After he was announced Monday as the Gainesville Rotary Club’s Man of the Year, dentist Ed Burnette scolded club members that they should have told him about the award beforehand.

The recipient of the award, along with the recipient of the club’s Woman of the Year distinction, is kept a secret up until the moment it is announced at the Gainesville Rotary Club’s annual banquet.

Burnette organized the construction, the equipping and staffing of the Good News dental clinic that has provided dental care to the area’s poor for more than 10 years. Along with volunteering his own time at the clinic, Burnette also brought in more than 40 dentists to volunteer.

As he introduced Burnette, Randy Phillips said Burnette’s initiative relieved more than 20,000 people from pain and suffering who would not have been able to afford dental care otherwise.

"If Randy would give me a copy of this resume, I would want to go out and try to find me a job," Burnette said.

Before he announced the club’s Woman of the Year at the Chattahoochee Country Club, First Baptist Church’s the Rev. Bill Coates said the only surprise in the announcement was that Julia Cromartie had not been given the award before this year.

Cromartie taught science at Gainesville State College and Brenau Academy, but Coates said he did not know how Cromartie ever found time to be an educator. He called Cromartie a "passionate humanitarian" and a "leader of good events and movements."

Cromartie was an executive director to the forerunner of the North Georgia Community Foundation, "one of the earliest visionaries and advocates for" the Elachee Nature Science Center and, as president of the Junior League of Gainesville, Cromartie started a committee that later became the "genesis" of the Gateway Domestic Violence Center, Coates said. Cromartie also currently serves as a board member for WomenSource of Gainesville.

"This woman has given herself to so many causes, from ridding Lake Lanier of pollution problems to advocating for civil rights to helping and encouraging people we’ll never know about, including disadvantaged kids and unwed mothers mired in poverty," Coates said. "She has the rarest of qualities; she loves life broadly and passionately."

Cromartie said she was surprised to learn she had received the award. Since the award winners are kept secret up until the announcement, Cromartie said she thought she was attending the banquet because her husband John Cromartie, a past honoree, would be recognized.

She thanked her husband for bringing her to Gainesville.

"Gainesville is just unique, because if there’s something to be done, we do it," Cromartie said.

The club also honored its own Monday, awarding member George Romberg with the Sidney O. Smith Award. The award is presented annually to a club member for exemplary service. Romberg has had perfect attendance at Rotary meetings for 43 years. His father, Conrad Romberg, received the award in 1974.