Believing that a club should be created to serve the Brookwood (now Midtown) area, Frederick Storey gathered 4 friends, Dr. John H. Ridley, Rufus H. Carswell, Bill Finch, and Lawrence deGives on April 24, 1956, to assist in its creation. On May 24, 1956, 25 charter members were inducted into The Brookwood Rotary Club at the Piedmont Driving Club. Ivan Allen, Sr., a founder of the Rotary Club of Atlanta, regaled the gathering with his recollections of Rotary in Atlanta.

Frederick G. Storey, President of Storey Theaters, the largest locally owned chain of cinemas, was installed as first President of The Brookwood Rotary Club. During World War II Mr. Storey amassed a distinguished military record as the captain of a destroyer escort engaged in many of the major naval battles of the South Pacific. His immediate successor as president was Dr. John Ridley, a leading obstetrician and gynecologist. He started the long-standing tradition that our Rotary club does not sing!

Our club changed its name to Brookwood Midtown Rotary in 1985-86, and finally to Midtown Atlanta Rotary in 1995-96.

Rotary divides Georgia into three districts: 6900, 6910, and 6920. We are District 6900, which includes 71 clubs in the western part of the state with 4,830 members. Rotary International has grown to over 29,000 clubs with 1.2 million Rotarians in over 161 countries.

The name "Rotary" was coined from the initial practice of rotating venues weekly between the offices of various members. At times in our own club's history, we seemed nearly as nomadic as Rotary's first club in Chicago. We met initially at Remond's Restaurant on Peachtree Street between 10th and 11th Streets, we shifted to the Tikki Club in 1958. The Tikki was located across Peachtree Road from Piedmont Hospital, and was later called The Racquet Club. After it closed in 1970 we shifted our banner to Sheraton-Atlanta on Spring Street near North Avenue. When parking became more expensive than the meals, we tried brief stints at the Peachtree Plaza Hotel, the Squire Inn, and other eateries.

In 1972, we settled at Swain's Steak House on Peachtree Park Drive. After a fire destroyed Swain's in 1980, a substitute was difficult to find. The Brass Rail proved so crowded that, when Cecil Malone arrived late on one occasion, he was sent packing for lack of a seat. As the chefs at Benihana whirled their huge knives about, our members wagered on how many fingers would land in the food. No wonder that we soon lost our zest for Asian cuisine! Swain's reopened only briefly in 1981 before closing permanently.

Ever since then we have regarded the Ansley Golf Club as our permanent home. Although we diverted to The Druid Hills Country Club for a year when Ansley razed its old clubhouse, we resumed our residence in this gorgeous new Ansley Club in December 1999.

Our membership has grown more inclusive over time. Our club's early members were referred to alternately as either the "Society Group" or the "Lace-Curtain Boys". White dinner jackets were required for formal dinners, with members being differentiated from guests by string ties fastened with an emblem of Rotary.

In 1989 Rotary International altered its rules to allow the admission of women. In that same year, Clare Whitman was admitted as our club's first female member. We now count 14 females among our 86 members. Sharon Moore was elected our first woman president in 2001-2002.

Other rules also changed. Strict geographical guidelines once determined the club to which an applicant could apply. An exception was only granted if the club located nearest an applicant's address would grant a waiver. This rule was removed several years ago.

Our club's earliest support of our community was solely financial. Beneficiaries of our contributions have included such non-profit institutions as The Atlanta Speech School; The Sheltering Arms Children's Home; The Salvation Army Summer Camp for Boys; Straight, Inc.; The Buckhead Little League; The Fernbank Science Center; The Atlanta Food Bank; The Bridge; and various literacy projects.

To provide an ongoing source of funding for our local community President Gary Zweifel and the Board of Directors established The Midtown Atlanta Rotary Foundation. Frederick Storey made a significant contribution to the Foundation to kick off our campaign to raise funds. Today when you contribute $1000 to the Midtown Atlanta Rotary Foundation, you become a Fred Storey Fellow.

In recent years our programs of community service have increasingly been characterized by hands-on involvement. We served as judges for programs of The Boy Scouts, collected clothing for Goodwill Industries and the Salvation Army and Judge Doris Downs' Drug Court, stretched our legs in the 10K Hunger Walk, assisted in the 1996 Olympics, golfed in a charitable tournament for the Tommy Nobis Center, manned booths at the Lady Tara Golf Tournament to benefit Georgia's Special Olympics, raised $85,200 for the "I Have a Dream" project through special showings of films at the Fox Theatre, constructed houses for Habitat for Humanity, provided weekly counseling to runaways at the Salvation Army's Girls Lodge, and planted shrubs at sites selected by Hands-On Atlanta and the Southeastern Flower Show, and contributed old computer equipment to Reboot Atlanta.

Midtown Atlanta Rotary has also extended a helping hand internationally. Dr. Jim Funk, beginning in 1956, and later Dr. Skoot Dimon have each donated 7-10 days annually to staff the Hospital Albert Schweitzer of Haiti. In their support, our club has funded hospital beds, the drilling of wells for potable water, and folate supplements to prevent birth defects. We helped establish a medical lab in Russia and a clinic in South Africa. Our club has not only provided significant $12,000 in the last 4 years for The Rotary Foundation's Polio Plus campaign to eliminate polio, but has also supplied computers for Zimbabwe's Polio Plus Campaign. Janet Cagnazzo as International Director through great persistance arranged for shipments of household items to be shipped to the Ain Karem Home for Handicapped Children in Jerusalem. We continue to work with many of these projects and have included the Rotoract Club at Morehouse College to help us with them as well as a new project in Nigeria with an orphanage.

We extended hospitality to an array of foreign students and visitors over our club's history. Beginning in the second year of our club we either hosted or co-hosted at least one foreign student annually for a year of collegiate study in Georgia through the Georgia Rotary Student Program. One year we hosted two! No other Rotary clubs outside the state of Georgia have such a program. Sara Almqvist from Sweden is our current student at Oglethorpe University. We have sponsored students from Hungary, Germany, Kenya, Nigeria, Iceland, Russia, and Australia in most recent years.

Through Rotary Family Exchange, members of Midtown Atlanta have swapped visits with clubs in Germany twice, Scotland twice, and Brazil once. Rotary International Ambassadorial Scholarships are awarded to young people to continue their education in other countries to learn about them and to create goodwill and understanding. We sponsored Katie Mason for a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholarship to study for her master's degree in International Relations in Senegal and Elena Fiekowski, who will be going abroad in August to work on her master's degree in International Development.

Midtown Atlanta Rotary has received Best Club Awards, District Governor Citations, and Presidential Citations. True to Rotary's motto of "Service Above Self", our efforts have lent a helping hand to scores of institutions and a multitude of individuals; nevertheless, having been enriched by the lasting friendships, fond memories, and enjoyment that Rotary fosters, we must confess to having benefited no less ourselves.

One of our first programs to be recognized as the best in District 6900 taught business to high school students. A perennially popular vocational service program is our annual event in February to honor STAR students and their teachers. When these gifted students rise to offer their invariably candid plans for the future and their explanations of how they chose their favorite teacher, they often bring down the house! Another eagerly anticipated program honors the year's most outstanding acts of heroism by a local policeman and a fireman. The valor of these exemplary public servants is too often overlooked.

In honor of Rotary's Centennial Year last year each club was asked to create a Centennial Project. Our project is designed to beautify Midtown and to provide a lasting memento of Rotary in Midtown. We worked with the Midtown Business Alliance and MARTA to select the plaza between the Midtown MARTA Station and the Woodruff Arts Center as the location for our project. We asked the Atlanta College of Art to design and pour a brass plate to be installed in the plaza and we have raised the money for the installation. Now all we have to do is get it installed!

Such is the history of our club from 1956 to 2006. 50 years! I salute our current and past members and the leadership they have shown to our community, state and the world.

PDF Past Presidents thru 2009 PDF Thumbnail of Past Presidents First Row: 1. John Wyle  2. Bill Schneiderwind  3. Cy Malone  4. Marcus Cook 5. Tom Robinson  6. Hulett Sumlin  7. Richard Jennings  8. Bill Riley   Second Row: 1. Cecil Malone  2. Myron Martin  3. Len Borg  4. Richard Childers  5. Phil Corwin  6. Gary Zweifel  7. Sandy Murray  8. Steve Andrews  9. Coile Estes  10. Don Comstock