Carrollton Ruritans celebrate 75 years
Published 11:24 am Tuesday, March 4, 2025
The Carrollton Ruritan clubhouse stands at the site of the former Carrollton Graded School on Norsworthy Drive. (File photo)
Del. Otto Wachsmann, R-Sussex, reads a House of Delegates resolution honoring the Carrollton Ruritan Club’s 75th anniversary. At left is Club President Dale Jones. (Photos by Stephen Faleski | The Smithfield Times)
A cake celebrates the Carrollton Ruritan Club’s 75th anniversary.
From left are Christy Archer, her mother, Frances Lewis, and Archer’s daughter, Sarah, who’s the third generation to join the Carrollton Ruritans.
The original charter for the Carrollton Ruritan Club hangs on a wall in the clubhouse on Norsworthy Drive.
Steve Clark, club secretary, lights a candle in honor of the club’s charter members.
A plaque honors the late William McCarty Sr., a Carrollton Ruritan, pastor of Healing Waters Worship Center and member of Isle of Wight County’s Board of Supervisors who died Jan. 25.
Club President Dale Jones, left, and Ruritan National President-elect David Thompson, drape the circa-1950 club charter with a black cloth in memory of the founding members, who are all deceased.
William Lilley gets a plate of fried chicken and sides.
In 1950, Alaska and Hawaii had yet to become states, the Korean War was brewing and Carrollton was a much more rural place than it is today.
On Jan. 17 of that year, 42 founding members of the Carrollton Ruritan Club – 16 of them farmers – affixed their names to the club’s charter, which to this day hangs proudly in the clubhouse on Norsworthy Drive.
The club celebrated its 75th anniversary on Feb. 25. George Winslow, a six-time past president of the Carrollton chapter and 2003 Ruritan National president, has been a member for nearly 42 of those years, making him the longest-serving member.
The club’s current president, Dale Jones, joined in 1985, as did Herb De Groft, who on the fourth Tuesday of each month when the club meets goes by another name: “Afterburner.”
Monikers are part of the Ruritan tradition. De Groft’s is a nod to his past service on the flight deck of aircraft carriers in the Marine Corps. An afterburner is a fighter jet engine component that allows the planes to reach supersonic speeds.
De Groft said he joined after being invited as a guest speaker while serving in the Marine Corps Reserve. At the club he encountered many familiar faces from Benn’s United Methodist Church, which he attends.
William Lilley, who joined in 2001, goes by “T-man.” Lilley’s moniker has nothing to do with the law enforcement branch of the United States Treasury Department but rather his taste for Lipton tea.
Sarah Archer, the club’s youngest member, goes by “Cue Ball.” She’s a third-generation member who joined roughly three years ago at age 15. There’s no minimum age to join Ruritan though most teenage members join youth “Ruri-Teen” chapters.
Sarah’s grandmother, Frances Lewis, is “Side Pocket,” a nod to her always paying her dues on time. Sarah’s mother, Christy Archer, is “Eight Ball.” Christy’s late father, Rowland, started the Billiards-related naming tradition with “Billard Ball.” Frances and Christy each joined in the mid-1990s.
Among the club’s newest members is Betty Ann Bryan, who goes by “Chicken” in honor of a close friend who would to call her that.
It was “the only nickname I ever had,” said Bryan, who joined the club roughly two years ago.
The name “Ruritan” itself has a story. It reportedly originated with Virginian Pilot reporter Daisy Nurney, who in 1928 suggested merging the Latin words for open country, or “ruri,” and small-town life, or “tan,” while covering the national organization’s inaugural meeting on May 21 of that year in the then-town of Holland, now part of Suffolk.
Sarah isn’t the only third-generation Ruritan. Donald Worrell is the grandson of Harvey Worrell, one of the charter members at that 1928 Holland chapter meeting.
Christy said she joined out of a desire to get involved in the Carrollton community, which has been her family’s home since the 1600s.
Del. Otto Wachsmann, R-Sussex, presented the club with a House of Delegates resolution commending the club’s 75th anniversary. He himself is a member of the Holland chapter.
Ruritan National also presented the club with a plaque honoring the late William McCarty, who in addition to his role as pastor of Healing Waters Worship Center in Carrollton and as the area’s representative on Isle of Wight County’s Board of Supervisors, was a member of the Carrollton Ruritans.
Winslow described Ruritan as an “organization of love.”
“I haven’t visited any club where you don’t see the love,” Winslow said.
The club holds a fish fry twice per year on the first Saturdays in May and November, which raises between $4,000 and $5,000 annually for scholarships.
“We’re still cooking it fresh right here at the club,” Christy said.
Since its 1950 inception, the club has sponsored a scouting troop, now known as Troop 36 and Cub Pack 36. The club also collects school supplies for teachers, donates to the Isle of Wight Christian Outreach Program and Western Tidewater Free Clinic, supports the Carrollton branch of the Blackwater Regional Library’s summer reading program and cleans trash from a stretch of Brewers Neck Boulevard and the corner of Norsworthy Drive and New Towne Haven Lane under the Virginia Department of Transportation’s adopt-a-highway program.
The club initially met at Benn’s UMC and by the mid-1960s had built the current clubhouse on Norsworthy, which it rents out for parties and at free or reduced rates to other civic groups. The area is as close as Carrollton ever came to having a historic downtown.
The clubhouse now stands at the site of the former Carrollton Graded School, whose students were consolidated in 1926 with schools in Smithfield and Windsor. It was built near the still-standing early 19th century Carroll house and shop that was once owned by Carrollton’s namesake, Samuel Carroll.
