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Chris Weston, a member of the Columbia Sertoma Club, has been voted President of the national Sertoma organization for 2012-2013. Sertoma, with more than 20,000 members nationally and $20 million raised for various charities, places a particular focus on children’s charities and speech and hearing issues.

The first legacy President in Sertoma’s history, Chris follows in the footsteps of his father, C. Tucker Weston, who served as International President in 1959-60.

As he leads the organization, Chris has committed to addressing two key areas – the need to grow the organization by adding more new members and clubs and the need to create greater awareness of Sertoma and educate more of the public on its national hearing health mission.

Chris attended the Citadel where he earned a degree in education. He is married to Anne, a graduate of Duke University and an educator who now serves as the Provost and Upper School Head at Heathwood Hall Episcopal School in Columbia. He has two daughters, Sarah and Drayton.

Chelsea Washington, a WIS TV reporter and Saturday Morning anchor, spoke at the Sertoma club’s weekly meeting on Monday, September 17.

Ms. Washington, a member of the WIS family since October 2011, spoke about growing up in Columbia and eventually returning, and her many travels and experiences in between. She specifically discussed the news industry and
touched on a few stories she has covered both in Columbia and in other markets.

Chelsea attended James Madison University and later American University where she earned a Master’s degree in broadcast journalism and public affairs. Â She then worked at Fox News and later an ABC affiliate in Richmond Virginia before returning to Columbia.

Harry Gregory Sr. was awarded the Order of the Silver Crescent by South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley May 29, 2012.

Gregory has been a licensed, upstanding, trusted, and efficient certified public accountant since 1967. He formed Harry B. Gregory and Associates in 1976, after two highly successful associations with two other accounting firms in Columbia, one of which he was also a founding partner.

For over 35 years, he has served on the Legislative Committee of the SC Association of Certified Public Accountants, enjoys membership in the SC Chamber of Commerce, Columbia Chamber of Commerce, and an active member of the Columbia Sertoma Club since 1967. He is a former member of the Board of Directors for the Carolina Children’s Home where he was awarded the Carlile Courtenay Emeritus Trustee award for exceptional service.

Harry has led a life of dignity, service before self, compassion, and has made a tremendous difference to his profession and to his fellowman.

See the story in the Columbia Star.

C.T. Weston & Associates is an insurance firm owned and run by Chris Weston. The firm is a success story and has been for decades, but Weston’s position with Sertoma Inc. is what piqued interest in him at The Columbia Star.

Communitarianism is threatened, as illustrated in the recent book, Bowling Alone by Robert Putnam, where the country is losing its sense of neighborliness and community and shared responsibility. Probably due in part to cutthroat competition in commerce and the professions and even the arts, there is a falloff in civic club membership. There’s no time, as the common complaint goes.

Weston is a long–term member of the Columbia Sertoma group, about 55 Columbians who meet at Seawell’s across Rosewood Drive from The Rocket. Weston has been a district governor for two years and next an international director. Weston’s new position with Sertoma Inc. is junior vice president, and then he’ll rise soon to senior vice president, which puts him in line to become president– elect.

Sertoma’s beginnings were in Kansas City, 1912, in the Coates House Hotel. Then it was called the Co- Operative Club. The Sugar Bowl football game in New Orleans was first put together by the local Co- Operative group in 1934. There was an official name change to Sertoma in 1950 when the phrase SERvice TO MAnkind offered its three syllables.

Every year Sertoma clubs raise more than $20 million for local community service projects. Weston would like to see that on the rise.

Weston was born at Columbia’s Baptist Hospital. His father was Tucker Weston, an orthopaedic surgeon. Watson was the third oldest of five children. Immediately above him is Mary Weston Grimball, recently the CEO at Junior Achievement.

After getting schooled at Heathwood Hall Episcopal School, Schneider and Brennan Elementary, and Crayton Junior High School, Weston left town for his four years of high school at Christchurch School on the banks of the Rappahannock River in Virginia. At Christchurch Weston was on the track, soccer, tennis, and sailing teams.

Weston went to The Citadel where he stayed with his sailing, competing across the country. His tennis developed a mean twohanded backhand, which he put to full use as a 3.5 league player until his eyesight failed to keep up with the demands of the game.

He started The Citadel in pre–med, and he finished in business. Immediately upon graduation with his BS in business, Weston went to work as a manufacturer’s representative for Columbia’s Tom Glazebrook. After ten years with Glazebrook, Weston totally immersed in the insurance industry.

Weston hung his own shingle at C.T. Weston & Associates about 20 years ago. He located in his father’s office building at 1410 Barnwell Street.

While sailing in Charleston, Weston met his wife, Charleston’s Anne Thornbill, a graduate of both Ashley Hall and Duke University. She is the associate head of school and provost at Heathwood Hall. They have two girls. Sarah is a Clemson alumna living in Los Angeles and working in human resources for a Fortune 500 company, Taycor, the country’s top equipment financing and equipment leasing compa- ny. Drayton is a junior at Clemson, planning on a semester in France next year.

When their girls were eight and four, the Westons took in two boys from India, ages 14 and 15, thinking it would be for less than a year while the boys attended Heathwood Hall. Ten years of temporary stand-in parenting later, the Westons helped the boys move back to Daman, more than a 100 miles north of Mumbai. They are both married and running the family businesses — big businesses, it must be said.

Chris and Anne Weston are looking forward to taking out some time next year while they visit their daughter Drayton in France.

See the story in the Columbia Star.

Is Now Fourth-In-Line to Become International President

Chris Weston was elected Junior Vice President at the just-concluded Sertoma International Convention held in Nashville, TN. Chris is now fourth-in-line to become International President, a position his father held in 1959-60.

Mr. Weston has been a member of the Columbia Sertoma Club for more than twenty years and has held every leadership position possible during that time. In addition, he has served in multiple roles at the District and Regional levels including District and Regional Governor.

Despite his work at the District, Regional, and now International level, Chris still finds time to volunteer at the local club level. He coordinates the annual Carolina Children’s Home BBQ, which routinely raises more than $50,000 for the Home, and takes part in nearly every fundraiser the Columbia conducts each year. He has mentored many Sertomans new to the club and has sponsored many new members.