Duluth Skyline Rotary is a member of Rotary District 5580
Skyline Rotary Meets weekly on Fridays at 12:00 PM.
We will be meeting both virtually using Zoom and/or in person at the Duluth YMCA:

Duluth YMCA: 4289 Ugstad Rd. Hermantown, MN 55811 - Driving Directions
 

Earl loved Judy and Earl loved Rotary. In Earl’s last three years when his health was fading Judy brought Earl to Rotary meetings. It combined the two things that he loved the most.  

Thank you, Judy, for doing the work to share Earl with us these last years.

I see so many familiar faces of Rotarians, but there may be some of you who knew Earl outside of Rotary so I will give a very short explanation of what Rotary is. Rotary is a worldwide organization committed to community service and building friendships. That is what Earl was about, and that is why he was such a committed Rotarian.

Earl was a 50-year Rotarian. I shared the last 30 years with him as a member of “His Club” the Duluth Skyline Rotary Club. Some of you here today shared more of Earl’s 50 Rotary years than I did.  Skyline was Earl’s Club. Over his 50 years he felt ownership of the Club because he helped to Charter the Club in 1972 and was its first President and then its proudest and strongest supporter. As the owner of a business on the “top of the hill” he was a great candidate to grow Rotary in an already strong Duluth Rotary community with a tremendous heritage having the 25th Rotary Club chartered in the world. It would take one of the Charter members of Skyline Club to speak about those heady early years because I had just graduated from high school in Skyline’s first year. With Earl at its helm his Club set and met some amazing goals. One of which was to become one of the few all Paul Harris Fellow Member Clubs in the world.

Earl was a “World” Rotarian. His world travels through his Air Force service and then through his travel business gave him a much bigger world view than most people or Rotarians would have. He was a man ahead of his time in a world that was about to become much smaller. That is one of the reasons that he joined, believed so strongly in, and acted on the good that a worldwide service organization like Rotary could achieve. He traveled the world attending International Rotary conventions, working on service projects, and visiting exchange and scholarship students and other Rotarians who he and Judy had hosted while they were in Duluth.  Earl was passionate about supporting the Rotary Foundation that provides the funds to help people through service projects around the world. His was an amazingly full life of caring and giving on a world scale.

Earl also cared and gave back through Rotary on a local scale. In 1988-1989 Earl was the District Governor for District 5580. It was a huge honor and a huge commitment to visit each of the 64 Clubs across North Dakota, northern Minnesota, and Ontario during his year as District Governor. At the District level also was one of Earl’s proudest achievements. Earl loved mentoring and helping young people, and he was able to help accomplish that as the first leader of a program called Rotary Youth Leadership Award. The program provides a life changing experience for the high school students who attend for a week. They come back with an incredible enthusiasm for their newfound leadership skills that will help their schools and will prepare them for future leadership roles in their communities. Earl eyes would light up whenever he spoke about RYLA. He loved the kids and he loved what Rotary was doing to help them to have a better future and to make a better future in our communities.

Last week on Friday our Club spoke about our personal remembrances of Earl. Everyone had a story to tell about how Earl had welcomed them, helped them with their travels, helped their children with Rotary scholarships, or mentored them. Earl touched so many lives with his kindness and caring.  

Earl could be quite passionate about Rotary, and sometimes I believe the appropriate word was, “insistent”.  He was very proud of his approaching 50^th year as a Rotarian, and he wanted to be sure that he received his “50 years of perfect attendance pin”. I’m so glad that we made that happen for him, but there is some irony behind Earl’s pin. The first irony is that his Club and most Clubs stopped officially tracking attendance several years ago. The second irony is that Earl regularly attended three Rotary meetings per week so he really should have received a 150-year perfect attendance pin which for obvious reasons isn’t available. Earl could be insistent.     

Rest in peace Earl. Your Rotary work is done. There is a next generation who you have mentored who will care for and about your beloved Rotary just as you did for 50 years.

“The Joy of brightening other lives, bearing each other's burdens, easing each other's loads and supplanting empty hearts and lives with generous gifts becomes for us the magic of the holidays."

W. C. Jones