Rotarians bid fond farewell to secretary
Gail Greenberg, the longtime executive secretary of Hot Springs National Park Rotary Club, was given a proper farewell during the club’s weekly meeting at the Arlington Resort Hotel & Spa on Wednesday.
To celebrate her 25 years of service to the club, Rotarians put on a skit, presented her with gifts and gave her time at the end of the meeting to give a few parting words.
Greenberg, in her remarks, mostly deferred speaking of herself and instead spoke highly of Rotary.
“I cannot begin to thank you all for everything,” she said.
Greenberg, a native Arkansan, took over Rotary’s secretarial position in 1992 after she and her husband retired to Hot Springs. She said she was the first to fill the position of secretary, which was created because National Park Rotary had grown to a size that could not be run by volunteers. She called herself “the first hired person” within the club.
Greenberg said the circumstances that put her in her role as secretary could not have been more ideal.
“If there’s a perfect storm of a job, this is it,” she said.
Greenberg said the job includes handling bookwork and working directly with the club’s president and treasurer.
She said in her time serving as secretary, National Park Rotary has developed the Rotary Centennial Trailhead on the Hot Springs Creek Greenway and worked with Rotary International to fight polio.
“Anything that is needed in town, if somebody lets us know, then we find a way to do it,” she said.
Greenberg will be succeeded by Susan Drost, who she said has been training under her to offi-
cially take over on July 1. She described Drost as “delightful.”
“She will do an excellent job. I’m training her, and I will continue training her,” Greenberg said. “A lot of what we do is one time a year, and it’s hard to train someone when you only do it once a year, so I plan on being on hand to help her this first year.”
Greenberg’s final day as Rotary secretary was highlighted by a skit put on by the club that depicted the Rotary clubs of heaven and hell in a legal battle over who would receive Greenberg as their secretary.
Throughout the skit, Greenberg was humorously praised for both the job she did as secretary and how she is as a person. The skit opened with arguments between the two clubs for why they should get her as secretary.
Don Gooch, who played St. Peter of the Rotary Club of Heaven, argued Greenberg was the first secretary of National Park Rotary, that she swims a mile every day and that she and her husband, Irv, are less than a year away from celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary.
Clay Farrar, who played Satan of the Rotary Club of Hell, argued that in her time as secretary Greenberg successfully organized the club’s weekly meetings and social events, took photographs of what happened at the club’s meetings and published the club’s weekly newsletter.
The skit concluded with a Rotary member dressed as President Donald Trump hiring her as White House chief of staff.
Greenberg told the Rotarians she would not be a stranger to the club, stating that whether she ends up in heaven or hell, she’s “not dead.”
After the meeting, Greenberg told The Sentinel-Record that while her journey as secretary was an improvisational one, it was also an enjoyable one.
“They didn’t know what to expect, and so I just made the job the way I thought it ought to be,” she said. “It’s been a wonderful thing.”