You Can Matter (May 18, 2018)

You Can Matter Too

Posted by Jim Fitzgerald

The Rotary Club of Marshall Texas is often thought of as an “exclusive Old-Man’s club”. In the beginning that was, in a sense, true, but only when observed from outside. The founders of Rotary International were relatively young businessmen in their forties and fifties, as were most of the founders of the Marshall Rotary club.

Many of them stayed in the club for thirty or forty years and did, indeed, attain the status of “old men”, but young or old, they were all boys at heart, and one of their missions was to see that boys and girls in Marshall had the same chance for a better life as they did.

Six months after being admitted into the Rotary International organization, the club held a Father-And-Son banquet in the Hotel Marshall, the purpose of which was to “learn more about the young men and give them the unusual opportunity of meeting the businessmen on a common plane”.

Sixty Six years later, Bill Moyers, a hometown boy, recounting his childhood memories, he said, as near as I can recall, “I wanted to go to college when I graduated, but I did not have the money, and I didn't know anyone outside of Marshall that I could reach out to, so I turned to the Marshall Rotarians. They told me they cared, and gave me the money I needed for college, but more than that, they said to me, ‘Bill Moyers, you can matter’."

Again, when an unbelievable opportunity opened up a few years later, the Marshall Rotary club sponsored him to study at the University of Edenborough, Scotland for a year, on a Rotary International Scholarship. Thus, Bill with his new wife, Judith, began a life filled with accolades, awards, and successes, beyond belief, and one that was surely an unequivocal confirmation that Bill Moyers did indeed matter. The Marshall Rotary club is proud to count him as one of many whose life has been changed by Rotary during this century of service the Rotary Club of Marshall Texas is now celebrating.

Over the past ninety-eight years, Marshall Rotarians have opened their hearts and pocketbooks in support of thousands of other young people. They said, and still say to each one of them "You Can Matter Too."