Chappaqua Rotary to bestow three community service awards at Saturday, March 6 celebration

March 5, 2010

by John Ehrlich

Next Saturday, The Rotary Club of Chappaqua New York will present community service awards to Gray Williams, New Castle Town Historian, Harold Campbell, a long-time Rotarian, and Brandon Azoulai, a senior at Horace Greeley High School. All the honorees will receive their awards at the Annual Community Service Dinner celebrating Rotary’s 27th year in Chappaqua.  The event is open to the community and all those interested in attending are warmly welcomed.

The awards dinner and celebration will be held from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m. on Saturday, March 6, at Crabtree’s Kittle House in Chappaqua. Tickets are $75 per person.  Contact John Ehrlich, 2009-10 President, at 914-602-3410 or .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) for more information or to make reservations.

Gray Williams to receive Rotary’s highest honor

On Saturday, the Chappaqua Rotary will bestow its highest honor, the Community Service Award, on Gray Williams for his decades of service as Town Historian and as a volunteer with the Westchester and New Castle Historical Societies and the Chappaqua Library. 

A lifetime resident of Chappaqua, Williams joined the now defunct New Castle Town Club in the 1960’s, becoming the chairman of its library committee.  In 1970, he was elected to the first of two terms on the library board, and served as trustee, vice president and president until 1976. During this period, the Chappaqua Library changed its status from an association library to a school-district library, found and acquired the site for a new building, supervised the design for its construction, and successfully campaigned for a public bond issue to finance it. After leaving the board, Gray continued to serve on the Friends of the Library.

Williams is a trustee of the Westchester County Historical Society and the New Castle Historical Society, where he serves as chairman of the interiors committee for the Horace Greeley House. In this capacity, he managed the furnishing and decoration of the historic home for more than 10 years and is the project manager for the historical society’s community preservation projects. 

These projects have included the restoration of the Tompkins family burying ground in the Hudson Hills golf course, Fair Ridge Cemetery, Horace Greeley’s walled spring on Senter Street and the long-neglected bronze statue of Greeley. From 2007 to 2009, he supervised the work of Chappaqua Boy Scout Troop One in recording and mapping the more than 1,100 monuments in the Chappaqua Friends graveyard.

Williams has been a member of the Town of New Castle Landmarks Advisory Committee since 1993. He was appointed Town Historian and chairman of the committee in 2004.

He also authored several books and articles on local history, contributing a chapter on New Castle’s graveyards and old families to

A Bicentennial History of the Town of New Castle

, edited by Richard L. Neale and published by the historical society in 1991. 

His major book,

Picturing Our Past: National Register Sites in Westchester County, published by the Westchester County Historical Society in 2003, describes and illustrates several New Castle sites, including the original hamlet of Chappaqua and the buildings on Horace Greeley’s former farm. More recently, Gray was a co-author of the pictorial history New Castle: Chappaqua and Millwood

, published in 2006 by Arcadia Press as part of its “Images of America” series. He and his wife, Marian, research and write descriptions of the homes open to visitors on the historical society’s annual house tour.

Paul Harris Award

Longtime Chappaqua Rotary member and former club vice president Harold Campbell was selected by the club board as its Paul Harris Award winner. The Chappaqua Rotary contributed $1000 in his name to the Rotary Foundation.

Born and bred in New Castle and a graduate of Horace Greeley High School, Campbell served in the United States Air Force in France from 1951 to 1953, where he met his his wife, Theresa. The couple had three children. Campbell has been a member of the American Legion for 22 years, he was also active in the Chappaqua Volunteer Ambulance Corps for 22 years, is one of the founders of Chappaqua Swim and Tennis, and is the current treasurer of Fair Ridge Cemetery.  Campbell and his son, Michael, operate Campbell Engineering, a surveying firm founded by Campbell’s father.  Campbell has served two years as vice-president and two years as president of the Westchester-Putnam Association of Professional Land Surveyors.

Greeley senior Brandon Azoulai to receive award and scholarship 

Horace Greeley High School senior Brandon Azoulai was selected this year from among five student finalists to receive the Rotary’s Jill Goodman Community Service Award and accompanying $1000 scholarship.  This award is designated for a Greeley senior who best exemplifies “Service Above Self,” the Rotary motto. Seniors apply for the award and scholarship by submitting a 200-word essay describing their community service work, and expanding on it in an interview. 

This year’s award honors Brandon for his work with the Chappaqua Volunteer Ambulance Corp, Boy Scouts of America, New Castle C.A.R.E.S., the Computer Bank project and other volunteer efforts, which extend back to when Brandon was 5 years old. 

As Brandon explained in his essay, he was thrust into his first volunteer role due to an early life-threatening illness.  “I can remember volunteering when I was five. At this time in my life I was battling bone cancer and my positive attitude prompted my doctors to request that I speak with new pediatric patients and their families, as they were diagnosed. Seeing the effect my efforts could have, and experiencing the generosity of other volunteers certainly helped build the foundation for my current volunteer work. This period of my life also brought me very close to my family. Over the years my respect, appreciation and love for them motivated me to offer help in any capacity that I could whenever assistance has been needed.”

In his essay, he elaborated on his motivation for community service. “In every situation in which I agree to work on a task, it is for the simple reason that I will be helping others and that it needs to get done.  I always find the time in my personal schedule if it benefits the community in some way.”

During his interview, he credited his work with the Boy Scouts for helping to mold him as a leader.  “When I started [in the Boys Scouts], the easiest way [to get someone to do something] was just to yell.  Over time, I learned more effective ways,” he said with understated humor. In his personal essay submitted as part of the selection process, he stated, “as a leader my first priority is, was, and will always be to those I serve, to ensure that I deliver the best program possible to the youth I am charged with and trusted to lead.” 

John Ehrlich is the president of Chappaqua Rotary, which is the local chapter of Rotary International. The club is the preeminent service organization in New Castle and meets weekly on Mondays at 12:15 p.m. at Crabtree’s Kittle House in Chappaqua, New York.