90 years and counting

Yesterday on March 13, a milestone was reached as the Ville Platte Rotary Club turned 90-years-old. At the club’s meeting a day earlier, the Rotarians celebrated the occasion and heard from the longest active member about his memories of being in the club for 45 years.
“On February 23, 1905, Paul Harris founded Rotary,” said Brent Coreil, “and, in June of 1974, I became a member and a Rotarian.”
He continued, “My sponsor was Jimmy Vidrine. He asked me to become a Rotarian because I asked him what does the Rotary Club do. He gave a great answer and said ‘nothing.’ You do not have to do anything at all except visit on a weekly basis, share a meal with the rest of the business members of the community, have a little dialogue at your table, let people know about what’s going on in your life, and find out what’s going on in their life.”
He continued, “All you have to do is come to the meetings and sit across from your friends and neighbors who are working in this community to make it better.”
Coreil added there is an extra bonus of attending the meetings besides the doing nothing. “We have programs,” he said. “We want to hear the programs and priorities about you. Besides that, we want to address community issues and education.”
“The programs must never be political,” he continued. “We invite candidates, but their program cannot be about them or what they’re running for. However, once elected if they want to tell us what they do, then we welcome them.”
Even though the programs cannot be political, Coreil explained the club can take a stance on critical issues within the community. As he explained, “Preserving Chicot State Park is a political issue, but Rotary through (J.D.) “Prof” LaFleur was responsible for creating Chicot State Park.”
Coreil then shared one of the first things he learned about the Rotary Club after becoming a member. “I was taught that all of you when you walk into this Rotary meeting are all on the same level playing field whether you graduated from high school orhave a Ph.D. in chemistry or whether you’re in charge or Cabot of if you’re working as a little lawyer like me.”
“Everybody except guests are on a first name basis,” he continued. “There’s no Mr. or Mrs. It is not an insult to call people by their names, and, if you read the book, it is what you’re supposed to be doing.”
Coreil further shared the club was meeting at The Evangeline Club when he first became a Rotarian. “There was a back room,” he said, “and we would meet there and have a meal. All the tables had white linen table cloths on them. We’d sit down and get our $2.50 meal which was fantastic and cooked my Ed Wood. They made the best hamburger steaks you could ever eat.”
From there, the club went to The Jungle. As Coreil said, “Wendel Manuel was cooking for us. We would meet in the back, and it worked out really good. The food was fantastic.”
After chronicling the other locations where the club has met over the years, Coreil spotlighted some of the people he called “real Rotarians.”
“Today I think I’m the only lawyer left in the club,” he stated. “That’s highly unusual in this community, but over half of the lawyers my age and older were members of this club at one time. One of the presidents we had who was a lawyer was Jack Fruge. He was one of the best Rotarians we ever had. He was down to earth a real Rotarian.”
Coreil continued, “But, the Rotarian of all Rotarians was Professor J.D. “Prof” LaFleur, and he would always lead the singing. Nobody sang louder than he did at the beginning of the meeting. It was beautiful to see what was going on.”
LaFleur was one of the charter members of the club along with Y. Ardoin, C. L. Attaway, G. H. Buller, O. M. Dardeau, G. J. Deville, J. H. Dore, V. L. Dupuis, J. C. Fruge, Joel R. Guillory, George E. Jeanmard, L. B. LaFleur, Adraste LaFleur, H. Moise LeBas, J. Emile Pucheu, A. C. Reed, N. I. Savant, Lee Soileau, George P. Stromer, Albert Tate, and Lindsey Veillon.
While being a member of the Ville Platte Rotary Club for half of its existence, Coreil expressed the club’s finances is “one of the greatest things we have done.”
He said, “I thank Dr. Willie Buller for being instrumental in doing our LSUE Scholarship. We have seen a lot of young people come through our community and get the Rotary Scholarship.”
Coreil concluded his program by saying, “We have a very good Rotary Club, and the reason we have a good club is we do not have just good members but we have good Rotarians.”
Before ringing the bell to close the meeting, President Peter Strawitz expressed, “Let us leave here today inspired and get ready for the next 90 years.”