Ready for another Ruritan club

By NATE HUBBARD/Staff

It’s a call to service.
Local Ruritan Club leaders have scheduled a 7 p.m. meeting for Jan. 7, 2010, at the American Legion building in Rural Retreat in the hopes of establishing a club for the western end of the county.
“We just felt like there was a need for it,” said Susan Lilly, governor for the Ruritan New River District and president of the Wytheville Ladies Ruritan Club, “… so they can be focused on that area.”
Lilly and Jimmy Melton, a member of the Lead Mines Ruritan Club, brought their idea to Rural Retreat Town Council last month and received a thumbs-up.
If a Rural Retreat club forms it will be the county’s sixth Ruritan chapter, joining the Wytheville Ladies, Lead Mines, Max Meadows, Piney and Pioneer clubs.
The Pioneer Ruritan Club is also a recent addition, having just formed in November 2008.
Lilly said it takes 16 members to start a new chapter.
The planned Rural Retreat club will actually be a reincarnation as opposed to a new endeavor. A Rural Retreat Ruritan chapter was active for a few years in the early 1990s before interest dwindled, Lilly said.
The idea for restarting a Rural Retreat club began about a year ago, Lilly said, and was actually the brainchild of Daniel Dean, her predecessor as district governor.
When Lilly moved into the governorship from her lieutenant governor position upon Dean’s death in July, she said she committed herself to seeing Dean’s plans for Rural Retreat come to fruition.
“This is something that he wanted to do and I wanted to carry out,” she said.
Dean, a Max Meadows resident, also helped found the Pioneer Club and was serving as the group’s treasurer before his death.
Lilly said she feels like Rural Retreat residents both want and need the presence of a Ruritan Club.
While she said the Wytheville Ladies Ruritans try to assist people in need in the western part of the county, she said it’s often difficult to know who needs help when you’re not living in the community.
“We just feel that there’s so many needs … that we don’t know about,” she said.
The Ruritan organization began in 1928 and, according to its national Web site, now boasts 32,000 members in chapters around the country.
The group’s slogan is “Fellowship, Goodwill and Community Service” and Lilly said each chapter is dedicated to improving its local community.
“It’s people helping people,” she said. “All of the money we raise, it all stays right here.”
Along with helping needy families, Ruritan clubs also raise funds for scholarships and make donations to schools, rescue squads and community projects.
Lilly said she hopes the addition of a Rural Retreat chapter will add to the good work already being done by Wythe County Ruritans.
“It will just be that much more resources to help the people in the county,” she said.
“We love what we do.”
Nate Hubbard can be reached at 228-6611 or .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).