Every year since 1949, the President of RI has proposed an international theme. The first was a series of four "Objectives of Our Team" by Percy Hodgson, followed by four "goals" in 1950 and even three "targets" in 1956. But have you ever wondered how Presidents arrive at their theme? In 1994 the President was Bill Huntley (from a club in my own district) and his chosen theme was 'Be A Friend'.

When Bill was a small boy at grade school in the City of Hull, his father was taken dangerously ill while working on a trawler in the seas to the North of Scotland. Mrs. Huntley was advised that she should travel North to meet the ship when it docked. So she took Bill and his brother for what in those days was a horrendous and long journey by slow steam trains to the far North of Scotland. The little party arrived at the town of Thurso and had just enough time to see Bill's father a short while before he died of a brain hemorrhage. The young mother and the two small boys were now alone in a strange town several hundred miles from their home, knowing nobody and with no place to stay while formalities were completed. At this point of time, the harbourmaster and his wife, Mr. and Mrs. Jack Hutchinson, came to their aid, offering hospitality and advice, in fact 'befriending' them. this was something that Bill never forgot.

When the time came for them to return to Hull, Bill remembers his school teacher telling him that he "was now the man in the family" but he also remembered the kindness of the Hutchinson's in Scotland. 'Befriending' meant something practical and positive to Bill, and thus it became a most appropriate theme for him to adopt when he became President of Rotary. (photo:  RI President Bill Huntley with members of a District  Friendship Exchange Group in the President's study at Rotary Center, Evanston, in September 1994.  The group were from Bill's home district, D1270. He is seen here talking to Rtn Eric Charlesworth from Scunthorpe/ 20 March 2011, Basil Lewis)

This, however, is not the end of the story because at a meeting in the Far East , Bill explained his theme and recounted this story. One of the District Governors present was so impressed that he immediately offered to present a Paul Harris Fellowship to the harbourmaster, and the appropriate papers went off to the Thurso Rotary Club. Unfortunately, the present membership knew nothing about the award of the Paul Harris Fellowship or of any Mr. Jack Hutchins, the name on the PHF documents, and didn't know what it was about, until a chance telephone call from the District PRO in Bill's home area alerted them. It was by then over 50 years after the event, but the club did some research and discovered that the Harbour Master at the time was a Mr. Hutchinson not Hutchins, and that though Jack had died some years earlier, his widow was still alive, a frail and elderly lady. It was arranged that at a club meeting in September 1994, the Paul Harris Fellowship would be presented to Mrs. Hutchinson in honour of how she and her husband had been 'a friend' to the Huntley's in their hour of need.

Even then, there was to be one more twist in the story. During September 1994, a party of Rotarians and their wives from Bill's home district , 1270, went on a Friendship Exchange visit to District 6440, 'the Home District' of Evanston. As the Thurso Club were settling down to their evening meeting, the party from 1270 was lunching with Bill Huntley in Rotary Center in America. At the appointed time, Bill was told that at that very moment in Thurso, Mrs. Hutchinson was receiving the Paul Harris Fellowship award. All of us then raised our glasses to the good folk of Thurso whose actions had been the inspiration for the international theme of the year 'Be A Friend'.

Contributed by RGHF senior historian Basil Lewis circa 2005 (similar story posted here)

History of RIBI