BRANDON, Fla. — Longtime Logan Countian Reggie Osenton is best known as one of the more active members of the Logan Rotary Club as well as a longtime town attorney for Man and a former mayor of Mitchell Heights. A few years ago, Osenton headed to the Sunshine State and he vowed he would be as active in Florida as he was in Logan.

Now the former mayor has assumed the presidency of the Brandon ’86 Rotary Club at the club’s recent annual installation dinner. Osenton was sworn in by his father, Owen Osenton, who was a two time president of the Man Rotary Club.The senior Osenton is a retired certified public accountant and businessman, who resides with his wife, Phyllis, in Logan and St. Petersburg, Fla.

Founded in 1986, Brandon ’86 is a premier club in Rotary International District 6890, which covers west central Florida. With 77 members and an annual budget of over $135,000, the club is active in many charitable projects. Its signature event, the Denizens of the Deep Seafood Festival, serves 1,500 local residents and raises $40,000 annually. The club is the primary benefactor of Rotary’s Camp Florida, a lakeside camp for children with special needs. The officer installation dinner was held at The Columbia, a historic Cuban restaurant located in the Ybor City section of Tampa, which with its Latin influence is home to Tampa’s cigar industry.

Brandon is a suburban area with 250,000 residents on the east side of Tampa. It is heavily populated with service members and their families from MacDill Air Force Base, which is the headquarters of Centcom, the command in charge of the campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Osenton is the founder and president of Osenton Law Offices, P.A., a law firm with offices in Brandon and Lakeland, Fla. In addition to Rotary, he is active in other community organizations such as the Greater Brandon Chamber of Commerce, St. Andrews United Methodist Church and the Boy Scouts.

Osenton formerly practiced law in Logan. He is a past president and a past secretary of the Logan Rotary Club. In his remarks accepting the gavel from outgoing Brandon ’86 President Becky Jordan, Osenton thanked the members of the Logan club. Osenton said, “In June 1992, the Logan Rotary Club honored me by extending an invitation to join that club. Three years later they gave me the honor of serving as their president. But most importantly, they allowed me to complete my journey to become a true Rotarian.” Osenton continued, “In my opinion, a true Rotarian is one who has experienced and understands the true joy of serving others, and the Logan Club is chock full of them.”

To conclude the event, members of the club surprised Osenton as they joined in singing the WVU Fight Song and Country Roads. Before adjourning the dinner, Osenton thanked the club and quipped, “Wow! That was great! Hearing my Floridian friends sing the West Virginia “national anthem” was a life experience. For a West Virginian far from home, it would bring a tear to a glass eye!”

Osenton lives in Valrico, Fla., with his wife, Lesa, a third grade teacher at Cimino Elementary School, his son, Ben, a freshman at Durant High School, and his daughter, Lauren, who is in the seventh grade at Mulrennen Middle School.