Seven years after helping to create the award, Lynn Foley has received what she calls “the highest honor that could possibly be bestowed on me.”

Foley has been named the 2017-18 recipient of the Harry Gillespie Rotarian of the Year by the Rotary Club of Vicksburg. The award was created in 2010, when Foley was president of the club following Gillespie’s death.

“It means so much to me because we actually developed this award the year I was president, which was the year Harry died,” Foley said. “To have now been named a recipient makes my heart full. I appreciate all the faith the members have had in me over the years.”

Foley joins past winners Bob Croisdale, Don Jarratt, Julie Marcy, Hal Morgan, Larry Kilgo, Edgar Allen and Don Brown as a recipient of the award. Club president Allen Hudspeth said the winner is chosen “based on their service and what they’ve done for the club in the year and since they’ve been in the club.”

“Lynn Foley is very helpful,” Hudspeth said. “She does a lot of the social media for us. She does the Rotary newsletter each week for us. She is a past president of the club. She has always been a very active member of our club. She is well deserving of it.”

Foley said she is honored to receive the award because of how much the Rotary Club means to her. 

“The service they provide not only locally, but nationally,” Foley said of what makes Rotary special. “The focus that they’ve had over the years of improving the lives of those who are so unfortunate. Probably the most rewarding experience for me in Rotary is when we’ve had a lot of community service projects going on that I could be a part of.”