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 January 27 2013  was  the 66th anniversary of the death of Paul Percy Harris, who, along with a few friends, founded Rotary. Harris was born  April 19 1868 and died in  1947.

And there seems to be more information about him ... than you might want, including these highlights:

 Although we associate him with Chicago, he had a varied  route getting there. He was born in Racine, Wis . His father had a small, struggling business.  As a result, Paul and his brother were sent to Wallingford, VT to be raised be his grand parents.

He was a mischievous child and played many pranks. He was expelled from several schools, including The University of Vermont, in 1886, because of these actions.

But he had a lot of “academic lives”. He next went to Princeton (1888). Although he did not graduate, he apparently learned enough to open a law practice in Chicago, in 1896.

Prior to that, however, he worked at a variety of jobs for a newspaper as a salesman and a reporter;  on  fruit farms,  as an actor and cowboy and on cattle ships that traveled to Europe.

His background definitely was not what you  would expect.

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