LIMESTONE, Maine — The Limestone Rotary Club recently presented Susan White and Jane Wetherhead Griffeth with the Paul Harris Award, the highest honor that can be given by a Rotary Club.
The awards were presented during the 2019 Limestone and Caswell Senior Citizen Spring Dinner held at the Limestone Community School on Wednesday, April 24.
During the ceremony, the club also honored Sue St. Pierre, Nancy Ward, Dan Gahagan, and Maine Preceptor Tau (the local chapter of Beta Sigma Phi Sorority) with Service Above Self Awards.
White, Limestone Community School principal, personally delivered weekly meals to a Limestone family, helped with Christmas baskets and purchased coats and clothing for students who needed them without letting anyone know.
In one instance, when a young student was sad because he wouldn’t have cupcakes to share with his class as the rest of his classmates had, White arrived the next morning with cupcakes for him to share; the student never knew where they came from.
The club described her as “a friend, with an open door, a soft heart and time to listen to students, to parents, to staff.”
Limestone Rotarian Pete Huntress, right, presents club member Jane Griffeth with the Paul Harris Award.
(Courtesy of Limestone Rotary Club)
Griffeth has contributed to many activities in Limestone to make it thrive and grow and be a more wonderful place to live. During the early years, she worked in her dad’s business as a bookkeeper and supported her husband, Fred, on the farm. To help support the town, she opened her own business.
She is an active member of the Limestone-Caswell Historical Society and more recently has been working at S.W. Collins’ kitchen shop. She joined and later led the chamber of commerce, provided knowledge and labor to decorate Main Street and Rotary Park, and has been a member of the Preceptor Tau Sorority for many years.
The Paul Harris Fellowship is awarded to individuals for contributions to Rotary International’s charitable and educational programs such as the Rotary Foundation, Polio Plus or the Humanitarian Grants Program. The recognition goes to individuals who meet the high professional and personal standards set forth by Paul Harris and when a club believes the recipient exemplifies the humanitarian and educational objectives of the Rotary Foundation.
Every Paul Harris Fellow receives a pin and a certificate, identifying them as an advocate of the foundation’s goals of world peace and international understanding.
