Along the Way: David Myers, Larry Lohman forge Kent Rotary milestones
When David Myers became president of Kent Rotary on the last Tuesday in June, a club milestone was set.
David, in business at Davey Drill with his father, Tom, succeeded his mother, Kathy, who was completing a successful year as Kent Rotary president. It was Kent Rotary’s first mother-son transfer of office.
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Besides his mother, David’s father, Tom Myers, served as Kent Rotary president in the 1993-94 year.
What’s more, David’s grandfather, the late Joseph Meyers, was Kent Rotary’s president in the 1968-69 year. In addition, David’s great uncle, the late Paul Davey Jr., served as Kent Rotary president in the club’s 1987-88 year.
Roger Sidoti, president of Kent Rotary in 2019-20, told me he was one of the people who recruited Kathy Myers to go up the chain of officers and serve the Kent club as its president.
“Watch,” he said, “She’ll be great!”
And, indeed, she was. While working full-time at her day job as director of communications and advocacy at Coleman Health Services, Kathy shepherded Kent Rotary and its approximately 100 members from pandemic-era Zoom meetings back to in-person gatherings Tuesdays at lunch time.
The pandemic had forced Kent Rotary to postpone celebrating its centennial for a year. Kathy appointed Dr. Randall Smith, who had preceded her by one year and was president of Kent Rotary during its centennial year, to chair what became a gala event last November in the Kent State Hotel and Conference Center.
The occasion drew representatives of Rotary from clubs across Northeast Ohio. Among those addressing Kent Rotary that evening was one of its own, Larry Lohman, who having served Kent Rotary as president in its 2018-19 year, went up through the chairs of Rotary District 6630 and was district governor during the 2021-22 year.
Sharing the name of his well-known uncle, Dr. Larry Lohman, the ophthalmologist, Larry’s term as district governor was co-terminus with that of Kent Rotary President Kathy Myers. As district governor, Larry oversaw the more than 40 Rotary Clubs that belong in District 6630, which covers Northeast Ohio.
Larry had already chaired District 6630’s grants committee for eight years. He was also involved in providing clean water systems to villages in El Salvador for more than 20 years. In 2019, he headed up a water project in El Rodeo, El Salvador that brought clean water to a village of 65 families who had never enjoyed access to clean running water and had to walk nearly a mile to obtain polluted water.
Earlier, Larry administered a grant that funded a Rotary International scholarship for Dennis Kirimi of Kenya who obtained a Master’s Degree in Public Health and is finishing his doctorate. As Kent Rotary president and then district governor, Larry emphasized the importance of attracting young people by establishing Rotary Interact programs in high schools.
“If we do not bring young people into Rotary, it will fade away,” Larry would say, adding, “We need to do a better job of telling Rotary’s story as a service club.”
Larry’s great-grandfather was a charter Rotarian in Cambridge, the community where Larry grew up. Three generations of the Lohman family have been members.
Larry is the third Kent Rotarian to have served Northeast Ohio Rotary as district governor. The late Gordon Keller, Kent State University’s vice president of regional campuses, was district governor during 1995-96. He had been Kent Rotary president in 1992-93. The late Leland Keller, president of what is now called Hometown Bank, was district governor in 1957-58. He had been Kent Rotary’s president in 1955-56. Gordon and Leland were not related and sharing their last name was a happy coincidence.
David E. Dix is a former publisher of the Record-Courier.
This article originally appeared on Record-Courier: Along the Way: David Myers, Larry Lohman forge Kent Rotary milestones
