The 88th annual convention of the Alabama District Exchange Clubs will be in town June 12-14.

The Troy Exchange Club is playing host to the event, which will be held at the Holiday Inn.

This is not the first time the convention has been held in Troy and the convention promises to be a busy event.

“We hosted this before in 2005,” said Otis Ston, chairman of the 2009 Convention Committee. “We’re going to have about 90 people from 20 different clubs.”

The convention will be comprised of several different events, including a special breakfast on Sunday morning.

“We’ll be having our ‘One Nation Under God’ breakfast, which places a special emphasis on God and county,” Stone said.

The convention will also have a couple of youth-oriented programs, which fits right in with the service-oriented nature of the Exchange Club.

“Exchange Club is America’s service club,” Stone said. “We are a group of men and women dedicated to making our communities better. We make extensive community service efforts, especially with the youth of the community.”

The youth-oriented nature of Exchange Club led it to adopt child abuse prevention as its national project in 1979. Since child abuse prevention is so important to the Exchange Club, the convention’s main speaker is very appropriate.

John Croyle, founder of Big Oak Ranch, will speak at the Court of Honor Banquet and will be inducted into the Court of Honor.

Croyle is a former University of Alabama football player and is also the father of former Alabama quarterback Brodie Croyle.

Croyle also founded Big Oak Ranch in 1974 to work with underprivileged children.

Exchange Club is a nationwide club that is made up of nearly 800 clubs and more than 25,000 members.

One such member will be coming to speak as the National Exchange Club representative.

Former Connecticut District president Cilfford Kiernan will speak after Croyle on Saturday night.

The convention will run from 4 p.m. Friday until 9 a.m. Sunday.