Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

South African Rotarians visit Prescott club

The globe shrank a bit for the Prescott Rotary Club last week as a group of young professionals from Cape Town, South Africa, brought the Rotary International Group Exchange Study program to Southwest Arkansas.

Touring Arkansas in a whirlwind 29 days, the five-member team, headed by Rotary District 9350 Assistant Governor Elwin Thompson, a retired teacher of 30 years, who has a keen interest in the public education system in Arkansas.

Were hosted by local Rotarians, and theyre learning about your country, and the Rotarians are learning about our country; its been very interesting, Thompson said.

He and team members Gerhardt Cloete, Wilhelmina Galetta, Glen Stokell, and Henry DuPlessis are particularly impressed by the openness of Arkansas and its people, Thompson said.

The friendliness of the people is amazing; theyve taken us in and shown us everything, he said.

Thompson said his Rotary district encompasses about 1.4 million-square miles in South Africa, Angola, and Zamibia, and it will sponsor an Arkansas exchange team

next year.

Sponsored through the Rotary International Foundation, the program establishes exchanges between young professionals from corresponding nations for extended,

vocationally-related study tours of their professions.

Cloete, who is single, is a 35-year old financial auditor whose interest is the application of internal auditing organizations in the field of education. He is an avid runner, cyclist, hiker and mountain biking enthusiast.

Stokell, 31, is an accountant with an interest in the individual application of tax processes and structures for tax payers and small business who also enjoys hiking and the outdoors. He is also a new father with a five-month old daughter.

DuPlessis is the manager of transportation planning for the City of Cape Town with an interest in government planning and operation of public transportation. He is 38-years old, and has been in his position for 10 years; and, he is an avid reader who also enjoys movies with a poignancy to them. He is a do-it-yourselfer who also likes trail hiking, soccer, rugby, and cricket.

Galetta, 30, is a traffic and transportation civil engineering technician interested in the development of public transport initiatives, transport economics, and traffic engineering. She is also the mother of five children, ages three to nine, and the project administrator of a volunteer AIDS project.

The team will tour Southwest and Southeast Arkansas Rotary districts this week, and will make presentations at local Rotary Clubs across most of the state, then after a side trip to Memphis, Tenn., the team will return to South Africa.

The exchange program is open to any young professional between the ages of 25 and 40, and application information can be obtained through Rotarian Joe Graham by contacting his law offices at 887-5777.