Team from U.K. part
of cultural exchange
A group from the United Kingdom emphasized the international in Rotary International on April 18 when its five members gave the Rotary Club of Kinston a taste of the life they live back home.
Traveling in North Carolina for a month as part of Rotary’s Group Study Exchange program, the team members expressed pleasure at the warm reception they had received from fellow Rotarians and others.
“The welcome we’ve received since we’ve been in North Carolina has been absolutely amazing,” Steve Davies, a retired physics teacher and team leader, told the Kinston club.
With Davies, team members are Sarah Salter of Bristol, a project manager for an adult social care operation; Ben Mottram of Worcester, head of communications for the Worcester Warriors, a professional rugby team; Grace Rollason of Malvern, a general practitioner working for Britain’s National Health Service; and Hannah Newrick, also of Malvern, an activity coordinator in a nursing home.
They are Rotarians in District 1100, an area of southern England and Wales that encompasses 69 clubs of 2,007 Rotarians. Davies and Rollason are both natives of Wales.
In exchange for the insight they provided on how they live and work, they got a glimpse of life in Kinston during their three days here, boarding with club members’ families and touring local businesses, medical facilities and schools.
On April 11, restaurateur Wilbur King gave the club a concise history of a business his family began 77 years ago and has grown into one of the best known barbecue houses in the state.
“In 1936, my grandfather built a store on the front of a one-horse farm,” King began, “and he died three months later.”
That store transitioned into a service station operated for three years by King’s father, who leased it for a while when he worked out of state, then set up a grill in the business when he returned. “The menu was hot dogs and hot dogs and hot dogs,” King said.
Barbecue didn’t become part of the fare until about 1952, and then only on Saturday. It became a daily item the next year, setting up the tremendous growth King’s Restaurant has seen since 1955. In 20 years it grew from 100 seats to 750 seats.
After weathering near fatal damage from the flooding brought by Hurricane Floyd in 1999 and the death of his son Wil years later, King said he began looking for someone to turn the daily responsibility of ownership over to. He found that person in Joe Hargitt, who had started working at the restaurant when he was 17. Hargitt’s wife and son also work there.
“I feel like this will continue to be a family operation for a long time,” King said.