By David Rogers. BLOWING ROCK, N.C. — With only the annual banquet on June 29 left to complete The Rotary Club of Blowing Rock’s 2025-25 fiscal year, club president Charles Hardin wielded his gavel for the club’s last regular meeting of the year on June 22 at Meadowbrook Inn, in Blowing Rock. Under Hardin’s leadership, the club has seen significant growth (31.8 percent) in membership.
It was “Club Assembly” for the meeting’s program, a time designated each calendar quarter for the club to conduct its own business. The focus of this Club Assembly was the upcoming Hunter-Jumper Division of the Blowing Rock Charity Horse Show and discussion of remaining opportunities for area businesses to promote themselves or to simply say “thank-you” to the Blowing Rock Charity Horse Show Foundation for staging the event.
According to the published horse show literature, informal equestrian events date back to an gymkhana event in 1897, featuring games on horseback to entertain tourists staying at what was then known as the Green Park Hotel. The official founding of the Blowing Rock Charity Horse Show, however, occurred in 1923 under the leadership of Lloyd M. Tate, still in the Green Park area. The show moved to its current Mayview section of town in 1928, onto a little-used golf course. A major purpose was to attract affluent guests visiting the newly built Mayview Manor Hotel. In 1934, landowner Thomas H. Broyhill officially deeded the grounds to the horse show association for $1.00 and the property eventually evolved into today’s Broyhill Equestrian Preserve.
The Blowing Rock equestrian event is advertised as the oldest, continuous outdoor horse show in the U.S., having survived the Great Depression, severe mountain weather and World War II (when strict gas rationing threatened the show — but local horsemen bypassed fuel restrictions by walking their horses up the mountain trails to keep the annual tradition alive.
The Blowing Rock Charity Horse Show has at least a $7.7 million annual economic impact on the Blowing Rock and Watauga County area, according to the last study by Appalachian State University economists in 2012.
Blowing Rock Rotary has long maintained a partnership with the horse show foundation. Rotarians man the admission gates during the horse show as well as sell advertising for the printed event program. For its efforts, 100 percent of the proceeds shared with Blowing Rock Rotary are reinvested in various area non-profits at the end of the calendar year. No one from Rotary receives a dime of compensation.
Clabough Retiring
Monday’s session was also the last club meeting for longtime member Jim Clabough, who is moving with his wife to a retirement community in Winston-Salem. Clabough has been Blowing Rock Rotary’s longtime liason with the horse show, organizing both advertising sales for the event program as well as managing the gate volunteers. As fellow club member Paul Horton said at the conclusion of the meeting, “Jim, you will be greatly missed. We thank-you for your service and leadership all these years.” Clabough is also a former president of the club.
New Member Bio: Angela Loos
Angela Loos offered an interesting “new member bio”, explaining how she grew up in the Bethel area, attending Bethel School, Watauga High School and App State, intending to become a teacher. Life modified her plans, though, after she moved to Asheville and began teaching in a community college. “We had people from all walks of life and all different backgrounds,” she explained to the attentive Rotarians. “It was a mini United Nations.”
Loos and her husband, along with a son and daughter, have since moved back to the High Country, purchasing a parcel of land near Bethel that she formerly knew as a neighboring hay field. She continues to teach English as a second language, primarily online currently to two Afghan natives living in the Asheville area.
The Rotary Club of Blowing Rock’s fiscal year ends on June 30. The annual banquet will be at the American Legion Building in Blowing Rock on June 29. The 2026-27 fiscal year’s club president is Frank Irizarry who, along with his “cabinet” of supporting officers will be inducted at the June 29 annual banquet. His first regular club meeting will be Monday, July 6.
