Drake Lanier sworn in as Wallace Rotary President with plans to establish a scholarship to honor the late Ken Wilson

The Wallace Rotary Club celebrated outgoing President Brett Roderick and Drake Lanier was sworn in as President during the June 25 meeting.

Roderick commented on the benefit that being a Rotarian has been for him and his wife as they opened their business downtown. The robust relationships that he has been able to form with community and business leaders in town who are members of the club definitely helped them to establish the new business, and he will forever appreciate it.

As he steps away from the role of president, Roderick assumes the role of Membership Chair, a position that has been left vacant with the passing of long time Rotary member Ken Wilson this year. “This is a huge responsibility,” Roderick said. He continued, “I understand how large the shoes are that I am going to fill will be.”

Roderick thinks that there is an opportunity being outside of the leadership role to help implement and affect change to grow the group.

Roderick discussed the things that Rotary was able to accomplish during the last year, including the new Welcome to Wallace signs and the highway clean-up project. During his years in Rotary, Roderick has benefitted from the relationships and the personal growth that he has developed because of his involvement with the group.

Roderick has not been shy in his involvement in the Wallace community since moving here. He also serves as Vice President of the Wallace Chamber of Commerce and is a member of the Downtown Wallace Merchants Association, and brought fresh ideas to those organizations as well. Roderick was presented with an engraved brick commemorating his time as president by club treasurer Steve Paes. The brick will be installed at the Rotary clock on Main St. The engraved bricks there and at the Veterans Memorial on SW Railroad St. that Rotary installed are part of an ongoing fund raising project for the group.

Incoming President Drake Lanier is an agent for NC Farm Bureau Insurance, working out of their Beulaville office. He was sworn in as president by Rotary District Governor nominee Andrea M. Young.

Lanier is passionate about starting the Ken Wilson Memorial Scholarship that will be tied to athletics in the county.

There were comments about letting the Duplin Education Endowment organization handle the distribution of the scholarship if it was being done by the school system, or developing a scholarship that would benefit Wallace Parks and Recreation. Lanier commented that hopefully a substantial enough amount that funds would be raised and could be split to several of the county’s parks and recreation departments. He has several ideas for fundraising events to reach that goal.

Lanier has been involved in sports all his life, and he has a passion for elevating the perception of the Duplin County athletes in the area. He said that when teams play out of the area in larger metropolitan markets, they are looked at as “from the sticks,”yet our players are as good as any. His brother Blake Lanier is a coach at East Duplin High School, and has a passion for developing his athletes and making camps and clinics available to children that might not always have the opportunity.

Lanier’s father, Fred Lanier, was in attendance, commenting that “To say I’m proud is an understatement. God has richly blessed me with not one, but two sons who I believe truly have a servant’s heart. I’m so proud of Drake to be willing to take on this challenge and I’m sure he is up to the task. He certainly has had some great men before him to follow.”