Ed Jones leads Farragut Rotary into strange year

Tom KingFarragut

It’s tough work to do a lot of the normal things we’ve been accustomed to doing with COVID-19 hanging over our heads. It’s especially hard to maintain the weekly luncheon meetings of a club that has 100 members – a club like the Rotary Club of Farragut – what with social distancing and masks.

But the club moves forward. The Rotary year of 2020-2021 (which runs from July 1, 2020, to June 30, 2021) has begun, and Farragut Rotary has installed its new president, Edward Jones. He has been a member of the club since 2006, served on the board of directors, was club secretary for three years, then vice president, president-elect and now president.

He is president and CEO of Jones Kirkpatrick and Associates Financial Services LLC, a company he founded 20 years ago. Prior to that he worked for 23 years as a development chemist, analytical chemist and a weapons program manager at the DOE facilities – Y-12, ORNL and K-25 – in Oak Ridge.

Edward Jones

Had the pandemic not hit in March, our club would have celebrated its 40th anniversary on April 22 during Staci Wilkerson’s year as president – our 2019-2020 leader.

After one in-person meeting in late June when Jones was installed as president by past district governor Greg Maciolek, the club is now meeting virtually on Wednesdays at 12:15 p.m. using the Zoom platform.

Also installed were president-elect the Rev. David Bluford and Andy Luttrell as vice president. Bluford is chaplain at Park West Medical Center and Luttrell is vice president/commercial real estate officer at Home Federal.

Here is the complete list of our 2020-21 leaders:

  • President Edward Jones
  • President-Elect the Rev. David Bluford
  • Vice President Andy Luttrell
  • Secretary Joshua Hornberger
  • Treasurer Howard Fass
  • Public Image PP Tom King
  • Service Projects Brian Elton and Sonya Ford
  • Family of Rotary Mark Bialik
  • Fundraising Megan Belcher and Scott Brockamp
  • Club Membership PP Doug Powell and Arlene Weinstein
  • International Service PP Becky Duncan
  • Youth Services Cindy Kraus and Kristin Abouelata
  • Rotary Foundation/Webmaster Scott Weinstein
  • Immediate Past President Staci Wilkerson

In accepting the gavel from Wilkerson, Jones said: “First, I thank Staci for a leading us through a tough year. Second, I’m honored to be president and I’ll work hard to make this a great year as we continue to deal with this virus and these unusual times and live up to this year’s Rotary motto of “Rotary Opens Opportunities.”

During yesterday’s meeting the club inducted its newest member – Scott Bertini. He is a regional account manager for Patterson Pope in East Tennessee. Scott specializes in consulting with a variety of organizations to design and provide customized storage solutions. Wife Sara, the mother of their 4-year-old twins, Noah and Anninston, is a nurse practitioner at the CVS Minute Clinic in Lenoir City.

If you’re interested in exploring membership in the Rotary Club of Farragut, drop me an email at tking535@gmail.com. You also can call me at 865-659-3562. Tom King has served at newspapers in Georgia, Tennessee, Texas and California and has been the editor of two newspapers.

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