story by: DianA schoberg

It’s a frigid January night, the second in a row to dip below zero degrees ​Fahrenheit in Chicago. Schools are closed, events canceled, flights grounded. ​Outside an arctic blast is howling, but inside Stephanie Urchick’s condo, the party ​is sizzling.

Urchick wears jeans and a Pittsburgh Steelers T-shirt with a “Magic of Rotary” pin ​affixed. Draped over one of her shoulders is a “Terrible Towel,” an iconic yellow ​dishtowel-size piece of fabric that stalwart fans of the American football team ​wave to rally their team. The occasional cheer or groan punctuates the party’s ​chatter.

This playoff game between the Steelers and the Buffalo Bills has already been ​rescheduled once because of the dangerous winter weather sweeping across the ​United States. A group of Rotarians visiting Rotary headquarters was stuck in ​suburban Evanston because of a flight delay, and Urchick invited them to watch ​the game with her.

The 2024-25 Rotary International president, Urchick has just returned from a trip ​to the International Assembly in Orlando. She pulls out some pierogis, a type of ​Polish dumpling, from her freezer and sets out beverages of all kinds for her ​unexpected guests.

To call Urchick a sports fan might be a Hall of Fame–worthy understatement. At ​her home in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania, about 20 minutes outside Pittsburgh, ​Urchick’s basement “woman cave” is floor to ceiling Pittsburgh sports: 1990s-era ​cereal boxes featuring baseball great Roberto Clemente and the Stanley Cup-​winning Pittsburgh Penguins hockey team; photos of her with Pittsburgh sports ​legends including Steelers running back Rocky Bleier, along with one of Bleier’s ​framed jerseys; a Steelers piggy bank; Penguins hockey pucks; a signed football; ​a collection of tickets; a Steelers quilt.

Her most recent acquisition is a bobblehead of Pirates baseball player Richie ​Hebner, whose photo Urchick plastered in her high school locker. In a nearby ​closet hang her two favorite uniforms: her Rotary T-shirts and her Pittsburgh fan ​gear.

The Bills score three touchdowns in a row to open the game, making the score ​21-0 by the middle of the second quarter. Urchick steps away from the group ​gathered in front of the television and perches behind the kitchen counter, ​checking her phone and the food she’s heating up in the oven.

Her enjoyment of sports extends well beyond that of a typical fan. One summer, ​she assisted with character analyses for Canadian Football League scouts, ​attending NFL training camps to watch for players who might be cut that would ​be a good fit for that league. (She recalls Baltimore Ravens coach John Harbaugh ​approaching her about her role: “I’ve never worked with a lady before!” “Well,” ​she replied, “I don’t bite.”)

She also participated in a women’s training camp put on by the Steelers and run ​by former players; her experience was cut short after she snapped her Achilles ​tendon doing footwork drills through car tires. Didn’t matter. “It was just a fun, ​fun summer,” she says.

She met the vice president of the Steelers, Art Rooney Jr., when he spoke to her ​Rotary club. Afterward, she brought him some chocolates from Sarris Candies, a ​well-known confectionery founded in Canonsburg. It’s a tradition she’s ​continued to uphold a few times a year, the two united by their love of the game.

That kind of connection is what’s happening at the party tonight. Fellow Steelers ​fan René Laws, 2023-24 governor of District 7610 (Virginia), wears her #90 TJ ​Watt jersey for the occasion. The two met when they sat at the same table at a ​presidents-elect training seminar and their mutual love of the Steelers came up. ​“Ever since then, we would see each other at events and we would always have ​football and Rotary to talk about,” Laws says. The Steelers score early in the ​fourth quarter and pull within a touchdown of tying the game. The two laugh as ​they both signal a Steelers first down along with the refs.

Life couldn’t be better, unless the Steelers were actually winning, which ​unfortunately is not the case. Not tonight. The Bills score one more touchdown ​with 6:27 remaining in the game. Their fans celebrate by tossing snow in the air. ​The Steelers lose the game 31-17 and that’s the end of their season. But for ​Urchick it’s just the beginning. Only this year, Urchick will get her own chance to ​head up a winning team: Rotary.

A few weeks later, Urchick gathers with family back in western Pennsylvania for ​the birthday of her eldest cousin, Michael Hatalowich. The two grew up like ​siblings, always at each other’s houses, and they still tease each other as if ​brother and sister.

The kitchen counter is spread with pizza and chicken wings, pasta salad, fruit, ​crackers, and dips, as the news plays in the background on the television in the ​living room. But before they eat, the dozen or so gathered — cousins and their ​spouses, children, and grandchildren — sing “Happy Birthday,” first in English, ​and then in Slavonic, harmonizing to “Mnohaja Lita,” a traditional Carpatho-​Rusyn birthday song whose title means “many years.” Urchick joins in, her voice ​clear and strong.

Music has been a touchstone throughout Urchick’s life. Her dad played the ​accordion and led a polka band, the Harmoneers, for more than 35 years. “I ​learned to polka before I learned to walk,” she says. Urchick was a singer with her ​father’s band and when she’s in town, she sings with the Eastern Orthodox ​church choir directed by another of her cousins. “You know how some families ​get together and play cards?” she asks. “My father was a musician. My ​grandmother, my aunts, they were all singers. So when we got together, we ​sang.”

Urchick grew up here in western Pennsylvania, near the border of West Virginia, ​a countryside of forests and farms in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. ​Both her maternal and paternal grandparents moved here from Eastern Europe ​(Poland, Slovakia, and Ukraine), settling down to take advantage of the jobs in ​the region’s coal mines and steel mills. When she arrived in the United States, her ​mother knew one sentence: “Give me some potatoes.”

Urchick’s culture and her family remain important to her. Spend a bit of time with ​her and you’re likely to hear stories about her visits to meet distant relatives in ​Eastern Europe and family lore involving a misunderstanding around beets and ​the powers of a patron saint. She gathers regularly with Hatalowich and her ​other maternal cousins who live nearby, and she gets together with her more far-​flung paternal cousins for an annual trip.

Western Pennsylvania is part of what was once known as the Steel Belt for its ​steel mills and coal mines, though it’s now called the Rust Belt after the decline of ​those industries in the 1970s and ’80s. The population of Urchick’s childhood ​hometown, Monessen, peaked at around 20,000 people in the 1930s but as of ​2022 had declined to less than 7,000. Rows of stores along the main street stand ​vacant, and there’s only one full-fledged grocery store left in town. Holy Name ​Cemetery, the Slovak cemetery where Urchick’s paternal grandparents are ​buried, is more than half empty, its pristine lawns an indication of the number of ​graves originally anticipated. “They’ll never fill it up,” Urchick explains, “because ​so many people left town.”

As a child, Urchick devoured Nancy Drew mystery novels and dreamed of being a ​spy. “I was in this little place in Pennsylvania, and I really had never gone ​anywhere,” she says. “I wanted to see the world.” When she went to college, she ​channeled that desire into a major in international relations, with its focuses on ​history, political science, and languages. She studied Russian, Polish, Serbian, ​and Italian, on top of the French she’d learned in high school. As she was ​finishing up college, she applied to work for the FBI, the CIA, and other U.S. ​intelligence agencies. But there was one obstacle: All four of her grandparents ​were from Eastern Europe. “Most people’s background checks take about three ​or four months,” she recalls. “Well, mine apparently took a year and a half.”

By the time the FBI called with a job offer, Urchick had started down a new career ​path as an administrator in higher education. And she loved it. She declined what ​had been her dream job (although she jokes that her work with Rotary is merely ​an elaborate cover for her cloak-and-dagger pursuits), and she went on to earn a ​master’s degree in education and a doctorate in leadership studies. Her dreams ​of an international career were back-burnered — that is until Rotary came along.

Over dinner at the birthday party, Urchick’s nephew Jeremy Layne reflects on his ​aunt. Layne, now 38, didn’t meet Urchick until he was a teenager, and he recalls ​the impact that moment eventually had on the trajectory of his life.

She encouraged him to push himself toward his goals and refuse to accept ‘no’ as ​an option. “The day I met her at my Baba’s [grandmother’s] house, from that day ​forward she has meant everything to me,” he says. “Her vibe, her energy, her ​spark that she gives off is just intoxicating. She’s just an amazing woman. I’m so ​thankful for her to be in my life.”

“She really is very authentic and very genuine,” says Rebecca Bazzar, Hatalowich’s ​daughter. “She could fit in anywhere, in a room full of diplomats or a room full of ​local yokels. Everybody loves her and she’s going to have a good time everywhere ​she goes.” Bazzar leans over and in a conspiratorial whisper adds, “You won’t ​meet anyone more fun than her.”

The dozen people gathered toast “Na zdrowie!” and then Urchick begins the long ​process of hugging everybody goodbye. They discuss where she’s traveling next, ​her family members wishing that she stay safe. As they walk outside, she and her ​cousin Peter Merella, the choir director, say goodbye “their way,” in Polish. “Do ​widzenia.” They loosely translate: “Until we see each other again.”

The next morning, as she walks into a side room at a diner in Canonsburg, ​Urchick is welcomed by hoots and applause from the couple dozen Rotary ​members seated along a string of tables. But it isn’t just Urchick who’s cheered as ​she enters the room. It’s the greeting that every member gets when they arrive ​for a meeting of the Rotary Club of McMurray, Urchick’s home club.

The tradition started a few years ago when someone arrived late to the meeting. ​Everybody cheered — and it caught on. Now no matter when they arrive at the ​meeting, all members are greeted as if they’re the president of an international ​organization. “How could you not feel good?” Urchick says.

She hugs William Kern, the club president, and the meeting starts. It’s a breakfast ​meeting, and the smell of toast permeates the air. The table is a jumble of coffee ​mugs and carafes, empty cups of half-and-half, and water glasses. The food ​begins to arrive, classic diner fare including French toast, bagel sandwiches, hash ​browns, and oatmeal. Urchick isn’t much of a breakfast eater and sticks to decaf ​coffee.

For years, the club had been stuck at around 35 members, Urchick says. But it ​used Rotary’s Action Plan to take a look at itself with new eyes. Club leaders ​asked every member about the club’s performance — things such as the club ​meeting date, time, and location, and club projects. With that information, they ​determined that meeting at a different time of day might work for more people ​and switched from a lunch club to breakfast. “Instantly, and I mean instantly, we ​had two new people come into the club,” Urchick says. “They said they were ​invited before but could never come.”

The club didn’t stop there. Members talked to other groups in the area and ​found people who wanted to serve but didn’t want to attend club meetings. ​Looking into options, club leaders started a satellite club for people to do just ​that. The concept brought 15 new members to the club.

“They pay full dues,” Urchick says. “We don’t discount anything. But we also know ​they’re not coming to weekly meetings.” Instead, they hold “PBR” nights, referring ​not to the familiar monogram of the American beer Pabst Blue Ribbon, but to ​“pizza, beer, and Rotary.”

This morning’s meeting is vibrant, full of lively conversations and bursts of ​laughter. The cheering, the shared breakfast, the camaraderie is all part of the ​club’s intention to be, to borrow Urchick’s catchphrase, “simply irresistible.” “It ​makes my job easier talking about being a Rotarian in an active club,” she says. ​Being irresistible “means the experience is so compelling, so fun, so dynamic that ​people are drawn to it and don’t want to leave,” she adds. “At the bottom of that ​is the whole concept of belonging: Is this the kind of group I want to belong to?”

That was the question Urchick asked herself in 1991, when an acquaintance ​walked into her office at the California University of Pennsylvania and asked if ​she’d like to go to a Rotary club meeting. Urchick didn’t know much about Rotary, ​but she was recently divorced and looking for ways to meet new people. And ​when the woman mentioned Rotary’s internationality, something clicked.

When she went to her first meeting of the Rotary Club of California, in the town ​south of Pittsburgh, she met Chuck Keller, a member of the club and RI’s 1987-88 ​president. “He introduced himself and we got to be friends quickly,” she says. “I ​had a built-in Rotary godfather. It was amazing.” Urchick dove in, hosting Group ​Study Exchange team members and pitching in with the club’s Youth Exchange ​students. She organized an indoor picnic complete with a three-legged sack race. ​“Oh, my gawd,” she says in her Pittsburgh accent, “it was hilarious.”

Urchick was drawn especially to the work of The Rotary Foundation, becoming ​first the Foundation chair for her club and then for her district. Later, at the zone ​level, she served as a regional Rotary Foundation coordinator, focusing on fund ​development. She worked with Lou Piconi, another Pittsburgh-area Rotarian who ​had served Rotary on the international level as both a director and trustee, to ​train what they called “major donor possibility teams,” groups of five to seven ​people who focused on fundraising for The Rotary Foundation. “Lou and his wife, ​Barbara, and I would get in his big red Cadillac,” she says, and travel around the ​region. “We had a great time.”

Her work with the Foundation meant more people got to know her and led to a 5 ​a.m. phone call in 2012. Her name had been put forward to replace Anne ​Matthews as a Rotary Foundation trustee. (Matthews left her post to join the ​Rotary International Board of Directors.) Later, Urchick became a director herself ​and led the organization’s Strategic Planning Committee, a role that proved ​pivotal to shaping her thinking about how to move Rotary into a thriving future.

Given Urchick’s background in international relations, her interest in peace as ​another of her priorities as president likely comes as no surprise. She ​encourages living The Four-Way Test, investing in a positive club culture, and ​engaging with Rotary Peace Centers as ways members can help spread the ​message of Rotary’s commitment to peace. “We’re not going to get a Nobel Peace ​Prize for stopping a war,” Urchick says, “but we can use what we have in Rotary to ​make the world a better place.”

One of the pillars of Urchick’s peace push is, well, a pillar. That afternoon after ​the club meeting, she joins members of the Rotary Club of White Oak, another ​Pittsburgh-area club. They have gathered on a grassy field outside of the White ​Oak community pool and near a historic marker honoring the spot of an ​encampment by George Washington during the French and Indian War.

Dan Dougherty, the 2024-25 governor of District 7305 and a member of the ​White Oak club, is holding a white 8-foot pole. The words “May Peace Prevail on ​Earth” are inscribed on it in eight languages — English, Irish, Italian, Polish, ​German, Croatian, Spanish, and Vietnamese — spoken in the community. The ​phrase also appears in Braille, and there is a rainbow flag sticker and another ​decal for Veterans for Peace. Urchick walks up and immediately pulls out her ​phone, scanning the QR code on the peace pole’s side that links to a website with ​more information.

She encourages clubs to put up these poles as visible signals of their ​commitment to peace, whether at members’ homes, in their club, their ​community, or around the world. Dougherty’s wife, Autumn, who is also a ​member of the White Oak club, has made it her goal to get every club in their ​district to erect a peace pole in the coming year.

When the last White Oak club member arrives, everyone clusters around Urchick ​like players huddled around their coach during a crucial time out. “The peace ​pole project is a favorite of mine because it’s a visual representation,” she tells ​them. “It’s going to tell everybody in White Oak who comes to this park that your ​club is about peacebuilding. Rotary is about peacebuilding.”

To conclude the ceremony, Urchick invites the members to reach out and touch ​the pole. They unite, all part of the same team — the Rotary team. Urchick ​smiles. Game on.