For just a few minutes Wednesday, the Brundidge Rotarians didn’t seem to know what to think.

The featured guest speaker for the noon meeting was Alva Lambert, executive director of the State Health Planning and Development Agency. But the voice was … that of the late Alabama Governor George C. Wallace.

Then, the Rotarians “caught on” and sat back and enjoyed the “performance.”

Lambert is an impersonator and he captivated his audience as he took them down the back roads of Alabama politics with the colorful politicians that provided fodder for the comedy mill.

Lambert said that Wallace often referred to “pointed head” politicians and, when asked to explain a “pointed-head,” Wallace said that it was a head shaped like a triangle with the brain in the upper third.

Time and time again, the Rotarians laughed out loud at Lambert’s impersonations of Wallace, Gov. Guy Hunt, U.S. Senator Howell Heflin and Attorney General Bill Baxley.

Lambert brought roars of laughter with his impersonation of Hunt, who in his Holly Pond accent, pronounced “tourists” in such a way that people thought he was saying “terrorists.” That caused some anxious moments when his audience thought he was inviting terrorists to visit his state.

Lambert impersonated his favorite humorist, Jerry Clower, and some of the South’s most recognizable college football coaches and sports commentators. And, he also turned the tables and did a little “Alva Lambert.”

He talked of the peanut dust that is so familiar to those who grew up, as he did, in the Wiregrass. He talked about Lionism and his association with the Lions Club and about the friends he has in Brundidge.

But most of all the “real” Alva Lambert talked about the devastation caused by the tornadoes that ripped through Alabama in April.

“I was in Tuscaloosa the day after the tornado hit and there is no way to describe what it was like,” he said. “The death toll would have been so much greater if the tornado had gone through the university campus, which was such a short distance away. It came right next to Druid City Hospital. As bad as it was, it could have been worse. We must continue to remember our fellow Alabamians who were in the paths of those devastating tornadoes.”

Business comes first with Lambert when it involves people and their lives. He cut his visit with the Rotarians short in order to make a meeting in Thomasville where the future of the hospital is in jeopardy.

Lambert can bring fun and laughter to his audience but he is all about doing what he can for others, the Rotarians agreed and were gracious in excusing him.