McMinnville Kiwanis Club marks century of service
The McMinnville Kiwanis Club is celebrating the century mark this year.
Members and supporters will mark the anniversary Saturday with a nine-hole golf tournament and luncheon at the Preserve, formerly the Bayou, on Highway 99W south of McMinnville.
The local service club was chartered June 25, 1924. It has helped spread Kiwanis clubs to other cities, such as Willamina and Newberg. In addition, it led to a second McMinnville club, the Walnut City Kiwanis, now defunct.
Over 100 years, members said, many Kiwanians have been instrumental in making the city what it is today.
In the 1920s, for instance, the roster included the likes of J.C. Compton, Bill Dielschneider, Earl Nott, Thomas Ladd, Frank Wichert and many others.
In recent decades members included well-known names such as Jim Craig, Allen Jones, Paul Durham, Eldor Baisch, Don Eastman, John Day, Chuck Howell, Jim Lockett, Scott Macy, Jim Ragsdale, Art Rathkey, Don Scott and Colin Cameron.
Eric Wright, for instance, joined Kiwanis 30 years ago when many of those men were still active in the club. He started in Newberg, though, as a way to meet people and be of community service, and moved to the McMinnville club a few years later.
A McMinnville native, he’d earlier been in the Key Club, a teen version of Kiwanis, at McMinnville High School. As an adult, he’s served as president of the Mac club five times.
He said being in the club gives him a chance to do more community service than he could as an individual. Together, club members help children and others as much as they can, he said.
“I wouldn’t trade it,” Wright said. “It gives you a good feeling.”
Since the late 1980s, the club has been open to women as well. Current members include Diane Longaker, Debbie Beam, Cassie Sollars, Ann Stevenson, Dawn Owens and Samantha Geary, among others.
The McMinnville club’s membership swelled to more than 100 in the 1950s, but dropped by about half by 1999, the 75th anniversary. Now only about 30 people are active in the club, said Les Toth, a member since 1980.
[See Also: Stopping By: Longtime Kiwanis Club member loves the focus on helping youth]
The club has met in many locations over the years – Hudson’s Cafe, the Palm Cafe, the Westward Ho, the Bayou Golf Club, the top of the 1893 building, Michelbook Country Club and the McMinnville Community Center.
For many years, the international Kiwanis motto was “We Build.” About two decades ago, the organization changed to a motto that represents a key reason many people have joined the McMinnville club, “Serving the Children of the World.”
That’s critically important, said Toth and other local members.
Toth has been involved with numerous projects, from raising money for scholarships to giving away shoes to young people at the Beyond Backpacks school supply distribution.
Another recent project of the club was the adaptive play area at Jay Pearson Park in McMinnville, said Beam, one of the Kiwanians who helped with the effort.
The playground provides a chance to play for children in wheelchairs, with other physical challenges and with sensory issues, Beam said.
Beam, who also helps with Beyond Backpacks, is another member who joined Kiwanis because of its focus on young people.
The inclusive playground is the best project she’s worked on, she said; “so great for kids.”
Other projects that McMinnville Kiwanis Club has spearheaded since it started a century ago include:
- College scholarships, Little Guys Football and grants for schools.
- McMinnville’s swimming pool. Club members drummed up support for a $175,000 bond measure approved in 1955 that paid for the first covered pool. The club also put up money for the election and for an architect for the building.
- The community center. The club worked with McMinnville Parks and Recreation and other organizations to support a bond election for buying the old National Guard Armory to convert to a place for classes, recreation, meetings, concerts and other community programs.
- Community facilities ranging from waste baskets downtown to signs showing the location of churches to tennis courts at 12th and Cowls streets.
- The recreation station in Upper City Park. Kiwanis members helped initiate and carry out the project with the help of hundreds of community volunteers. The club also helped with play equipment in Wortman Park and improvements to the Boy Scouts’ Camp Smith.
In addition, the Kiwanis organization tries to build future membership and teach young people about community service by sponsoring junior service clubs. Circle K is offered for college students, Key Club – in which Wright was a member – for high school students.
This fall, the McMinnville Kiwanis Club is helping restart the Key Club at Mac High.
Angie Yocum, who joined Kiwanis last year because she felt “ready to pay it forward,” will serve as the Key Club adviser. She attended the Mac High’s recent activities fair to help publicize the group.
“Students showed strong interest,” said Yocum, who teaches P.E. at Wascher Elementary School. “They want service opportunities.”
Yocum said they will take part in projects such as leaf cleanups and assisting other organizations. They also will mentor younger children.
She said she is proud of the students who join Key Club. “It’s so easy to look the other way and think of yourself,” she said, but by taking part in the club, they are thinking of others.
The adult club will pay students’ dues, $15.50 apiece for the year, and buy club T-shirts for them.
“The money we raise, every dollar, goes back to kids,” Yocum said, noting all the programs, not just Key Club.
Another youth program important to the McMinnville Kiwanis Club is providing books to elementary schools. The club delivers enough for every first-grader to have three books to take home over the course of the year. The club also pays for transportation so they can go to the McMinnville Public Library.
At a September meeting, members placed bookplates on each of the picture and chapter books. Some couldn’t resist turning the pages, delighting in the stories for young readers.
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