From staff reports

Area residents will once again be able to get a “taste of the South” as the Selma Rotary Club hosts its annual barbeque fundraiser Friday at Memorial Stadium.

The event is one of the largest fundraisers the club holds each year with the proceeds going to fund community initiatives.

In the past the club has funded organizations such as the city and county schools, the Journey School, the Selma Public Library, the Job Fair, the United Way, the Salvation Army and the YMCA, among others. The club also awards annual scholarships to area high school seniors and honors a “citizen of the year.”

“I’ve been in the Selma Rotary Club for a little over 10 years and I know this event has been a tradition of the club for a longer than that,” said barbeque chairperson John Nettles. “By far, it’s our most important fund raiser of the year. The really great thing about it, however, is that all the profits go into our project account from which we make generous donations to a number of local charities and to fund our annual high school senior scholarship and citizen of the year programs. If you stop and think about the sum total of good this one event has done from Selma it seems a little mind boggling and warms your heart just a little.”

The barbeque will be sold in pre-packaged containers for $7 per pound and $35 for a whole Boston Butt. Tickets can be purchased in advance through any Rotary member or on the day of the sale at the stadium.

Club members will labor through the night Thursday night preparing the barbeque with the meat being purchased locally through Ziegler’s.

“It’s good meat at a good price,” Nettles said. “Without a doubt it will be the best barbeque sold at the stadium this Friday.”

The Selma Rotary Club meets every Monday at noon at the St. James Hotel and the club is involved in many community building projects such as Camp Grist, Camp ASCCA, Habitat for Humanity and delivers Meals on Wheels each week to local residents.