Speaker's Corner!

We were excit­ed to get to know three of our mem­bers a lit­tle bit bet­ter. Our Eye of the Tiger e‑club has many accom­plished leaders.

As I write this, Greg Beard is just a few days away from com­plet­ing his term as Kiwa­nis Inter­na­tion­al Trustee from the great Louisiana Mis­sis­sip­pi Ten­nessee Dis­trict. Since his elec­tion at the KI con­ven­tion in Paris, as Greg put it, “These past three years on the Inter­na­tion­al Board have flown by.” Greg con­tin­ues as a mem­ber of the Kiwa­nis Club of Alexan­dria, Louisiana, a club he joined in 1995.

IT Greg’s pro­fes­sion­al life began after grad­u­at­ing from law school in Baton Rouge to now being acclaimed to six more years as a Louisiana Dis­trict Court Judge. He and his wife Lisa, a retired spe­cial edu­ca­tion pre-school teacher and son Tyler look for­ward to con­tin­u­ing to serve those in need.

The Gov­er­nor for Flori­da, 2019/2020, Allen Yer­govich was jug­gling two events dur­ing our club meet­ing but he was able to join us.

Gov­er­nor Allen has been a Kiwan­ian for over 30 years. His ded­i­ca­tion to vol­un­teer­ing and help­ing oth­ers is well known. What we did­n’t know, how­ev­er, was that Allen owned and oper­at­ed a char­ter boat rental and fish­ing excur­sion business. 

When asked what was Allen’s moti­va­tion to run for Gov­er­nor of the sun­ny Flori­da Dis­trict, Allen relat­ed to us that PIT Chuck Gugli­uz­za was respon­si­ble. They went sail­ing off the Tam­pa coast, that was not to include any Kiwa­nis shop talk but once docked, Allen was run­ning. A fish tale indeed! 

Along with his first mate Roger, Allen looks for­ward to con­tin­u­ing to make a difference.

It is hard to imag­ine what is going through Past Inter­na­tion­al Pres­i­dent Jim Rochford’s mind as he fin­ish­es his eighth year on the Inter­na­tion­al Board. Jim did not waste those years as he made an enor­mous impact on the way we build new clubs. Thank­ful­ly, he has trained so many oth­ers along the way as well. Five hun­dred new Kiwa­nis clubs have the Rochford touch.

From Key Club Advi­sor to coach­ing bas­ket­ball to being the Gov­er­nor of the Illi­nois-East­ern Iowa Dis­trict, there isn’t much Jim has­n’t done to help young peo­ple. Jim was excit­ed that his own son has joined him in his crim­i­nal law prac­tice under the watch­ful eye of office man­ag­er and wife, Debra. 

We all know that Jim’s career of mak­ing a dif­fer­ence for oth­ers is far from over as is his pen­chant for laugh­ing at his own “puny jokes”… The jury is still out on that.

Thank you to all three speak­ers at today’s meet­ing for giv­ing us a glimpse into your lives.