WAYCROSS

magazine

Waycross Rotary Welcomes 
Retired Norwegian Ammbassador

Former Waycross resident Jimmy Hill, l-r, club president Richard Sowell,
club secretary Danny Yarbrough, speaker Sverre Stub and Mayor John Knox.

In 1966/67 Sverre Stub studied at ABAC, with a scholarship

from the Rotary Clubs of Brunswick, Tifton, and Waycross Ro-
tary Student Fund. (include info about the foreign student fund)

This year It will be fifty years since he came to ABAC (when

Dr. J. Clyde Driggers was the president). Sverre is president of
one of the leading Rotary clubs in Oslo, Norway, Gimli Rotary
Club.

Sverre’s roommate from that time, Jimmy Hill, lived in Way-

cross back in the 70s working with Georgia Power. Jimmy or-
ganized and was the first President of the local Toastmasters
Club. 

During his year at ABAC, he spent most of his free time with a

family in Brunswick and attended some meetings and events of
the Brunswick Rotary, made many trips to the Golden Isles, etc.

Sverre last visited ABAC and Tifton Rotary in 1977, then as a

junior diplomat at the Norwegian embassy in Washington D.C.
He remembers that the visit included a lecture to a group of in-
terested students. 

More than forty years in the Norwegian diplomatic service,

including postings in the Hague (Netherlands), Washington D.C.,
Caracas (Venezuela), Geneva and Paris. He concluded his serv-
ice abroad as ambassador in Amman (Jordan), also accredited
to Baghdad (Iraq),  and then in Athens (Greece), also accred-
ited to Nicosia (Cyprus). While in Amman, he was a member of
Amman Cosmopolitan Rotary Club. Sverre  has also attended
the Senior Course at NATO Defense College in Rome, Italy 

His responsibilities in Oslo included the position as Director of

the Foreign Minister’s Office and Political Adviser in the Norwe-
gian Government. I have also been dealing with natural re-
source management, environment, energy and climate change,
as well as international security issues. His last responsibility
was to coordinate Norway's Chairmanship of the Barents Euro-
Arctic Council. He retired in 2014 and is now president of the
Group of retired ambassadors.

Anne Marie (also Norwegian) and Sverre have been married

since 1971. They have two sons and three grandchildren. 

The Waycross Rotary Club was founded in I930 with 23 charter members. The

Club follows the "object of Rotary" which is: to encourage and foster the ideal of
service as a basis of worthy enterprise; the development of acquaintance as an
opportunity for service; high ethical standards in business and professions; the
recognition of the worthiness of all useful occupations, and the dignifying by each
Rotarian of his occupation as an opportunity to serve society; the application of
the ideal of service by every Rotarian to his personal, business, and community
life; the advancement of international understanding, goodwill, and peace through
a world fellowship of business and professional persons united in the ideal of
service.

Waycross Rotary meets each Tuesday at 12:00 noon at Jerry J's Restaurant,

1406 Plant Avenue, Waycross.

Photo by Jimmy Hill