By JOHN EBY
Dowagiac Daily News

Dowagiac Rotary Club belatedly inducted Patti Badner Thursday noon at the weekly luncheon at Elks Lodge 889.

Belatedly because Badner, of Kemner-Iott Insurance Agency in Cassopolis for more than eight years, was expected to be welcomed June 10, but the tornado damaged her own home.

“She was busy last week trying to put her home back in order,” President Cathy Merrill explained. “Rotary is an international organization of business and professional people, with clubs throughout the world. When you join Rotary, you become part of a worldwide fraternity. Rotarians will welcome you warmly, even though the language may be different, the food unusual and the location far from home.

“The objective is to encourage and foster the ideal of service as the basis of worthy enterprise … Rotary is not just another club, it’s a way of life. Like everything else, you get out of it what you put into it.”

Badner, proposed for membership by Sheriff Joe Underwood, said, “My husband’s a contractor, so my house is going to be last from the whole block, but it’s all tarped up. We’ve got everything enclosed and are mainly working on the trees. We also found out we’re going to lose the barn. And no one was hurt.”