Ray Klinginsmith

Rotary International President Elect
2010-2011

Ray Klinginsmith is a retired attorney in Kirksville, Missouri, USA. During his legal career, he served for 22 years as General Counsel and Professor of Business Administration for Truman State University (formerly Northeast Missouri State University) in Kirksville. During his tenure at the University, he also served as Dean of Administration for a period of five years during the University’s transition to a liberal arts and sciences institution.

Ray and his wife, Judie, have been married since 1961. They have two children, Leigh and Kurt, and three grandchildren, Morgan, Grant, and Sydney Perkins.
Ray served as a director of the Macon Atlanta State Bank in Macon, Missouri, from 1971 to 2008, and he is now a director emeritus. He was the president of Chariton Valley Association for Handicapped Citizens from its organization in 1982 until 2009, and he is now the president emeritus.

He is a former member of the Executive Board for the Great Rivers Council of the Boy Scouts of America and the holder of its Silver Beaver Award for adult volunteers. He is a member of the First United Methodist Church in Kirksville and a former lay speaker for the church.

A Rotarian for more than 45 years, Ray is currently a member of the Kirksville Rotary Club. He studied at the University of Cape Town as a Rotary Foundation ambassadorial scholar in 1961, and when he was elected to the board of directors for Rotary International in 1984, he became the first recipient of a Rotary Foundation award to serve on the RI board.

He served as a Trustee of The Rotary Foundation from 2002 to 2006 and as vice chairman of the Trustees in 2005-06, and he has been awarded both the Citation for Meritorious Service and the Distinguished Service Award by the Foundation.

In other Rotary assignments, Ray has served as moderator of the 1989 International Assembly, chairman of the 1998 Council on Legislation, vice chairman of the 2005 Chicago Convention Committee, and chairman of the 2008 Los Angeles Convention Committee He also served as a member of the Future Vision Committee for The Rotary Foundation from 2005 to 2008.

Ray is currently serving as the RI president elect. He will be the first Missourian to serve as the Rotary president since Bob Hill in 1934-35 and the first former Rotary scholar ever to serve as RI president. On July 1, 2010, he will become the 100th president of Rotary International.