Rotarians, Tompkins Celebrate a Milestone: Brandon South Turns 20

Betty Jo Tompkins was not at a loss for words in describing her 20-year affiliation with the Rotary Club of Brandon South.

As the club’s last remaining charter member, Tompkins was asked to speak at the club’s celebration luncheon Nov. 30.

And she spoke proudly.

At the Buckhorn Springs Golf & Country Club, where the group meets weekly for lunch, Tompkins said her first reaction to the club’s formation was simple: “Thank God there’s a club that takes women!”

That wasn’t always the case for all Rotary clubs, but it is now, with three clubs serving the Greater Brandon area: the FishHawk/Riverview Rotary Club, the Brandon ’86 Rotary Club and the granddaddy of them all, the Rotary Club of Brandon, which recently celebrated its 50th anniversary.

Representing that oldest club in Brandon, Alan Feldman, who serves this year as well as Rotary district governor, was on hand to congratulate the South Brandon Rotary club for its two-decade achievement.

Representation from each of the other clubs was in attendance as well as Tompkins spoke about her journey as a Rotarian, and what the club has come to mean to all Rotarians.

She started with a note of history, of attorney Paul Harris, who in 1905 in Chicago “got together his friends to start an organization.”

“That club, started by one man and his friends, has grown into one of the largest organizations of its kind in the world,” Tompkins said, noting that the group’s first orders of business were to “buy a horse for a local doctor so he could visit patients in the countryside and to get public restrooms in downtown Chicago.”

Along with the 4-H Club, founded in 1903, for which Tompkins has achieved state prominence as a 4-H Florida Hall of Fame inductee, the Rotary Club at its inception represented “a whole new concept of service about self,” Tompkins said, “to do volunteer work, to do good and to work with people.”

It was, Tompkins said, “A whole new concept of service above self.”

Honorary Mayor of Brandon Cami Gibertini was on hand to give the club a proclamation of its achievements.

"As I look in this crowd, you guys are definitely overachievers and I know that Brandnon's only going to continue to benefit off the leadership of your club," she said.

In declaring Nov. 30, 2011 as "Brandon South Rotary Day," Gibertini noted some of the group's achievements: that it welcomed women as members since its inception, was noted as a Paul Harris sustaining member club, earned a best small club distinction in Rotary District 6890 and contributed to local groups, including the YMCA, the Emergency Care Help Organization (ECHO) and the Center Place Fine Arts & Civic Association.

Tompkins, as a former district governor and historian, noted as well Rotary’s role in the establishment of the United Nations.

She noted, too, that for Rotarians, the Rotary Foundation “is Rotary’s soul, funding programs, projects and activities make ours a better world.”

Whether its “feeding the hungry or providing housing, clothing or medical care,” she said, "we’re touching people every minute, every hour, every day, every week, every month, every year.”

As for the Rotary Club of Brandon South, Tompkins noted that in 1991 it launched “with as many men in the club as women.”

Over the years, the club grew to 25 members, then down to just four, “but those four people kept working,” Tompkins said. “We didn’t give up.”

“We were so small we could even meet in a car,” she said. “And we did that one time.”

Best known for its mission to eradicate polio worldwide, each club contributes to the overall work of Rotary, and in that regard the Brandon South Rotary club holds annual fundraisers, including its .

As for the group’s future, it’s a no-brainer in Tompkins’ mind’s eye.

As she put it: “We’re 20 years down and we’ve got many, many more to go.”