Not so long ago, Rotary Clubs were the purview of men only. It was not until 1989 that the Rotary International Council on Legislation officially agreed to allow women into the club, but the Rotary Club of Murfreesboro, known as the Noon Rotary Club, was way ahead of the curve. In 1988, then Club President Jim Garner asked seven prominent women in the community to become the first female members of the club. They were inducted in July 1988.
“Jim knew that women were going to be accepted into Rotary soon,” remembers Helene Colvin, “so he asked me, Susan Andrews, Barbara Haskew, Andrea Loughry, Elaine Raymer, Margrey Thompson and Sandra Trail to join before it was officially accepted. We were the first female Rotarians in the State of Tennessee.”
According to rotary.org, “The vote followed the decades-long efforts of men and women from all over the Rotary world to allow the admission of women into Rotary clubs, and several close votes at previous Council meetings.”
By June of 1990, there were more than 20,000 female Rotarians, and as of July 2020 that number was over 277,000 or about 23% of total membership.
The fight to allow women to become members of the club began on an international level in 1950 with the proposal to omit the word “men” from the Standard Rotary Club Constitution as proposed by a club in India. It was voted down. While other early proposals to admit women initially came from Asia, United States clubs joined the bandwagon in the 1970s as more females moved into higher levels in major professions.
It actually took a lawsuit brought against Rotary International by a club in California to get the Wheel of Rotary turning in the right direction. The club had been kicked out of the organization in 1978 because they initiated females into their club without permission.
“There are still Rotary Clubs that do not admit women,” said Colvin. “I visited one in Spain. It was all in Spanish and I didn’t understand much, but I ended up sitting next to a graduate of Georgia Tech who was a member and he explained it all to me. The meeting was at night and very formal.”
Colvin went to an all-male Rotary Club meeting in Abu Dhabi, too. One thing she knew she needed to do before going was to contact them in advance to make sure that they would allow her to join the meeting. She said that they were very gracious and made her feel welcome.
Since joining the Rotary Club of Murfreesboro, Colvin also served as the club’s first female president in 1999-2000. Seven other women have taken on the role of president of the club in the last 20 years, including Nancy Smith, Becci Bookner, Beth Smith, Barbara Sutton, Ann Clark, Melissa Cassidy and currently Gloria Bonner. Now women are an integral part of the club’s function.
Women will also be making a big impact at the international level of the organization this year. In July of 2022, Jennifer E. Jones of the Rotary Club of Windsor-Roseland, Ontario, Canada, will become Rotary International’s president for 2022-23 fiscal year. She will be the first female International president in the organization’s 117-year history.
