Ruritan founders visit LR Ruritan Club. In 1972, Tom Downing (r), founder of the first Ruritan Club in 1928, and Roy Ellison (l), founder of the first SC Ruritan Club, are greeted by LR Ruritan Club President James Amick (second from left).

Lower Richland Ruritan Club started in 1960 when Raymond Boozer (a high school agriculture teacher from Gilbert, SC, who was chairman of the Gilbert July 4th Peach Festival for many years and Ruritan District Governor at the time) made contact with Smoot Cloaninger, agriculture teacher at Lower Richland High School. After discussing the organizing of a Ruritan Club in Lower Richland, Cloaninger sent Boozer across the road to Sam McGregor, a dairy farmer. Further plans were discussed while McGregor continued milking cows.

Cloaninger and McGregor called some other Lower Richland men together for a meeting and plans for a Lower Richland Ruritan Club were initiated with Smoot Cloaninger as the first president and Sam McGregor as secretary. Board meetings were held in the Lower Richland agriculture classroom and monthly Ruritan meetings were held in the Lower Richland High School cafeteria with the lunch room ladies preparing the meal.

LR Ruritan Club President Jay McAlister (l) and Vice President Martha Amick (r) present a check for $600 to SC State University student Jamil Edwards. Early on, the club decided to hold a fundraising event, a yearly spring horse show. This was thought to be a good event because there were several horse training stables in the area.

Rhett McGregor, a charter member of the club, served as chairman of the horse show for several years and all members of the club were involved in selling ads for the program, setting up and dismantling the show ring, and running the concession stand.

Some outside members of the community who were helpful were Lib Lucas and June Davis who did yeoman service as club secretaries, Hughes Webb served as ringmaster and Dr. Porter Caughman Jr. as veterinarian. Susan Bolton Parrish, a local horsewoman, also assisted.

The horse show was a success for a number of years and even received national recognition when it received an award for Best One Day Show in the southeast US. A picture of a club meeting was in Nation’s Agriculture (American Farm Bureau magazine) when the president was selected as one of America's Four Outstanding Young Farmers.

The 1971 Ruritan Horse Show was held at Lower Richland High School in May, 1971. Shown here are Ken Smith, winner of the LR Challenge Trophy for First Prize on his horse. Presenting the trophy is Rhett McGregor of the LR Ruritan Club and Herbert Cotton, National Ruritan Director and charter member of the LR Ruritan Club. The ribbon marshall is Kathy Wooten. Eventually though, because of a ruling by the school board against having horses on a high school athletic field and several consecutive years of rain on show dates, the horse show was disbanded and other fundraising events were started such as raffles and barbecue and fish fry dinners.