Clover Rotary Club

Welcome to the Clover Rotary Club, Rorie Books!

Last Wednesday, we proudly inducted Rorie Books as our newest member!

Rorie serves as York County Executive Account Manager and is President & Board Member of the Greater Clover Chamber of Commerce. He also serves on the Board of Zoning Appeals for the Town of Clover.

With more than six years of experience in business technology sales and account management - helping organizations lower costs, boost efficiency, and grow with confidence - Rorie brings both professional expertise and a deep passion for community leadership. He’s known for building strong connections between businesses, local organizations, and leaders to create real opportunities for growth in our area.

We’re excited to have Rorie’s energy, knowledge, and service-minded spirit as part of the Clover Rotary family.

Welcome aboard, Rorie - we look forward to making a difference together!

Yesterday at Rotary, we heard from Karen DiMaggio, Director of Growth Operations at QTS Data Centers. Karen shared her journey from scaling data center operations at Meta to leading growth at QTS.

Karen gave an update on scale data center campus located off Campbell Road and Hands Mill Highway. The project encompasses hundreds of acres of cleared land in York County and is designed as a digital infrastructure hub.

Karen has detailed specific parameters of the facility and answered many questions our Rotarians had. Some of the topics she covered:

•Tax Base Impact: millions of dollars in tax revenue it is expected to generate annually for local schools and businesses
•Infrastructure & Power Grid: The facility will draw electricity directly from the local power grid rather than generating its own daily power. For emergency backup power, the campus utilizes high-capacity efficiency filter generators, averaging roughly 60 generators per building, which are tested incrementally in batches to reduce localized disruption.
•Water Consumption: The site utilizes a closed-loop cooling system. Once the initial water volume is loaded into the system, its ongoing consumption is minimized.
•Environment Impact: QTS is working on addressing environmental concerns at this site as follows:
-- Low-impact site selection on already-zoned land
-- Closed-loop cooling system that minimizes ongoing water use
-- Commitment to carbon-free energy
-- Mitigations for air, noise, light, wetlands, and waste

Thank you, Karen, for visiting the Clover Rotary Club. You reminded us how essential data centers are to modern digital life - from streaming and social media to banking and artificial intelligence. It was a very informative session on a topic that deserves greater attention in today’s AI-driven world, especially as AI adoption continues to accelerate and drive massive energy demands.

What a wonderful day of service for the Clover Rotary Club!

Many of our dedicated members gathered at the Clover Harvest today to work on our Community Harvest Project. This initiative grows fresh vegetables, herbs, and produce-all destined for the Clover Area Assistance Center (CAAC), our town’s vital food bank that provides essential aid to families facing hardship.

Some Rotarians rolled up their sleeves to plant vegetable seeds, while others painted kindness rocks to spread joy throughout our community!

At the same time, Rotarian Katie Wright attended the Interact Club Awards Lunch at the high school, where Clover Rotary proudly awarded a scholarship to Jillian Elkins, President of the Interact Club.

Congratulations, Jillian! We’re so proud to support the next generation of leaders.

This is what Rotary is all about-service above self, community strong!

Great Wednesday Meeting at Clover Rotary Club! We were thrilled to welcome Abi Taylor from Clemson Extension as our guest speaker.

A proud Clemson graduate with a degree in Horticulture and a minor in Sustainability, Abi delivered a timely and informative talk on the invasive yellow-legged hornet (Vespa velutina).

These hornets are aggressive predators of western honeybees and can cause significant colony losses, threatening our local agriculture and pollinator populations.

Clemson University is actively monitoring and trapping these invasives across South Carolina. A nest was confirmed in York County in December 2025 — the first outside the Lowcountry.

As of early 2026, over 4,200 traps have already been deployed to help contain the spread.

How to Identify Yellow-Legged Hornets:

• Brown/black bodies with yellow-orange segments on the abdomen and legs
• Approximately 0.7–1.0 inch long
• Build large, egg-shaped paper nests, often high in trees Important: Do not attempt to remove nests yourself. If you spot a suspicious insect, please report it with clear photos using the Clemson online reporting tool or email [email protected].

Full details and reporting form:
https://www.clemson.edu/public/regulatory/plant-industry/invasive/invasive-spotlights.html

Thank you, Abi, for this important presentation!
Protecting our bees benefits every one of us.