LAURINBURG — Jerry McGee, retired president of Wingate University, had Laurinburg’s Rotary Club hooting and hollering during his visit on Tuesday at the meeting in the Masonic Lodge.
McGee opened by letting the Rotary Club know how grateful he was for them and how he considered Laurinburg a home of his own since his little brother, Danny Caddell, resides in the town.
“I thank you for having me here, I’ve always thought the real great strength of America are places like Rockingham and Red Springs and Laurinburg and places like this where we go to work every day, we take care of our families, we love our neighbors and we do good things for our community. So I think what you’re doing here is wonderful,” said McGee.
Then he went right into some humorous stories that had every person in the room howling with laughter.
He began with a story of his Aunt Myrtle who was a naively pleasant woman. One day she decided to buy a bumper sticker that said, ‘honk if you love Jesus.’
She praised the Lord and every time people yelled and honked at her in traffic she thought they were simply praising the lord right along with her.
“It’s a good thing so many people love Jesus, because they all started honking,” she recalled to Jerry after holding up a red light.
One man loved Jesus so much, he yelled from the car behind her, “For the love of God go, go, Jesus Christ go.” She was so happy to hear his love for the Lord she honked back and waved.
McGee continued on with stories about a woman too polite to ask about a bathroom facility at a campground, so she changed the term to bathroom commode, then shortened it to b.c. and asked the campground owner if they had a b.c. Not knowing what she was talking about, the owner assumed she meant Baptist Church.
McGee then went on to tell humorous stories about his days as the university president and a college football official. He was responsible for enforcing the rules and maintaining the order of the game. He had lots of stories about the coaches and officials playing pranks on each other.
“It’s a great game, I love the coaches, I love the players,” said Mcgee.
“I’d hate to have a job where I worked my rear end off 365 days a year and I got 12 afternoons to prove to the world I can do my job.”
Abby Hackmann can be reached at 910-506-3171.