Troy Drennon introduced Past District Governor Jim Thompson. Troy said that even though he has only been a member of the Club for a short time, he considers Jim as a mentor. Jim joined Rotary in 1957 and that was an interesting year for Troy’s uncle because he loved his 57 Chevy. Jim was President of the Carmichael Club in the 62-63 Rotary Year and rose to be District Governor in 1989-90. Jim has been Chairman of the Pacific Coast Builders for many years.

Jim said that he is amazed that he has made it to the age of 90. Rotary has given him many happy times over the years. Jim mentioned that he was sponsored by Jim Cunningham and was very close friends with Larry Porter (Dentist and longtime member) as well as many others. The Rotary Club of Carmichael was founded on June 10^th, 1948. It was chartered by the Fair Oaks Rotary.
 In the beginning, our Club met with the Fair Oaks Club in the Fair Oaks Community Center basement. In the charter, the new Carmichael Club had 20 members. They had a close relationship with the Club of Loyalton (Near Truckee) and had joint meetings with them for many years. Regrettably, we don't have many joint meetings anymore because they were a lot of fun, good fellowship, and a way to find out what projects the other Club is doing. To show you how the Club grew, it had 20 members when Lyle Folette was the Carmichael Club’s first president, but grew to 40 members nine years later when Jim was president. In Jim’s year as president, the Carmichael Club hosted the district conference. Jim was very proud of the classy conference they put on with the ladies and gentlemen elegantly dressed (wish we had a photo of the event!). In those days there were many events that the Club put on, one that Jim remembers fondly was participating in an annual Camelia festival.

Jim began to recite all the restaurants at which the Club met – get this: Donovan’s Corner, the Crawford Restaurant, Corkwoods (when Jim joined), Nick’s Café, Crestview Place, Jose’s Restaurant, Palomino, Capris (on Fair Oaks), the Palm Street Grill, and a little restaurant off Arden Way across from Whole Foods, and Ancil Hoffman. For many Rotary Clubs, finding good or great restaurants (especially in your service area), keeping them in business, having the right sized room, cost, etc, is problematic for many Rotary Clubs-Carmichael was no exception.

Jim said that in the beginning of his Rotary career, classifications were strict, you could only have one person in each classification, like grocer, accountant, or lawyer. A case in point was that Jim was the only lawyer in the Club when Jack Shearer, who was a lawyer, wanted to join – so they split the category. Jim was classified under corporate law and Jack was classified as domestic law. As the years went on, classifications became less important and the most important thing is what each one can do for the community. So now, Jim went into many of the vocations of people who were in the Club, like school administrator, veterinarian, Safeway store manager, dentist, manager Bank of America, deputy sheriff, lumberyard owner, Dairy owner- Gibbon’s Dairy, Bob Gibbons, 5 & 10 cent store owner, Don Peterson. Talking about Don Peterson, Jim was honored as Grand Marshall of the “Fourth of July” parade when he rode Don’s horse “buddy” down Fair Oaks Blvd.

Jim briefly talked about the supreme court’s 1989 ruling that Rotary Clubs cannot discriminate against women by not allowing them to become members- and then spent a few minutes about all the various businesses that were around and things have changed.

Everyone agreed that the presentation was too short for all the information that Jim had to give, and that there needs to be a part two, an upcoming presentation to finish off the subject.

I don’t really think that Jim was surprised when President David told him that a book, in honor of his presentation, was to be donated to the Carmichael Library (subsidiary of the Sacramento Public Library).