The Kiwanis Club has been serving the Elizabethton/Carter County community for decades, and each year its leadership starts anew in order to keep the mission fresh in people’s minds as a goal to always strive towards.

Members of the Kiwanis Club of Elizabethton gathered at First Christian Church Tuesday evening to induct their new officers for the upcoming year, entrusting their new leadership with the group’s central mission; helping the children of Elizabethton and Carter County.

Seth Miller, this year’s president, said it was an honor to receive such a recognition.

“This place is full of honorable individuals,” Miller said. “I am just following their path.”

The Kiwanis Club works alongside city and county schools within various Kiwanis and Key Clubs, helping students develop skills that will benefit them when they graduate and pursue careers.

Bill Fryar, the newly-installed secretary, said he has been involved with the organization since the ’70s.

“I have never been in a club that was as much fun to be a member of,” Fryar said.

Miller said he is already hard at work finding ways to continue the club’s mission in the community. A main ingredient for this predicted success, he said, is the people he will be working with, such as Fryar.

“I am already gathering ideas for the club,” he said. “We are going to keep pushing our mission.”

This mission, he said, revolves around three main ideas: growth of the organization, membership from that growth, and contributions from that membership.

The recognition of honorary Kiwanis Club members, a recent addition to the group’s bylaws, fulfilled the latter goals, with roughly a dozen representatives from schools such as Harold McCormick, Unaka High School and Happy Valley High School.

“Our mission of service is being carried out alongside these young people,” Fryar said.

To the future, Fryar said they are looking to expand their involvement at the elementary school level.

“We are currently working with pre-K,” he said. “You will see our club work more with children from birth to five years old.”

Fryar said he wants the organization to expand its involvement with organizations such as Kids Start and the Imagination Library.