Darby Receives Attendance Scholarship
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Tyler Hill, President of the Rotary Club of Water Valley, presented the Paul Parker Perfect Attendance Scholarship to Water Valley High School graduate Ashlyn Darby.
Water Valley High School graduate Ashlyn Darby was presented the Paul Parker Perfect Attendance Scholarship. Each year the club presents the $500 scholarship to a senior who has a perfect attendance record during their senior year.
The club launched this scholarship in 2017 to honor the late Paul L. Parker, a fellow Rotarian who holds the undisputed world record for perfect attendance, attending weekly meetings for 77 years and nine months.
During Parker’s overseas travels, he kept his streak of perfect attendance by visiting Rotary chapters in several countries. Parker was born July 29, 1915, and passed away on Feb. 9, 2014, at the age of 98. He was born in Amite County, the third of four children to Joseph and Susie Parker. His family moved to different communities during his childhood, searching for the next best opportunity. Along the way, he attended grammar school at Pineville and high school at Long Beach before graduating from Macon High School in 1933.
The late Paul Parker attended weekly Rotary meetings for almost 78 years.
In 1936, he started a lengthy career as a businessman with the lease of a storefront in the town of York, Ala. He operated a 5&10 cent store. A year later, he lost the lease, forcing him to seek a new location for his business. That brought him to Water Valley in 1937 to open a Ben Franklin 5&10 cent store in the building that is now the BTC Grocery. This was the second of many profitable and successful business enterprises in his life.
He operated his Ben Franklin store until he sold the business in 1974, keeping the building and renting the space to the TWL discount store. He once turned down an opportunity to join Sam Walton in a little business venture Sam was working on in the 1960s, and later said he had zero regret.
Paul was a veteran of World War II, serving the U.S. Army in the 1390th Engineering Forestry Company in the European Theater. He was also the postmaster of the Water Valley Post Office from 1955 until he retired in 1987. After retiring from the post office, he opened an office above his old Ben Franklin store where he was an investment consultant to some of the Water Valley constituents.
