A dozen Rotary Santa Maria South club members turned out March 21st at the Madonna Inn to celebrate the club's first female member (Anne Green, inducted in 1988 as the first woman Rotarian in Santa Maria), as well as all the other women pioneering the "women in Rotary" wave. The District dinner benefited the Rotary Foundation, and also celebrated Rotary's quarter century of polio eradication worldwide. Dinner speakers were representatives of the Rotary Foundation's current and previous programs, e.g. Group Study Exchange, Rotary Exchange Student, Ambassadorial Scholarships. Keynote for the evening was Dr. Sylvia Whitlock, first female Rotary president, second woman inducted into Rotary. Dr. Whitlock described the eleven year process of legal efforts to allow women in Rotary, an effort culminating in a Supreme Court decision that also opened the way for women in all service clubs. Dr. Whitlock's club is in Duarte, California, and had only fifteen members when it challenged Rotary International.

Rotary Santa Maria South's Anne Green was also the club's first female president. Her sponsor into Rotary was Dr. Robert (Bob) McIntire, retired Air Force colonel and Cal Poly professor.

Anne, who now lives in Las Vegas, Nevada, flew in for the "Women in Rotary" dinner and celebrated her role as the Santa Maria South club's first female member with club president Ken Parker and wife Diane, other longtime friends, and newer club members.

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