Foundation honors three couples for major gifts
By Tiffany Woods
Rotary International News - 16 November 2007
Mike and Nancy Dunlap (top) and James and Linda Bradley were inducted to the Arch C. Klumph Society on 22 October.
Three North American couples were recently inducted into the Arch C. Klumph Society, which honors people who give at least US$250,000 to The Rotary Foundation.
Mike and Nancy Dunlap and James and Linda Bradley were inducted on 22 October; Bill and Doris Jean Hammontree became members the next day. The ceremonies were held at RI World Headquarters in Evanston, Illinois, USA. The couples’ portraits now hang in the Arch C. Klumph Gallery on the 17th floor.
The Dunlaps’ membership in the society adds to the list of roles they share: They’re also business partners, certified public accountants, Rotarians, and winemakers. The two met in 1986 when Nancy began working at Mike’s accounting firm. She became a partner in the business in 1999. Along the way, they fell in love and were married on 4 July 1991.Why the Fourth of July holiday?
“Because you always have the day off,” Nancy said just before the induction ceremony.
Mike chimed in, “Remember, we’re accountants – we’re practical.”
A former deputy sheriff, Mike, 57, joined the Rotary Club of Escondido Sunrise, California, in 1985, and Nancy, 53, joined the Rotary Club of Bonsall in 1996. The Dunlaps have been instrumental in getting Rotarians and others to donate to the Foundation. They’ve also led by example by setting up an $800,000 charitable remainder trust.
Like the Dunlaps, the Bradleys are a Rotarian couple. James, 64, joined the Rotary Club of Sidney, British Columbia, Canada, in 1996. Linda, 60, joined the Rotary Club of Sidney By The Sea later that year. They joined the Rotary Club of Ottawa, Ontario, in 2007.
James, who was born in Scotland, moved to Canada at age 14 with his parents, who were seeking economic opportunity. They settled near Montreal, where he met Linda on New Year’s Eve in 1967. At the time, she was in nursing school, and he was designing helicopters. They married in August 1968 and have three children and two grandchildren.
In 1974, the Bradleys moved to Vancouver, British Columbia, and the next year James founded DART Aerospace, which develops products for helicopters. In 1984, Linda left nursing to head DART’s marketing team. The Bradleys sold the business in 2003 and now spend much of their time on Rotary activities. Linda, for example, is the immediate past governor of District 7040 (Ontario and Quebec, Canada; New York, USA).
Seeking to create a more peaceful world, the Bradleys have agreed to endow a Rotary World Peace Fellow every year in perpetuity. “We’ve been looking for something to make a difference,” James said. “We see the peace centers program that Rotary has as the best chance of making a difference.”
The Hammontrees, who live in Florida, USA, also believe in making a difference; that’s why they’ve donated to the Foundation. “We knew the Foundation was the way to reach out to people,” Bill said at the ceremony.
For a while, he didn’t have much money to give. During the Great Depression, his dad earned $1 a day and struggled to support four children. Nevertheless, his parents instilled a charitable spirit in him and his siblings, making sure they always had a coin to put in the collection plate at church.
Bill, 81, went on to earn a bachelor’s degree from Abilene Christian University and own a retail lumber company in Chattanooga, Tennessee. He later started two businesses, which he still owns, that manufacture wooden cable reels in Florida and South Carolina.
He met Doris Jean, now 80, in college. “She was dating my brother,” Bill said. “I told him he had two weeks, and I was going to take over.” They were married in April 1947 and had four children.
In 1954, Bill joined the Rotary Club of Tampa-North, Florida, because he was looking for an opportunity to serve his community. He now has 49 years of perfect attendance, he said.
He attributes his financial success partly to serendipitous encounters with Rotarians. In one instance, a new member was sitting beside him at a club meeting and asked whether Bill’s millwork company could make cable reels, which it wasn’t doing at the time. Bill made him a sample, and the rest is history.
“What I have made is because I manufacture cable reels, but I never would have if there hadn’t been a Rotarian sitting beside me. How could I not support Rotary? It has blessed me,” he said.