Neepawa Rotary Club honours McGillivray
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- Published on Wednesday, September 12, 2018
Photo by Joan McGillivray
Neepawa Rotary Club secretary Bob Durston (right) presents Roy McGillivray, the club’s historian, with the certificate in recognition of his work for the club in the Neepawa Archives.
By Cassandra Wehrhahn
Neepawa Banner & Press
Neepawa’s Rotary club honoured long time member Roy McGillivray on Wednesday, Aug. 29.
McGillivray was awarded a certificate in recognition of the work he has done for the club, which was presented by club secretary Bob Durston. McGillivray has been a member of the Rotary club for fifty years, and has served as the club’s historian for what Durston estimates is twelve years.
Nine binders of concentrated Rotarian history are the fruits of McGillivray’s historian labours. The binders originally were a project for the club’s 60th anniversary, of which Durston stated with a smile, “McGillivray took upon himself to create”.
“Roy spent a lot of his days working on the history of the club,” Durston elaborated. “He was pulling boxes of stuff together and sorting through it. For him, it was a real labour of love.”
Since then, the historian had been adding more. Now the binders have been completed and made available to the public via the Neepawa Archives. The idea of donating the compiled history to the archives came from Norma Forsman, who said that they would love to have the information accessible there. The club promptly agreed.
“Instead of putting them in a box, storing them somewhere and somebody forgets,” said Durston. “Why not just store them in the archives?”
Readers can expect to see a number of photos and newspaper clipping from both the Banner and the Press in the binders McGillivray has put together. Durston also encouraged others to contribute pieces of history to the archives, and to take a look at the history that has been stored there.
Durston described McGillivray as a community minded person with a varied career as a salesman, auctioneer, Town of Neepawa councillor and mayor, and a great guy to work with.
