Wel­come Pres­i­dent Jim Rochford to our upcom­ing meet­ing 8:30 PM EDT.

A Lit­tle bit about Jim:

James “Jim” Rochford served as pres­i­dent of the board of trustees of Kiwa­nis Inter­na­tion­al from Octo­ber 1, 2017, to Sep­tem­ber 30, 2018, and imme­di­ate past pres­i­dent from Octo­ber 1, 2018, to Sep­tem­ber 30, 2019. Due to the untime­ly death of 2018–19 Pres­i­dent Flo­ren­cio C. “Poly” Lat, Rochford was appoint­ed to the 2019–20 Kiwa­nis Inter­na­tion­al Board as imme­di­ate past president.

Rochford was elect­ed to the one-year term as pres­i­dent of Kiwa­nis Inter­na­tion­al dur­ing the 102nd Annu­al Kiwa­nis Inter­na­tion­al Con­ven­tion in Paris. He has been a mem­ber of the Kiwa­nis Club of Peo­ria, Illi­nois, for 36 years, where he has served as club pres­i­dent. Dur­ing his time with Kiwa­nis, he has per­son­al­ly invit­ed 1,500 new mem­bers to the ser­vice club and has opened 105 new Kiwa­nis clubs.

Kiwa­nis Inter­na­tion­al is a glob­al ser­vice orga­ni­za­tion with more than 700,000 mem­bers, all ded­i­cat­ed to help­ing chil­dren in their com­mu­ni­ties and in com­mu­ni­ties around the world. Kiwa­nis clubs spon­sor youth lead­er­ship pro­grams for stu­dents in ele­men­tary, mid­dle and high schools, and at col­leges and uni­ver­si­ties, by giv­ing stu­dents the oppor­tu­ni­ty to learn valu­able lead­er­ship skills while per­form­ing vol­un­teer services.

Rochford has served in Kiwa­nis dis­trict lead­er­ship roles and has been an advi­sor for high school Key Clubs and Kiwa­nis uni­ver­si­ty-lev­el Cir­cle K clubs. With­in Kiwa­nis, Rochford is a cer­ti­fied train­er and is a George F. Hix­son and a Wal­ter Zeller fellow.

Out­side of Kiwa­nis, Rochford has been Tri-Coun­ty Cit­i­zen of the Year, has received the JC Penney/Golden Rule Award and is a past pres­i­dent of the Peo­ria Jaycees. He is founder and pres­i­dent of the Peo­ria Irish AAU bas­ket­ball program.

Rochford, an attor­ney, and his wife, Debra, have two daugh­ters, one son and four grandchildren.