Jo Ann Denley recited an unofficial history of the Bruce Rotary Club last week when she shared a collection of memories from her near 30 years in the organization.
“A court case in California in 1988 allowed women to become Rotarians for the first time,” Denley said. “I came in under the presidency of Bill Ross with Mr. Benford Doler’s invitation.”
“Word spread fast to the other end of the county that the gender barrier had been broken in Bruce Rotary. I attended my first Bruce Rotary meeting on a Wednesday. That Friday night, I was in Calhoun City to take pictures of the Wildcats for The Journal. At the concession stand I was greeted by Hal Reese and Paul Moore, Jr., who said, ‘Service above self.’”
Denley answered with the rest of the Rotary motto, “He profits most who serves best.”
Jo Ann Denley
Reese and Moore then joked with Denley that, “We’ll never let women in Rotary in Calhoun City.”
“Your reason for that is what?” Denley asked. “They said because then they couldn’t spit on the floor and curse.”
Shortly after, Martha Martin and Debbie Dunn followed Denley as members in Bruce Rotary.
Denley also recalled the days that the weekly meeting started with more than just a prayer and the Pledge of Allegiance.
“We used to sing songs – corny little Rotary songs from a special book. Once when Gerald Turner was chancellor of Ole Miss, he spoke to us and we did the whole bit – the prayer, the pledge and the song. After the meal, Chancellor Turner stood up and said to the club, ‘That was the most God-awful singing I have ever heard in my life.’ The singing went away after that.”
Denley has always been an advocate for Rotary’s mission to rid the world of polio.
“Early on in Bill Ross’ presidency we received word from the district that we were to raise $5,000 for a new project – PolioPlus that would rid the world of the disease by 2005, when the Rotary Foundation was 100 years old. It is now 2016 and we still aren’t quite there. They gave us three years. It didn’t matter how much money or time. We were barely keeping our heads above water financially,” Denley said of the club.
Debbie Dunn said she had seen an ad in the Rotarian magazine to order cookbooks to sell with Rotarians’ wives recipes.
“We went for it and I think that’s the point in which Jr. Easley wondered why Bruce had women in Rotary,” Denley laughed.
“The cookbooks came in December and every Rotary wife, sister and mother got a cookbook for Christmas, but the books were terrible for Southern cooks. Regular ingredients had unrecognizable names to us, but Bill Cooper did find a chocolate recipe for ‘Sex in a Pot’ that was memorable.”
Denley recalled the time the Rotary Club decided to adopt a portion of the highway to keep it clean of litter and how that went bad.
“We picked up trash on the right of way for a quarter of a mile. We were provided with brightly colored day glow vests for our safety. A woman who lived on our stretch of the highway called Debbie Dunn at the circuit clerk’s office and said, ‘Honey, I have had a terrible afternoon . Those convicts have been in my yard all afternoon picking up trash.’”
Among the greater accomplishments of the club was the time it provided hundreds of smoke alarms to local residents at no cost.
“Over a five-year period, 16 people here were killed in home fire deaths. I’m a little hazy on the circumstances of the first fire, but we hoped it would never happen again.
“The second fire killed a mother and her two children who lived in a house seven miles west of Bruce. The fire truck got there in nine minutes, but it was too late. The house was pine and went up instantly. We later learned that the mother was pulling her electricity from the neighboring house with a heavy duty extension cord and a space heater was involved. We hoped it would never happen again.
“The third major fire involved a home in the George Chandler subdivision and killed a grandmother and six grandchildren. The firemen couldn’t save any of them for the house had burglar bars on every window and the back door was nailed shut. It was said that a fireman broke the back door down and had one child by the hand, but he died of smoke inhalation before he could be saved.
“My late husband (Gale Denley) wrote this editorial in part, ‘Sixteen deaths is too many. Any is too many. If we fail to take any action, these people will have died in vain. We bought 500 smoke detectors from Rotarian A.D. Spratlin at his cost of $5 each and gave them to whoever said they needed one. Then we ordered 500 more and gave them away. ‘Service above self.’”
Denley recalled a number of interesting programs through the years, including the time she brought Ann King to a meeting as a prospective member. Dr. Willie Wells had the program and he invited a fellow doctor to speak, but unbeknownst to Dr. Wells, halfway through his program he changed subjects and began talking about penile implants.
“My guest put her face on the table all the way through the speech,” Denley said.
Another interesting program was provided by long-time friend Sid Salter.
“We were meeting at the Trojan Inn and I had Sid Salter for my program. I introduced him by telling one of my favorite Sid Salter stories which was, Sid is a long time columnist and his mother was a long time English teacher. And once she said to him, ‘Sid, God gave you such a talent for writing; I wish He had given you the gift of grammar.’ She red ringed every error in his column and mailed it to him as long as she was able. He evidently did not care for me sharing that story and responded this way: ‘Fellow Rotarians, you know Jo Ann and I have a cabin at the Neshoba County Fair and I’ve seen her naked.’”
When Paul Wood came to Bruce with Helena Chemical, he joined Rotary and suggested selling Boston Butts as a fundraiser for he had the cooking equipment. He set up a butt-dusting party after he lined the tables with paper in his garage and provided a curious mixture with which to dust the butts.
“Some of us dusted, some tied and some wrapped them in foil,” Denley said. “While Debbie Dunn was tying, she cut the tip of her vinyl glove and it got cooked with the butts. Paul, Randy Baker and the late Dwight Clark got up in the middle of the night and turned them over. The project ended when Paul went back to Arkansas.”
Denley shared her experience as assistant district governor in Rotary, which was bestowed upon her by Ken Bender of Oxford.
“I was home after having a root canal and was probably under the influence of Tylenol 3 and said yes. He gave me Bruce, Calhoun City, Water Valley, Oxford and Sardis clubs. It was good to have your home club. At Calhoun City, they were impressed when I told them I brought them greetings from the district governor. I loved meeting in Water Valley at the country club and visiting with Snooky Williams and Mr. Paul Parker, who had the longest perfect attendance record of any Rotarian.
“In Oxford, I knew some of the business people and some of the professors. When I got to Sardis, I was greeted by an old newspaper friend, Chris Fletcher, whose family I had also known. Chris cooked the meal for us. I served for two years.”
Denley recalled before she joined the club, a man named Cluff Rhodes lived north of Bruce on a limited income. The club paid for prescription medicine for him and bought him eyeglasses. When he died, he left his home and land to the Bruce Rotary Club and they sold it and bought a CD and used the interest for scholarships for local students.
“I think the finest thing this club has done and does consistently is buy Christmas baskets for the needy, a project that James Wright brought into the club,” Denley said. “Matthew 25:40 – In as much as ye have done it unto the least of these, my brethren ye have done it unto me. Service above self.”