Evan Burrell proves that Rotary isn’t all business.
Evan Burrell gets around. At the 2014 Rotary convention in Sydney, Australia, you may have seen him walking around holding a long stick with his phone attached, taking hundreds of “Service Above Selfies” with Rotaractors, Rotarians, and convention entertainers. Or you may have run into him immunizing children against polio in India, or mingling with Rotary leaders in Evanston as a member of the Rotaract and Interact Committee, or teaching 2013-14 RI President Ron Burton how to dance to Korean singer Psy’s “Gangnam Style” at a Rotary Foundation dinner. “I try to have fun in Rotary,” Burrell says. “We can be serious about what we do, but let’s do it with a smile on our faces.” His mother, who was a Rotaractor in the 1970s, encouraged him to join a Rotaract club when he was a shy introvert in the beachy suburbs of Northern Sydney. “I wasn’t overly excited about Rotaract,” he recalls. “I was really just looking for a girlfriend.” Burrell, now a gregarious 33-year-old, joined two weeks after his 18th birthday; within months he had met the woman who later became his wife. After he turned 30, he spent a year shaking up a traditional Rotary club before helping to establish Australia’s first e-club. Now a member – along with his wife, Barbara – of the Rotary Club of Turramurra, he works for Rotary Down Under, Rotary’s regional magazine serving Australia, New Zealand, and Pacific islands. – Sallyann Price