By Kristin Bednarski
Sun staff

The Batavia Rotary Club is celebrating it’s 75th anniversary with a fund-raising auction April 13 to raise money for scholarships for local high school students.

The live auction will be held at 10 a.m. April 13 at the old Owensville School.

Joel T. Wilson and George Brown are helping organize the event and will be donating their time as auctioneers, along with David P. Lewis.

“It is a celebration of Rotary’s 75th anniversary and it is to benefit the Batavia and Northeastern schools senior scholarship program,” Wilson said said about the event. “We’re going to have refreshments and we’re just going to have a lot of fun.”

Wilson said the event will be run like an old fashioned live auction and will not have a silent auction format.

Wilson and Brown said they have received a number of donations for the auction already, including a week-long stay in Colorado, weekend golf outings, Cincinnati Reds tickets, helicopter rides at Lunken Airport, a patio design from TowneScapes in Batavia, a variety of artwork, gift baskets, and more.

“We have a lot of other nice things still coming,” Brown said about the donations.

Brown said the Rotary Club has been funding scholarships for students for many years.

Brown said he and Wilson thought an auction would be a great way to raise additional money for that cause.

“The Rotary motto is service above self,” Brown said. “The club has a strong interest in trying to do good things in the community.”

Brown said he is hopeful that the auction will be successful, and popular for the Batavia Rotary Club.

“I think for this auction, our biggest hope is that we will have a great event that lays the foundation for having an annual auction that will just get bigger and better every year,” Brown said.

Brown said they are still accepting donations for the auction until April 12.

He said they can contact him at (513) 218-3157 or Wilson at (513) 732-6300 to arrange for pickup or drop off, or bring items to the Owensville School April 12 from noon until 4 p.m.

The event will be held from 10 a.m. until approximately 12:30 p.m. April 13 at the Owensville School, located at the intersection of state Route 132 and state Route 276 in Owensville.

Cash and check will be the only method of payment accepted at the auction.