy of public service. Waynesville Rotary photo
Historically, Rotary had been a male-dominated organization that didn’t allow women to join as members, because most women didn’t have professional careers outside the home. In 1991, that all changed. Waynesville’s Rotary has seen a significant shift since women were formally allowed to join and today boasts a strong record of female leadership. Talley-Coffee is the sixth female president since Kay Dossey broke the glass ceiling in 2001 and follows Patsy Rogers, Dr. Lynne Barrett, June Ray, Karen Denney and Tiffani Watts in the role.
“I don’t want to say that we’re actively recruiting women. We’re actively recruiting people that would be Rotarians at heart, however we want young women, professional women, to feel like this is a place that they can join, and they’ll get as much out of it being a Rotarian as we get having them,” Talley-Coffee said.
Shelly White, seventh president of Haywood Community College, will become Waynesville Rotary’s 101st president on July 1.
The club has also adapted to changing membership trends, focusing on engaging younger generations who prefer hands-on service over formal club meetings. Today’s membership rolls are down from historic highs around 150, but in an age where volunteerism and community engagement are down overall, their 70-person roster is still impressive. A membership drive will begin on March 28, but as Waynesville Rotary looks to its next century, McLean hopes its mission of service and fellowship will endure.
“I guess I would like people 100 years from now to view us as a continuation of what happened 100 years ago and that we not only kept it alive and kept going,” McLean said, “but that we actually found a way to grow it.”
For more information on Waynesville Rotary or to become a member, visit waynesvillerotary.com.
