THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, June 29, 1994 TAG: 9406280106
SECTION: ISLE OF WIGHT CITIZEN PAGE: 02 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: Linda McNatt
DATELINE: 940629 LENGTH: Long
If that's one you haven't heard before, it's because the Moonlight Ruritans are the newest club in the Zone 5 Ruritan District.
{REST} The Moonlighters voted at their most recent meeting to participate in the fair. Don't know what they'll be doing or selling yet, but they'll be there.
Last month, 72 people showed up at the club's charter night. That tells me that either there are lots of folks in Moonlight with real community spirit or there's simply nothing else to do out there.
``You had one of the best charter nights,'' District Governor Donise Ayers told club members. ``I'm still hearing talk about it.''
Ayers also told them that he was from the Carrollton club, ``over by the James River Bridge.'' I wonder, if he'd been anywhere else, he would have felt it necessary to explain where Carrollton is. Living in a place like Moonlight, I guess, they don't get out much.
When Gerald Gwaltney, Isle of Wight County commissioner of revenue, told me that the club already had 34 members and invited me to their first meeting, I asked him if he just announced a hunt club meeting and swore them in.
That's apparently not the case. Many of the new Ruritans don't even belong to the hunt club. But they are folks who have embraced the country lifestyle you can find only in places like Moonlight.
Take Bob Swartz, for example. He and his wife lived in Virginia Beach for years. They moved to Isle of Wight, and Swartz started raising chickens, keeping bees, cultivating a garden, and he rides to his job in Norfolk every day on a motorcycle.
Swartz, club secretary, told me he and the wife now tell the kids to come see them. They no longer do Virginia Beach.
Gwaltney, who has a reputation for having always loved his rural community, started the club. He was a member of the Smithfield Ruritans for 12 years, he said. He always wanted Moonlight to have one of its own.
That's like the time, when Gwaltney was still in high school, he longed for road signs to herald the arrival to Moonlight for motorists tooling down country roads. Just a teenager then, he convinced the highway department to erect the signs. Didn't last long. People kept stealing them.
So a Ruritan Club is something nobody can take away, right? Gwaltney couldn't have his own highway signs, so he formed his own Ruritan club. He's president.
Robert W. ``Bo'' Manly, newly appointed president of Smithfield Packing, was guest speaker at the club's first official meeting.
Manly talked about his company progressing from 6 percent of the hog slaughter share in 1975 to 13 percent in 1993. In 1983, he said, Smithfield Packing was not even in the top 10 among pork producers.
Today, they are tied for third place, moving rapidly into No. 2 slot thanks to the new operation in North Carolina. Manly had all the charts and graphs to support his claims.
At the end of the presentation, he apologized for being so dry. But it was OK. It wasn't his fault that the ceiling fans were so darn neat.
``I came here tonight at Gerald's request, hoping I'd get a break on my taxes,'' Manly said, grinning at Gwaltney, whose Ruritan nickname is ``Commish.''
Then Manly looked at me and told me I didn't have to quote him.
``Why not?'' I inquired. ``It's the first funny thing you've said tonight.''
I asked Manly, now that George Hamilton has retired from the company, if he planned to have a label with his picture on it. He said he didn't. If he changed his mind, Ruritan Jeanette Sene said, he should use his nickname, ``Bo.'' Sounds like a marketing gimmick to me: Bo-Hams.
And then I did the unthinkable. I don't know what made me ask, but I always wanted to know. I asked Manly if he believed in the intelligence of pigs.
He never flinched. I've got to hand it to him, he was truly valiant under fire.
He agrees with those who feel that pigs possess intelligence equal to dogs and horses, he said. But he went on to say that he doesn't believe the pigs being bred for slaughter retain the same kind of intelligence as their brothers who simply roam free.
I think he's probably right. I imagine you'd be hard pressed to find a Peaches, my grandmother's pet chicken, among Mr. Perdue's flock.
And Manly said something else that made sense. He said that organizations like the Ruritans would help this area keep its rural flavor, retain the fabric of country life. I think he's right about that, too.
Moonlight, sure enough, is tickled to have a Ruritan club. I can understand why. I've never been to a Ruritan meeting when I didn't feel at home, welcomed. Moonlight, certainly, is the right kind of place for it.
Gwaltney told me that the oldest member is Calvin ``Cal'' Birdsall. At 81, it must taken a lot of nerve to become a charter member of anything. Everett Doggett, 75, was a charter member of the Isle of Wight Ruritans in 1948. He hadn't been active for several years, Gwaltney said.
The Moonlight Ruritans perked him right up, and now he's a charter member of that organization.
The youngest charter members are probably in their 20s. And there are women in this club as well as men.
So if you live in Moonlight, or near it, and you're looking for a way to meet your neighbors, to get involved with the community, remember that Moonlight now has a Ruritan club.
Y'all come.
by CNB