LEF T: Haggard (center) with school officials and members of the Copán Rotary Club in Rio Amarillo, Honduras, sitting in front of the school building where
the medical and dental clinic was conducted in January 2011.
RIGHT: People wait in line for the medical and dental services at the clinic, which was a joint effort of the Asheville and Copán Rotary Clubs.
suggested a water project in a town called
San Manuel, Honduras, about 25 miles south
of San Pedro Sula. We worked on that water
project with some other clubs and were able
to design and implement a $90,000 water
project, which completely replaced the water
system in that town with a new well, a new
distribution system, a new storage tank that
now serves approximately 6,000 people.
As worthwhile as that project was, it
was really an exercise in collecting money
and writing checks. We wanted to do
something that was more hands-on, and it
was suggested that we might do a medical/
dental clinic in that same town where the
water project was being done so that we
could have more of an opportunity to get
to know the people that were being served
by the water project. We put together a
group of U.S. dentists and U.S. doctors
and a number of helpers, myself included,
and we also made it a partnership with the
Rotary Club in Honduras, and they also
provided dentists and doctors. That was
very successful, and we decided though
that we wanted to provide similar service
in a location that was more remote, so we
partnered with a Rotary Club in Copán,
Honduras, and have been operating out
of Copán with a weeklong medical/dental
clinic that we go [to] in January of each year.
This will be the fourth year that we will have
operated a clinic in the vicinity of Copán.
We reach almost a thousand medical and
dental patients, each clinic. These are
people who have no access to medical or
dental service. We provide a lot of dental
extractions; we also provide restorative
dentistry, general medical treatment, eye
exams. We dispense eyeglasses and we
provide fluoride treatment to all of the
children under age 12. And we provide
toothbrushes and toothpaste to the children
and, quite frankly, it just breaks your heart
because we have to teach the children how
to use a toothbrush and toothpaste because
they’ve never had those before.
Q: What are your duties as a helper?
A: I’m in charge of logistics. I arrange
transportation from the airport to the
hotel where we stay, which is about a 4 ½
hour drive. I arrange for security because
Central America these days in some
locations isn’t altogether safe, and, as a
precaution, we provide for security for our
group. I make the hotel arrangements,
make food arrangements, coordinate the
participation by the Rotary Club in Copán,
and similar arrangements.
Q: This must be a really rewarding
experience.
A: The people in Honduras are the most
hospitable, the most welcoming, most
grateful. Everyone who’s gone has just felt
like this is one of the best things that they’ve
done in their life and it does epitomize
Rotary’s motto of “service above self.”
Q: What’s the most rewarding part about
being a lawyer?
A: The personal reward of helping people
in a time of crisis: knowing that you made a
positive contribution to someone’s life. That
often comes in the estate administration
side of my practice, where you’re helping
a family deal with the loss of a loved one,
and giving them guidance as to what
the legal requirements are, what the law
expects them to do as an executor or as a
trustee, and [giving] them knowledge and
skill so that they can perform their duties.
Q: What advice do you have for young
lawyers today?
A: I think everyone knows that attorneys
coming out of law school today are faced
with greater challenges than at any time,
I think, in my professional career. The
competition for jobs is great; the number
of job openings is smaller. It’s a very, very
difficult environment. What I would say
is to try to find some way to differentiate
yourself, to set yourself apart from your
peers. Many trust and estate lawyers go
on for an additional degree: an LL.M. in
taxation or an LL.M. in estate planning as
a way to better qualify themselves and to
distinguish themselves from their peers.
Q: How do you unwind from your practice?
A: I enjoy anything around water. I enjoy
sailing and boating of all kinds. I also have
a hobby of collecting antique tractors, the
full-size farm tractors. I fortunately live
on what used to be a dairy farm, so I have
barns and outbuildings and lots of storage
space, so I have space [to] park things like
antique tractors. I take them to shows
occasionally and even sometimes take them
to antique tractor pulls. Every now and then,
I also enjoy riding [my] motorcycle in the
mountains of North Carolina.
