In a year filled with highlights for Rosalynn "Roz" Cooper, Hawai'i Rotary 5000 District's outgoing governor, nothing was more meaningful for her than to a polio immunization mission to an underserved country.

In October, she went to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, with Hawai'i Rotary members for the second straight year to help with the Global Polio Eradication Initiative supported by Rotary International, the World Health Organization, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and UNICEF. In 2000 and 2002, Cooper participated in similar missions to Ghana and Bombay, India.

"It's added meaning to my life," said Cooper of participating in a service project such as the immunization mission. "Going to these different countries makes me feel how fortunate we are. They are at a completely different level of homelessness and poverty.

"The Rotary experience has made my life fuller and made me a more disciplined person ready to just go out and help," said Cooper, who joined Rotary Club of Metropolitan Honolulu in 1987, the first year Rotary International opened its membership to women.

Two of the past six Hawai'i Rotary District governors have been women. Linda Coble served in 2000-2001. Cooper will be succeeded in July by Jim Varner.

Cooper is an information management officer and logistics management specialist for U.S. Army Pacific.

During her tenure, the Hawai'i District membership increased by 120 members to about 2,100 statewide. Also, individual contributions to the Rotary Foundation, which had averaged $150 per member, rose to $220 per member in the past year.

"Rotary is an amazing organization that touches so many lives in so many ways," Cooper said. As examples, she cited peace and ambassadorial scholars as well as individual club and Hawai'i Rotary Foundation scholarships; literacy initiatives such as providing pocket dictionaries to all third-graders in Hawai'i; youth exchange programs; and study exchanges with Italy and Albania.

"I am so very privileged and honored to have been the governor," Cooper said. "It has been an incredible journey and it saddens me that this part of the journey is ending. I will continue providing service to those in need. That's what Rotary is all about."

Reach Rod Ohira at rohira@honoluluadvertiser.com.