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Last week, the Rotary Club of Natchez surprised one of its members into tears.

Andrew Calvit has been a member of Natchez Rotary since 2005 and is a dedicated alumnus of Copiah Lincoln Community College. On Wednesday, Nancy Hungerford announced the newly-created Andrew Calvit Rotary Scholarship, which will go to one senior from Adams County every spring who plans to attend any of Co-Lin’s campuses.

Calvit, a man of strong work ethic with a huge heart for volunteerism and patriotism, couldn’t be more deserving of such an honor.

Calvit serves his community through Rotary, Habitat for Humanity, Merit Health Hospital Board, the Copiah Lincoln Community College Foundation board, and quite possibly too many other areas to mention. What is perhaps more impressive than his volunteerism is the strong work ethic he maintained until he semi-retired at the end of 2017. Even then, Calvit told his work family at Atmos Energy, “I’m just a phone call away.”

Calvit took night classes at Co-Lin while he worked his way through college with a full-time job at Armstrong Tire and Rubber Company. However, many know Calvit as “Atmos Andrew,” because he spent most of his career at Atmos and its predecessor, Mississippi Valley Gas Company.

Long before that, he worked on a farm near his home in the Cranfield community for a modest $3 per hour and served in the U.S. Army.

Through all of that, he missed a combined total of seven days of work, one day when his dad passed away, three when his wife passed away and three when he had ACL surgery.

A work ethic like that is hard to come by. But many know Calvit not only as a hard worker but a friend who treated everyone the same.

After he retired from Atmos Cavlit said, “I see everybody alike. You could be rich or you could be poor —you still pay a gas bill.”

Congratulations to Calvit and the many hard-working people of Co-lin for this opportunity for new generations. God bless you as much as you’ve blessed so many others.