Boyles, Moreman honored in Rotary badge retirement ceremony

Members of Rotary clubs around the world receive numbered name badges to wear at club functions.  First names are used by club rule.  As members retire or when they die, the badges are recycled and incoming members receive the numbers: only the name changes.

Sharon Boyles (left), widow of Rotarian Roy Boyles, and Evie Moreman, widow of Rotarian David Moreman, flank Doug Stanley after emotional March 3 retirement ceremony of their husbands’ Front Royal Rotary name badges. Courtesy Photos/Bret Hrbek

Rarely, however, is a badge retired.  In 91 years since the Rotary Club of Front Royal held its first weekly meeting in 1926, only three had ever been retired, the numbers 13, 22, and 51, never again to be used on a local club badge.  However, on March 3, 2017 that number increased by two in one emotional ceremony – Rotarian Roy (Badge #27) and Rotarian Dave (Badge #107) were retired at the club’s regular Friday meeting.

County executive and prominent Rotarian Doug Stanley performed the ceremony, conferring their late husband’s badges upon Sharon Boyles, widow of Roy Boyles, a former Warren County School Board chair, and Evie Moreman, widow of well known county veterinarian, Dr. David Moreman.

Only five numbered name badges have been honored with ‘retirement’ over 81 years of history at the Rotary Club of Front Royal.

The only three other badge retirements recognizing “significant contributions to the Rotary Club of Front Royal (and) the Front Royal-Warren County community” were those of Q.D. Gasque (Badge #22), charter member of the club in 1926; club president 1951-52; Rotary District Governor and Warren County School Superintendent Courtenay Carbaugh (Badge #13), club president 1981-82; and Dr. Robert E. “Bob” Miller (Badge #51), local dentist and Rotarian for 75 years.

Moreman was a 20-year member of Front Royal Rotary, club president 1997-98, district governor 2001-05, recipient of the District Service Award, Rotary International’s highest honor, and served on the Warren County Planning Commission, the Samuels Library Board, and the LFCC board of directors.

Boyles joined the local club in 1988.  Apart from his service with the Warren County School Board, he was a board member of the Chamber of Commerce for 18 years, and a member of the Warren Memorial Hospital Board, among his many community activities.

Said Stanley (Rotarian Doug): “These gentlemen truly represented our motto of Service Above Self.  They exemplified the best of the club and served the Front Royal-Warren County community with honor and distinction. I am proud to have called them my friend and a fellow Rotarian.”