Did you “get your beauty struck,” as my great Aunt always referred to having her picture taken?
As promised, there was a Professional Photographer (two of them, in fact), present and ready to take some pictures for our Rotary directory. There was also a rank amateur photographer present, to immortalize the picture-takers. 
The line was out the door when I checked in, so I scooted in and out just as Prithi rang the bell.
To get the wheel rolling, Tom White four-way-tested us, Prithi Pledged and Phil Shore Prayed. H.R. Gallimore introduced the guests of Tom White: Joyce Harrington, wife of part of the program, and Jerry and Kay Atwood, musical linch-pins of Deep River Baptist Church; also present was Pat Allred, the ever-lovely better half of Don; and Matthew Altamura, son of Lynn Dodge, whom Your Scribe has already met in court, and on the right side of the bar, fortunately. Matt is a native of New York, a graduate of William and Mary, attends law school at George Mason University, and is practicing for the summer with his stepfather Fred Dodge.
A tardy Bill Batten just managed to get our student guests to AVS under the wire, and professed his appreciation for seat belts and air bags. 
Katie Dawes, daughter of Michele, Queen of the City of Asheboro water treatment plant, and Rick, Principal of Randleman High School, evidently comes from good stock. She’s the Captain of the Volleyball team, runs track, swing dances, volunteers for CUOC and the Chamber’s Student LIFT program, and last but not least, was this year’s Homecoming Queen. She works at the North Fayetteville Street Sir Pizza, and for her Senior Project, she demonstrated Belly Dancing. OMG. This fall she’s going to Appalachian State where she’ll major in Communications, and she wants to become a News Broadcaster.
Christian Zafra, son of Christino and Luisa Zafra, was born in Mexico City. (Bill Batten, channeling Tar Wheel Scribes, checked in advance to report that greater Mexico City has 27 million inhabitants, which is the equivalent to the population of North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia and Georgia all added together. FYI, that’s not even the largest city on earth: that would be Tokyo/ Yokohama, with 33 million residents.) Christian’s senior project was on Weight-lifting; he’s going to Chapel Hill where he intends to study Chemistry and Physics.
President Prithi offered the condolences of the Club to Richard and Alan Pugh, on the death last weekend of their mother Maxine Pugh. He also announced the death last night at Baptist Hospital in Winston-Salem of Hassell Patterson, member for many years on behalf of Asheboro Concrete Products, and husband of our long-time pianist Rose Patterson. His funeral service will take place Sunday at 3PM at Central Methodist Church. Prithi (and Phil Shore, in his Prayer) asked the Club to support Club Secretary and Incoming President Carole Gilliam, who had a major heart attack this week, and has had angioplasty and stents inserted at High Point Hospital, where she remains in the Cardiac Care Unit.
Your Scribe revealed the creation of this Blog as a new method of publishing the Tar Wheel, and solicited the comments of the Club. One good thing about blogging: if there’s nothing in particular happening, I can always add pictures! 
Vegetarian Time: Famous Irish writer and playwright George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950), was a famous Socialist and women’s rights advocate; won both the Nobel Prize (for Literature, 1925) and an Oscar (for Pygmalion, 1938; and yes, was one of the best-known Vegetarians ever. At one time he had some serious health problems (both his sisters died of tuberculosis), and sought advice from doctors, who told him that if he didn’t start to eat meat, he’d die. He refused, and lived into his nineties, when someone asked him what he’d “say to those doctors now?” “I’d like to tell him I was right,” he said, “but they’re all dead.” Moral of the Story: Vegetarianism prolongs life!
Tom White introduced our program, the Capital City Gospel Quartet. Just founded in 2006, the group has a combined 236 years of musical experience. Dale Garner, accompanies the group on the electric piano, and is the mother of Stephan and Beverly. Dale is the credit manager for a marble and glass company, and has played piano or organ for churches for more than 50 years. Stephen Garner, Baritone, is a mortgage broker, gospel music recordist and producer, and has sung with 5 different quartets over the past 18 years. Beverly Garner Yates, Alto, is a homemaker and longtime gospel singer. Eddie Harrington, Bass, was for 37 years the band director at South Asheboro Middle School/ Asheboro Junior High School, is married to former school board member Joyce Harrington, and is a former choir director. Dennis Harrington, Lead, is Eddie’s brother, a career public health administrator with the State, and was almost always a soloist until joining this group.
Your Scribe lost count of how many songs they performed, and they didn’t announce the song titles, but they were impressive performers, all. As Tom White said, this is the music of almost every country church in the South, and has been for more than a century. There’s some question whether the gospel music tradition started in African-American or in white southern churches. There’s no question that the first great star of Gospel music was singer, songwriter and guitarist Sister Rosetta Tharpe, who first made the pop music charts in 1938, and the black gospel tradition certainly goes back into the 19th century. Southern Gospel is often just called “quartet music” by fans due to the tenor-lead-baritone-bass quartet make-up. Early quartets were typically accompanied only by organ or guitar, and were originally all male. Its roots can be found in the early church music business where publishers like the Stamps-Baxter Company of Dallas, Texas, promoted their music books through travelling teachers who ran “shape note” singing schools across the South. The “Sanctified” or “Holiness” religious movement of the first decades of the twentieth century pumped energy into Southern Gospel. The singers who travelled with evangelists such as Billy Sunday inspired groups such as The Carter Family, hugely popular in radio performances from 1927 to 1943.
For more info, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_gospel .
