Many of the
illustrious figures in world affairs have been and are
Rotarians.
Royalty and elected political officials have been
drawn to Rotary's ideal of "Service Above Self."
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Walt Disney,
who brought some of the Harris tales to the movie screen, was an
honorary member of the Rotary Club of Palm Springs, California,
U.S.A.
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Another daring
adventurer, Thor Heyerdahl, is an honorary member of the Rotary
Club of Larvik, Norway.
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Marshall Carl-Gustaf
Mannerheim who was a honorary member of The Rotary
Club of Helsinki from 1934 until his death in
1951.
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H.M.
Vittorio Emanuele III, King of
Italy,
honorary member of Rotary
Club of Rome
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The Presidents
of the United States that were Honorary Rotarians are: Woodrow
Wilson (RC
of Birmingham, AL) (TR April 1915 p.76), Calvin
Coolidge, (Obituary)
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Other honorary
U.S., Presidents were Herbert Hoover
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Franklin D. Roosevelt
(honorary
member of the
RC
of Albany
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Harry
S. Truman
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Dwight
D. Eisenhower, (honorary
member of the RC of Abilene, Kansas (1942), Gettysburg,
Pennsylvania (1952), and Newport, Rhode Island, (1957)
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John F.
Kennedy
have been honorary
Rotarians
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Richard
Nixon
Whittier, CA since 1948
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Ronald
W. Reagan Pacific Palisades,
CA
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George
W. Bush
RC
of Washington DC (made an honorary member
by RI Past President Frank Devlyn at a ceremony on 2 July, 2001
at the White House)
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Gamal Abdel Nasser
was
the second President of Egypt from 1956 until his death. An
honorary member of
RC
of Cairo (video of the presentation)
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HRH the Prince of
Wales, honorary member Windsor, Ontario, Canada, from The
Rotarian May 1921
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Edward
VIII, Duke of Windsor -
Honorary member of two Canadian Rotary clubs. TR March 1936 p.
27
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H.R.H. the
Duke of Aosta was honorary member of
RC Naples, Italy, District 2100.
(provided by Pietro
Brunoldi)
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Neville
Chamberlain, Prime Minister,
Birmingham, UK |
Another honorary member was
Associate Justice William O. Douglas.
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Sir
Winston Churchill was an
honorary member of the Rotary
Club of London, England. |
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Albert I King of Belgium |
The
honorary president of the Rotary Cub of Monaco, Monaco, is
Prince Rainier III. |
King Baudouin I
of Belgium, is an honorary member of the Rotary
Cub of Brussels. |
King Hassan II
of Morocco, |
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Zardari -
RC of Karachi Bay RGHF
members RIVP 97/98 Bob Scott and DG 09/10 Usman Masud present an
honorary Rotary membership to Pakistan's President, Asif Ali
Zardari |
I. K. Gujaral,
Prime Minister |
H. R.
H. Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh -
honorary member of the Rotary Club of Windsor and Eton, England
- TR June 1970 p. 28 an
honorary member of the Rotary
Club of Edinburgh. |
Charles H.R.H the Prince of
Wales, Honorary Member, Rotary Club of Banchory-Ternan, D1010 UK
(webmaster Rtn. Chris Engle) |
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King
Carl VI Gustav of Sweden, and
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Prince
Bernhard of the Netherlands
are patrons of Rotary in their countries. |
General
Augusto Pinochet Ugarte,
chief executive of Chile, was, at one time, an honorary member
of the Rotary Club of Santiago. |
Ratan Tata,
Chairman of Tata Group is a honorary member of Rotary Club of
Bombay.
The Tata Group, is one of India's largest
conglomerates, but his heart is set on a project closer to home:
creating a $2,500 car that middle-class Indians can buy. |
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Dr.
Karl A. Menninger, M.D. - Chairman of
the Board of Trustees Menninger Foundation - Honorary Member
Rotary Club of Topeka, Kansas. Rotary International Archives /
Central Files-Subject Files / Notables - General. Letter dated
28 January, 1977 from Claire Hettinger, DG 571. |
Nobel Prize
winner Dr. Albert Schweitzer, philosopher and physician, was an
honorary member of the Rotary clubs of Colmar, France, and
Passau, Germany. |
The opera singer Florence
MacBeth, born in Mankato/Minnesota, Primadonna of the Chicago
Civic Opera, was made honorary member of the RC St. Paul,
Minnesota as early as 1915. |
Crown Prince Umberto of
Savoia, was honorary member of the Rotary Club of
Cuneo (district 2030, Italy), because this city was his born
place.
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Rotarians are
impressive travelers. Sir Edmund Hillary, an honorary member of
the Rotary
Club of Auckland, New Zealand, the first Caucasian to
conquer
Mt. Everest. |
Another honorary
Rotarian has flown to the moon! Former U.S. astronaut Neil A.
Armstrong is an honorary member of the Rotary Club of
Wapakoneta, Ohio, U.S.A. |
Former
astronaut Alan B. Shephard, Jr., was an
honorary Rotarian in Derry, New Hampshire, U.S.A. |
Astronaut L. Gordon Cooper was
once a down-to-earth honorary Rotarian in Space Center (Houston)
Texas, U.S.A |
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Frank Borman,
Astronaut, Houston
#53 |
Charles
Lindberg, First Trans-Atlantic Flight |
Thomas
A. Edison - Inventor -
Honorary member of the RC of Orange, NJ - The Weekly Letter
Monday, 26, 1931 page 1. |
General
John J. Pershing - WWI US
General - Honorary member of the RC
of Lincoln, NB 14 - The Rotarian December
1938 page 33. |
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General
Douglas MacArthur - WWII
US General - Honorary member of the RC
of Tokyo, Japan (Approximately April or May
1949) The Rotarian - July 1949 page 21. |
British
Prime Minister Margaret
Thatcher - 1990 |
Clyde Pangborn & Hugh Herndon: First non-stop
flight across the Pacific, 1931, were honorary members of the Wenatchee, Wash.Rotary
Club. |
Jimmy Carter
Americus, GA since 1995 |
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Dr. Charles H. Mayo, cofounder
of the Mayo Clinic and an honorary member of the Rotary
Club of Rochester, Minn., USA, |
Fidel "Eddie" Valdez Ramos,
GCMG, President of Philippines, 1992>1998 honorary member of RC
Manila |
Roald Amundsen became
the first person to reach the /South Pole in 1911. The Rotary
Club of Oslo, Norway, made him an honorary member in 1926 |
Pope Francis. Francis (Latin:
Franciscus; born Jorge Mario Bergoglio on December 17, 1936) is
the 266th and current Pope of the Catholic Church, elected on
March 13, 2013. He chose his regnal name in honor of the
co-founder of the Society of Jesus Francis Xavier. He is the
first Pope born in the Americas, and the first Pope from the
Southern Hemisphere. Beginning in 1998, he served as the
Archbishop of Buenos Aires, and was promoted to Cardinal in
2001. 1999 honorary
member of RC
of Buenos Aires. |
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Mrs. Rajashree Birla, honorary
Rotarian from two clubs Mumbai and Mulund, is a Director on the
Board of all the major Aditya Birla Group ( $40 Billion group)
of Companies; viz., Grasim, Hindalco, Aditya Birla Nuvo and
UltraTech Cement Ltd. Additionally, Mrs. Birla serves as a
Director on the Board of the Aditya Birla Group's International
Companies spanning Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines and Egypt. |
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