A dream made real

A member’s introduction to Rotary did not go as he’d hoped. Later he became a district governor

By Nat Reade

This article was originally published in March 2022 following the International Assembly, which helps prepare and inspire the governors-elect for the year ahead. Lloyd Campbell, then governor-elect of District 5950 in Minnesota, was a featured speaker who talked about how diversity is one of Rotary’s strengths.

Even though it was a two-and-a-half-hour drive, Lloyd Campbell was excited about going to his first Rotary district meeting in 2012.

A retired consultant with an MBA from the University of Chicago, Campbell and his family had moved in 2011 from Tennessee to Glenwood, Minnesota, where his obstetrician-gynecologist wife would head up her own practice. Cheerful, 67, and with an Arkansas lilt, Campbell says that he and his family are the only African Americans in Glenwood, a population of about 2,600. Soon after the family had settled in, a Rotarian invited Campbell to lunch and suggested that he join the local Rotary club.

“I researched Rotary,” Campbell says. “The organization believes in Service Above Self, it has been a longtime partner of the United Nations, and it has worked tirelessly to eradicate polio worldwide. It was a beautiful vision that excited me.”

A few months later, Campbell attended a district meeting to see, as he puts it, “what this Rotary thing was all about.” He hoped that the gathering would connect him with the kind of youth, vigor, and diversity that he’d seen on Rotary.org.

At the general session, Campbell was seated at a table with members of various clubs. When he introduced himself, the last Rotarian to whom he extended his hand looked Campbell in the eye and said, “You would not be allowed membership in my club.”

“It didn’t really shock me,” Campbell says and laughs. “I’m from Arkansas; worse things have been said to me. But Rotary has diversity written into its core values. And the remarkable thing is that there was no shock on the other faces at the table. Not one of them had the courage to speak up and say, ‘That is not Rotary.’” Campbell thought, “Wow. Maybe Rotary is not what I thought it would be.”

Now, 10 years later, Lloyd Campbell will be sworn in as governor of District 5950 in July. What happened? “I never thought of walking out,” Campbell explains. “The way my brain works, I like to solve problems.”

Shortly after that awkward moment when he’d been rebuffed at the district meeting, a group of Rotarians two tables away approached him and welcomed him warmly; many of them are now his close friends. He could see that “most of the people there were probably inclusive, but I happened to have sat at the table that was not.” And everyone in that room was there because, he says, “they wanted to do good. Well, when you see that potential you try to make it a reality. You try to turn it into something for the community.”

And he has. Campbell built his club a website, restored its Rotary Youth Exchange program, and served as its president. He earned a Rotarian of the Year award from his club, an Outstanding Volunteer award from the Glenwood Lakes Area Chamber of Commerce, and two Service Above Self awards.

One of Campbell’s goals as governor will be to increase membership, which he says happens naturally when you improve inclusion. Attracting female, young, LGBTQ, and minority members, he says, requires more than just inviting them to a meeting. It requires that those meetings feel safe and welcoming for all.

“Rotary is in transition,” Campbell says, “Paul Harris had a vision of an organization that was diverse, and it’s up to us to implement that. If you can look at an organization and feel that the dream is there, then you stick around to make that dream a reality. That’s why I’m still a Rotarian.”

This story originally appeared in the March 2022 issue of Rotary magazine.