Tuesday the Rotary Club of Vicksburg will celebrate its 100th anniversary will a gala at The Vicksburg Convention Center.

The members in attendance will include some of the most influential men and women in the Vicksburg community, but for the first 74 years of the club’s existence there was one defining characteristic of every member of the club.

They were all men.

That changed in August 1992 when Toni Lanford-Ferguson became the first woman asked to join the club. At the time, Lanford-Ferguson was the president of the United Way of West Central Mississippi and she had attended meetings as a speaker, but no woman had ever been invited to join the club’s membership.

“I had spoken to them many times as the president of the United Way and there were times when I would speak to them annually and I would think this club is the leaders of our community and there are leaders who are not here who should be,” Lanford-Ferguson said. “That is what I would think because there were a lot of strong women back then and minorities.”

Rotary International first began accepting women as members in 1987, but no women in Vicksburg were invited to join until five years later in 1992.

“To be in Rotary, you don’t join so to speak,” Lanford-Ferguson said. “You are invited. When you put somebody up for Rotary, you talk to the board of directors of Rotary and they kind of vet you and check you out. Then, after that, the name is put up before the general membership in a meeting. If there are no objections then you are accepted as a member.”

It was Otis Headley, who worked at what was then known as The Vicksburg Evening Post, who made the effort and invited Lanford-Ferguson to join.

“Otis came in and he’d been through that procedure and told me I had been accepted as a member of Rotary,” she said. “I thought that was pretty courageous of Otis because it was a club full of white males, the leaders of the community. Rotary was founded by a business man who felt like if business leaders could get together and network in this kind of setting that more could get accomplished in the community.”

Although she had attended meetings as a speaker, Lanford-Ferguson said she was nervous when she attended her first meeting as a member.

“The District Governor of Rotary was attending that meeting so he happened to be there too,” Lanford-Ferguson said. “They announced at the right time during the businesses section and had me stand up. Every man in that room stood up and gave me a standing ovation. I was dumbfounded. I have never seen it happen since. It was amazing. They were warm and welcoming and I was the only woman for quite some time.”

Progress was slow, but in the 26 years since the club has grown and 25 percent of the local Rotary membership are now women. Four women have also served as president of the club after Lanford-Ferguson once again sent the precedent by becoming the first woman to serve as president in July of 2000. Since 2003, three women have also served as the district governor and now 20 percent of Rotarians worldwide are women.

“I feel like it was a recognition of the club that women in this community were leaders just like they are,” she said of joining the club. “While I felt it was an honor and I still do. At that time I am sure there were some that didn’t like it. I can’t tell you how wonderful they were. I had worked with practically all of them.”

As more women have joined over time, Lanford-Ferguson said she has seen the club go from one that just raised money for causes to one that is actively involved in making the community a better place. The club has also become more diverse adding minority members, but Lanford-Ferguson said in that area they still have room to improve.

“Rotary has often been known as a club where you can pass the hat and people will pitch in money, but we have gotten much more involved actively in community things,” she said.

“There is an Interact Rotary Club at St. Al. We had a program where we would go into Good Shepherd and read. We give dictionaries to every fourth grader in the county. This involves the Rotarians going out and doing these things.”