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Bob Brown - Seventy Years of Rotary

In December, the Rotary Club of Marietta Metro held a birthday celebration for one of its distinguished members, Bob Brown. Robert E. Brown was born in 1926 and turned ninety-eight on his most recent birthday. In itself, it is a very notable event but as he gave a few remarks about his incredible life he mentioned he’d been involved with Rotary for seventy years. I have known Bob for a number of years, but I did not know he had been in Rotary that long. So, I told him we had to tell his Rotary story.

Bob was born in Samford, Florida. At a young age his family moved to Waycross, GA as his father took a railroad job. He was one of six children, four boys and two girls. Their family struggled through the depression. Bob graduated high school at the age of seventeen and joined the Navy. He was sent to the Pacific as a helmsman on a PT boat.

After the war Bob would use the GI bill to earn a degree from the University of Georgia. Then he began a career in the aviation industry. He sold insurance and evolved in to airport management. He obtained his pilot's license, enabling him to fly to meet customers. His first boss, a Rotarian, encouraged Bob’s involvement in the East Point Rotary Club.

Soon thereafter Bob was asked to help start up a new club near the Atlanta airport. Shortly after, in 1948, Bob became a founding member of the Atlanta Airport Club. After the airport club was established, Bob moved back to the East Point club and served as club president.

In 1969 Bob would get into politics and was elected as mayor of East Point, GA. After serving as mayor, Bob stayed in East Point until moving to Marietta in the late seventies, where he joined the Marietta Rotary Club. In the 1980s his aviation business would take him to Cartersville where he would join the Cartersville Rotary Club.

In Bartow County, he would help start yet another Rotary Club and in the early 2000s, Bob helped create the Etowah Cartersville Club. Bob would stay in Rotary until he retired later in the decade. But that was not the end.

Posted by Buck Buchanan
February 4, 2025

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