Western Pa. produces next Rotary International president

This time next year, she’ll be leading a million-plus-member worldwide organization.

Yet to her friends — and folks she’s just met, for that matter — Stephanie Urchick represents the veritable definition of down to earth.

Ask Al DeLucia of Bethel Park, who’s known her for three decades.

“She’s Stephanie from Monessen, and she’s Stephanie from the Rotary Club of McMurray,” he said. “It’s a little hard to wrap your head around the idea that she’s going to be the Rotary International president.”

Starting July 1 and continuing for a year, Urchick is poised to guide 1.4 million Rotarians, fellow McMurray member DeLucia included.

Their Peters-based club is part of Rotary International District 7305, which covers much of southwestern Pennsylvania. John Hartman of the Murrysville-Export club is district governor for 2023-24.

“I think Stephanie’s strong suit is her approachability,” he said. “She’s always available. She’ll always give the best advice she can give. She’s the person who can sit down with people of all different backgrounds and find a way to carve out a path.”

DeLucia credits Urchick with inspiring his path toward district governorship in 2020-21, as the first member of his 58-year-old club to hold the post.

“She encouraged me to apply and encouraged me to accept the position, and it’s been extremely fulfilling,” he said. “Stephanie has done nothing but set a fantastic example for me to follow and for so many other Rotarians to follow.”

‘People are drawn to her’

Urchick, who lives in North Strabane, ended up following in the footsteps of the man she calls her “Rotary godfather”: the late Chuck Keller, who was international president in 1987-88 and a member of the California club in Washington County, which she joined in 1991.

“I was a new Rotarian. So every time somebody in the club would say, ‘Oh, we’re talking about the COL’ or ‘We’re going to have the DG visit,’ I’d say, ‘Chuck, what are they talking about?’ And he’d just turn around and explain it,” she recalled.

The respective acronyms stand for “council on legislation” and “district governor,” both of which hold particular relevance for Urchick. Rotary International’s COL voted to allow women in the organization only two years before she became a member, and in 1998, she took over as the first female governor of what then was District 7330.

At the district’s helm, she led an initiative to provide a mammography machine and biopsy unit to a hospital in Poland, one of a legion of altruistic endeavors around the globe. Among the others are participating in polio-preventing National Immunization Days in India and Nigeria, helping build a school in Vietnam, and assisting with water filter installation in the Dominican Republic.

Combine such efforts with her steady succession of leadership roles at home and abroad, and Urchick already has attained the status of an eminently recognized Rotarian.

“She’s a magnet. People are drawn to her by her enthusiasm, her knowledge, her ability to lead, and her being so humble and approachable,” DeLucia said. “When I was in Melbourne, Australia, at the international convention, every time I saw her there was a line of at least 50 to 75 people waiting to be able to say hello to Stephanie and get a chance to meet her.”

‘It’s about peace’

Of course, she prefers to focus not on herself but what she can do on behalf of others through Rotary International as the second woman to serve as president, after Canadian Jennifer E. Jones in 2022–23.

Urchick intends to further the Hearts of Europe initiative, a collaboration with the U.S. Agency for International Development that aims to foster networking and friendship in 12 countries in the eastern part of the continent.

Her plans include visiting each, plus further travel to the seven Rotary Peace Centers — in Africa, Asia, Europe and Chapel Hill, N.C. — where training in conflict resolution takes place. A new center is scheduled to open in the spring of 2025 in Istanbul, Turkey, with celebratory activities culminating in a public peace walk.

“I want the spotlight to be on that event, to show the world that Rotary, it’s about peace,” Urchick said. “Our fundamental principle is to spread world understanding and peace. That’s what we do.”

In the opinion of District Governor Hartman, Urchick’s 2024-25 leadership will be of substantial benefit to the organization.

“From an experience standpoint, from a training standpoint, from an educational standpoint, she has it all. But that’s not what rockets her to the moon,” he said. “What rockets her to the moon is she’s just like everybody else. And she’ll say, ‘I’m just Stephanie.’ In her year, it’s that ability to reach out to everyone.”

For more information about Rotary International, visit www.rotary.org/en.