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Last modified: Monday, July 7, 2008 7:45 AM CDT
A whirlwind life of volunteering
Tully Chambers came to Wahpeton for a slower-paced life, but found himself becoming deeply involved with Rotary International.
by Jennifer Johnson, Daily News
After his recent induction as Rotary district governor, Tully Chambers is already off and running to fulfill his duties. His new position requires him to visit each of the 65 clubs in the district, and he has until December to do it.
Chambers' interest in Rotary stems back to 1995, when he first joined the Wahpeton Rotary club. He just arrived in Wahpeton after a fast-paced life in Chicago, and wanted to step back for a bit.
"But part of that was the sense that I needed to start giving back to my community," he said.
Prior to that point, he had experienced a bit of a whirlwind life. He grew up in the Gaspe Peninsula, Quebec, Canada, and bounced to Denver for a surgical residency after receiving his master's degree in Montreal. Afterward, he started a private practice in Prince George, British Columbia, Canada, then immigrated to Illinois to eventually become a United States citizen in 1984. There he became the chief of surgery at Saint Joseph Medical Center in Joliet, Ill., and later was recruited by MeritCare Health Systems in Fargo to be the surgeon for Wahpeton.
At the onset of Chambers' membership, the club was struggling. Not long afterward, he was placed at the head of the International group due to his interest in travel. In past years, the club had been battling with the perception that medical brigades in Honduras were not doing enough, and so Chambers was sent to the country to check out the system. In 2002, he spent a little over a week there, visiting 10 communities. After conferring with hospital administrators and Dr. Plutarco Castellanos, the former minister of health, the brigades were revealed to be doing quite well. The only thing the country needed was a bit of expanded services to the mountainous and hard-to-reach areas.
"We changed the brigades based on Castellanos' comments," Chambers said. "And that kind of got me noticed on the district level."
In conjunction with an Ohio club, the Wahpeton branch contributed to the effort by partly funding a mobile biomedical lab to use as a prototype. Two years later, the Honduran government started using the vehicle, which cost about $50,000 to build. Within the first six months, the government recovered $300,000 in medical equipment.
"That's when they said they needed more of these," said Chambers.
Part of the reason Chambers got involved with Rotary is its international service work. While many link the eradication of polio to the World Health Organization, they can actually thank the Rotary club. In 1985, members raised close to $700 million in campaign dollars to get children immunized all over the world. As Chambers' father was a polio victim, the organization's motto of "service above self" meant that much more.
Chambers also believes the club's success relies on the power of synergy and its youth membership.
"We can do so much more than any one individual," he said. "Our membership is actually growing worldwide, so we're pretty damn healthy."
On Sunday, July 6, he and his wife, Marilyn, hit the road to depart on a five month stretch of continuous travel. Marilyn is an accountant at Brushvale Seed, and the company is granting her the time off, for which Tully is grateful.
By December, the couple will have traveled 13,000 miles.
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