Prince Frederick, MD – One of Calvert County’s stalwart service organizations marked 50 years of existence Saturday, Nov. 8 with a celebration at the Prince Frederick Elks Club. The Rotary Club of Prince Frederick was started in 1964. Despite a dramatic drop in membership a half-dozen years after its founding, the local club endured and in many ways reinvented itself along the way.

“Don’t put away your creativity,” Rotary 7026 District Governor Bill Fine told celebration attendees. “We are going to light up Rotary this year.”

A synopsis of the Rotary Club of Prince Frederick’s history was offered by one of the local group’s past presidents, Mike Hammond. During its history the club has made a difference locally and globally.

In 1964 club members faced members of the Calvert High School faculty in a basketball game for the purpose of raising funds for a vocational scholarship. The event raised $500, Hammond recalled. There would be other fundraisers and drives to follow. The club’s familiar food trailer began traveling to local events in 1978. The local Rotarians subsequently began hosting foreign visitors and also became advocates for a cleaner local environment.

In the mid-1980s, Rotary International started its work to help eradicate polio throughout the world. At the time there were an estimated 350,000 cases of polio per year. Today the number is down to 400. “We’re not going to quit, we think we are going to get there,” said Hammond.

Other causes benefitting from the help of the local Rotarians included Safe Harbor, Project Echo and the effort to develop King Memorial Park in Prince Frederick. The club also awards scholarships to deserving area students.

There is also the annual distribution of dictionaries to local third-graders. This year the local club members, led by former Calvert County Superintendent of Schools and current board of education president Eugene Karol, distributed the dictionaries to each of the county’s 12 public elementary schools and the third-grade class at Our Lady Star of the Sea School in Solomons.

During the distribution visit to Calvert Elementary School (CES) Wednesday, Nov. 5, Karol told the third-graders about the club’s accomplishments in eradicating polio, a once-dreaded childhood scourge in the U.S. that most of the students were likely unaware of. He also explained the international organization’s ongoing project of helping nations in Africa provide clean water for its citizens.

Karol asked the students to look up the word “beneficial,” a key to the Rotary’s “Four-Way Test,” a task the large group accomplished quickly.

“It’s a very good resource,” said CES Principal Kim Harris of “A Student’s Dictionary,” which includes word definitions and a variety of other information.

“You are all Rotarians at heart,” Club President Philip Campbell told the guests attending the Nov. 9 celebration. The guests included former state Senator Bernie Fowler, upon whom the local club bestowed the honor of “Paul Harris Fellow” in the late 1980s for his work on the environment and the fight against drugs in Calvert.

“You are doing the Lord’s work here on Earth,” Maryland Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. told the Rotarians, as he presented the club with a proclamation from the General Assembly’s upper chamber

Proclamations were also received from the office of Maryland Congressman Steny Hoyer, the Maryland House of Delegates and the Calvert County Commissioners. The latter proclamation was presented by a past Rotarian, Commissioner Susan Shaw, who commended the club members for their persistence in reaching goals. The document proclaimed Nov. 8 “Rotary Day in Calvert County.”

Shaw was one of two speakers to reference the Rotary’s Four Way Test—“Of all the things we think, say or do, Is it the truth? Is it fair to all concerned? Will it build good will and better friendships? Will it be beneficial to all concerned?” The commissioner noted that during her 12 years on the board she has kept her Rotary Club coffee cup with the Four Way Test at her spot on the dais “to remind me why I’m here.”

The second reference was made by Dr. Kelton Clark, director of Morgan State University’s St. Leonard-based Patuxent Environmental and Aquatic Research Laboratory. Clark, who was one of three individuals honored as a Paul Harris Fellow during the anniversary celebration, recalled being approached by local Rotarian Stovy Brown about the lab participating in an oyster cultivation project. When he was told about the club’s Four Way Test, Clark used it to determine the lab should participate and also involve the Maryland Department of Natural Resources and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. “Southern Maryland has more aquaculture in the state thanks to that Four Way Test,” said Clark.

In addition to Clark, William Gelatka and Anna Price were also named Paul Harris Fellows.

The event’s dinner was provided by Hardesty Haven Catering and music was provided by the Calvert Dance Band.

Contact Marty Madden at marty.madden@thebaynet.com