Although Catherine Trotman of Barbados has visited the United States as a tourist, this time around she will be playing the role of college student.

Courtesy of four area Rotary Clubs — including the Carpet Capital (Dalton) and Chatsworth-Murray County clubs — Trotman will have her tuition paid for one year while she pursues a degree in psychology at North Georgia College and State University in Dahlonega.

Barbados is an island in the western Atlantic Ocean, slightly east of the Caribbean Sea.

“I’ve been to Orlando (Florida) and some other parts of the United States,” the 19-year-old said while visiting Dalton on Friday. “But my father is a Rotarian, so I know the whole Rotary family and how it operates.

“I’m thankful for the opportunity to come here and study.”

Trotman had to be recommended by a home Rotary Club in Barbados for consideration into the Georgia program. She is sponsored through the Georgia Rotary Student Program, which started in 1946 and has existed in Dalton for more than 30 years. The Chatsworth-Murray County club has been involved in helping sponsor a student for around 10 years. The Summerville and Ringgold clubs are also helping to sponsor Trotman.

“The purpose of the program is to promote world peace through understanding,” said Bill Bowen, a Rotarian from Dalton who serves as one of the state’s 20 Georgia Rotary Student Program trustees. He and his wife Ann have hosted several students in their home through the years.

“Why do we do it? It’s a way of giving back to what the Rotary Club has meant to me,” Bowen said. “It’s hard to put into words, but it falls behind your family, your work, what your church means to you. Rotary is doing a lot of good things, including trying to eradicate polio in the world.”

According to the Georgia Rotary Student Program Web site, the students become adopted members of a “host family,” but live on campus at the school they attend. It is a scholarship program, not a student exchange program.

Several members of area clubs attended a luncheon in Trotman’s honor at Bowen’s coffee shop downtown, Pentz Street Station. Until she begins life as a college student when classes start next Wednesday, she will reside with the Bowens in Dalton.