Two Honorary Lifetime Members!
November 2025
At our Rotary Foundation Dinner this November, we proudly awarded Peter Whitenect and Stan Hodgins honorary lifetime memberships for their contributions that make Rotary's efforts possible. 
Peter Whitenect was originally from Moncton, New Brunswick.
After he and his life-partner Jean, moved to Saskatchewan in 1968, Peter accumulated 81 years of contributions to his community: 40 years of professional leadership with the YMCA, and 41 years of community service as a member of the Rotary Club of Saskatoon.
His skills, persistence and fearlessness at pursuing any challenge, prompted Rotarian Jack Byers (Butler Byers Insurance), to invite Peter to join the Rotary Club of Saskatoon in 1985. Peter assisted in the operations of our club (e.g. Bulletin Committee, World Community Service Committee) and he contributed generously to many of our club’s projects (e.g. hosted Exchange Student from Philippines, contributed to our student scholarship program in Mexico, contributed to the Rotary Foundation – PHF+3).
During the 1992-1993 Rotary year, Peter served as vice-president of our Club and chair of the Committee to Celebrate the 75th Anniversary of our Club. The following year, Peter served as President of our Club and he attended the Rotary International Convention in Melbourne, Australia.
After retiring from the YMCA in 1995, Peter turned his attention to pursue a local long-term youth services project in Saskatoon funded by funders outside of Rotary. He and his committee came upon the Mount Royal School Staff project. The school needed a program to help resolve some major in-school student behavioural problems. In 2003, his committee launched what has become Peter’s legacy to Saskatoon: the Saskatoon Restorative Action Program Inc. commonly referred to as RAP.
RAP currently serves over 2,000 students per year and is dearly valued, by all of its stakeholders, including the students, for its contribution to making our community, as Peter put it: “better one youth at a time”.
In November of 2025 the Rotary Club of Saskatoon had the honor to induct Stanley Hodgins as a lifetime member. This honor came late as Stan had recently celebrated his 103rd birthday.
Stan had been a fixture in the Rotary Club and in the Saskatoon Community for a very long-time. His service in the RCAF is well known. He served as a navigator in the Burma campaign. In 2024 Stan was honored at Saskatoon’s official Remembrance Day Celebrations. After the war he became a Chartered Accountant with the Winspear Higgins firm which eventually become part of the Deloitte firm. He married his wife Laureena who became a force throughout his life. Laureena was known to all as Pat. Together, they raised two sons and two daughters.
Stan was always involved in the community particularly in Masons who honored him on his 100th birthday. He was a man of deep faith and sang for decades in the choir at St. John’s Cathedral. Today, there is a wonderful stained-glass window at the cathedral of Mary at the feet of Jesus in honor of the Hodgins family.
Stan was a Rotarian his whole working life. He joined Rotary in Moose Jaw in the mid-1950s. When moved to establish at practise in Assiniboia he formed the Rotary club there. He was a very long-term member of the Saskatoon Rotary club. In retirement Pat and Stan moved briefly to Whiterock where Stan joined Rotary. Stan served as president of the Rotary Club of Saskatoon for the 1979-1980 year. This is now part of another age. From the time Stan was president it would be another ten years before women would be admitted as members. The Hodgins children remember well how their parent’s social life revolved around rotary with dinners, card nights and bowling nights.
In the process of awarding Stan a lifetime membership, it was hoped that we would learn something of the club projects and club issues from his time on the board. Unfortunately, though Stan’s mind is still very clear, we were unable to learn a great deal, and much has been lost to the sands of time. Some of our long-term members remember well working on projects with Stan. Stan would always volunteer and roll his sleeves up for service projects such as the Louis Riel Day event.
The Rotary Club of Saskatoon is privileged to have gained so much from Stan’s commitment and service to Rotary and through Rotary to the local and global communities.