S. Aaron Hyatt became a Rotarian when he joined the Sylva (North Carolina) Rotary Club in 1972.
He served as president in 1977-78, during the club's 50th anniversary.
At the district level, he served as District 7670 Governor (1982-83) as well as District Chairman of the Chan Gordon Scholarship Committee, the International Service Committee and the World Community Service Committee; he was president of the Western North Carolina Associated Communities, vice-chair of the golden anniversary Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

He is a Paul Harris Fellow.
He moved from Sylva to become the president of Macon College in Georgia where he remained as president between 1985 and 1997.
This move prompted him to join the Rotary Club of Macon in 1985.
In Georgia he has served as chair of the 50th Anniversary Celebration of the Ocmulgee National Monument, chair of the Cherry Blossom Festival, chairman of the board of governors of the Grand Opera House and as a member of 31 other organizations and advisory groups.

Aaron holds a doctorate in higher education from the Ohio State University.

As a Rotary spokesman he has directed or participated in RI conferences on development, ecology and international understanding.
Working with the Health, Hunger and Humanity (3-H) program of the Rotary Foundation, he has visited 18 countries since 1985.
He has helped design Rotary water resource projects in Nigeria and Honduras.

Aaron later became a Director of Rotary International from 1994 to 1996, and was appointed the General Secretary and Chief Administrative Officer of Rotary International and the Rotary Foundation from 1997 to 2000.
(The General Secretary is the chief administrative officer of RI, and heads a staff of about 600 persons working at the international headquarters in the Chicago suburb of Evanston, Illinois.)
Aaron was only the 9th person to hold that position since its creation in 1910.
He and his wife Jane now reside in Florida.

acknowledgements to RC Sylva, NC and to The Rotarian , August 1997.
researched and posted by RGHF webmaster, Greg Barlow. November 2011.