The Salisbury Rotary Club's newest president, Rocky Cabagnot, right, formally takes over for outgoing president Karen Hobson, left, during the club's meeting on Tuesday in Salisbury. - Chandler Inions

SALISBURY — There is a new sheriff in town. Well a new rotary president anyways. 

Now Immediate Past President Karen Hobson formally passed the gavel to Rocky Cabagnot during the Salisbury Rotary Club meeting on Tuesday. The annual passing of the gavel takes place during the first meeting in July. 

Addressing the club for the first time as president, Cabagnot, offered a poignant thought. 

“Rotary in Salisbury has gone about its community problems in a modest and quiet way, free from publicity, but earnest in its endeavors to promote any worthy cause,” Cabagnot said. “Especially is this true of the individual member who, in his daily application of Rotary’s principles is sowing the seed of righteousness and fair dealing that must eventually yield a harvest of unending good, a betterment of mankind, a full understanding of man’s obligation to his fellow man and his duty to God.”

Cabagnot acknowledged that the philosophy contained in his opening remarks belonged to an early Rotarian, the club secretary from 1923.

After all, borrowing from the past, prepares people for the future, Cabagnot noted. 

Cabagnot has come a long way from the fall of 1991, when he first entered the Rotary hut as a Junior Rotarian during his senior year at Salisbury High School. 

“I remember sitting at a table surrounded by the movers and shakers of Salisbury glancing around the room,” he said. “I was in absolute awe.”

Cabagnot was invited to join the club in 2018 by David Post. He spent last year as the president-elect.

During his initial address, Cabagnot pointed to all the accomplishments of the Rotary Club and how it had helped shape Salisbury through academic institutions, by lobbying and fundraising for the creation of a Boyden High School and championing the relocation of Catawba College to its current home. 

“A study in 2015 found that the college generated over $91 million in added economic value,” Cabagnot said. “Ten years later, I’m certain the college generates even more for our community, but for the Salisbury Rotary Club, this community would not have this gem of an asset over these 100 years or so.”

In laying out his vision, Cabagnot said he wants Rotary to continue to be “a source of positive community and economic action for Salisbury,” adding, “I believe we owe it to those Rotarians who came before us, and we owe it to the future generations of Salisbury as well.”

To the Rotarian who came immediately before him, Hobson, Cabagnot issued a debt of gratitude. 

“I wish to thank our immediate past president, Karen, for leadership over the past 12 months,” Cabagnot said. “One thing that I have learned from her is that the hard and thankless work of being president really occurs between the Tuesday meetings when you aren’t on the dais using the gavel.”

Cabagnot challenged those in the room to consider how best to delegate their own engagement, whether it was through club service, vocational service, community service, youth service or international service. 

“In this club year, I’m going to push us to think of ourselves less as just members of the Rotary Club, but more as Rotarians,” Cabagnot said. “I want to see more fellowship, more connection, more service and more impact.”

The outgoing Hobson reflected on her time as president of the chapter. 

“It has been a great year and it is a really great thing to be a president of this club,” Hobson said. “You know the club better, and you know Salisbury better, while you get to be among the community.”

Running down one wall in the Rotary Hut on Liberty Street in Salisbury are portraits of every preceding president in the club’s more than 100-year history. 

“There are some pretty interesting people on the list of presidents, many of whom I know because I was born here,” Hobson said. “I know so many of them and respect so many of them, it makes me feel honored to be among them.”

In her farewell address to the crowd, Hobson said, “It’s important to remember why we are Rotarians and what we do. I think it is a cause for good in this chaotic world.”

Much of that good occurs in the form of community outreach and engagement. 

“The real thing I want to do is reflect on this year’s accomplishments and recognize those who have made them possible,” Hobson said. “We really did two new things that I think were long overdue that I think will work really well. We have a newly reinstated Interact club at Salisbury High School … I think the students are really excited and that it is going to be a great thing. We also have a newly reinstated Roteract Club at Livingstone College …

“The Interact Club and Rotoract Club help us get in touch with youth and we get some vibrancy in young people involved in the club and the service projects we do. They were both with us on the United Way Day of Caring and it was great fun to have them and a real joy.”

Hobson also said she was proud of the work they’d done on the Patriot’s Flag Concourse in Salisbury, support for western N.C. in the wake of Hurricane Helene and continued scholarship opportunities for young students taking those next academic steps forward.