History of The Rotary Club of Clearwater, Florida
Our club is now 86 years old. Our 20 charter members are all gone although one of them has a son and grandson who are still very active in this club. If you look at the picture from 1957, there is but one member left from that group – John Henry Logan, Jr. – himself a second generation member along with his late brother.
If you remember we left off our tour through the club’s history at the end of 1963 – a momentous year for us of the baby boomer generation – the year we saw a young, charismatic president struck down in Dallas.
1964 began with Lyndon Baines Johnson in the White House, more and more of us learning about a former French colony named Viet Nam and the Philadelphia Phils ready to begin their 16th consecutive year of spring training here in Clearwater.
Our President was Dr. Davis Vaughn, an obstetrician. Two of our newest members, now both deceased became long time contributing members of our club – Dr. Frank Oset and the helpful hardware man – Ned Rice from Ace Hardware. A then small Clearwater company was newly listed on the Amercan Stock Exchange with the symbol ECK – the oldtimers in our club can probably guess the company and it’s Rotarian CEO – fellow by the name of Jack Eckerd. Mid May saw our ranks thinning as only 29 visiting Rotarians were with us for Wednesday lunch And at mid year, we had the traditional passing of the gavel to Squire Head, who was in the electronics equipment business. And we got a future club president as a new member late in 1964 – Dillard Nash.
In 1965, Bill Gilkey was our club president – one of several leaders of our club to come his law firm including Ralph Richards and Past President John Slaughter. 1965 saw Rotary celebrate its 60th year and the city of Clearwater it’s 50th. We had an outstanding line-up of programs that year. Dillard Nash presented Irv McCoy, another club member who talked about that new fangled device – Telstar and what it meant to the phone industry. Major General Edward White, the father of the late astronaut Ed White, Jr. addressed the club as did Pinellas County Commissioner and former Clearwater Mayor Bob Weatherly, Clearwater Bomber Manager Eddie Moore. Our district governor that year was James Franklin – second generation governor. His dad had presided over our district some 20 years earlier when it was District 167. Charter member Reade Tilley marked 40 years of perfect attendance. And RI annual convention was in Atlantic City. Oh this little factoid. If you wanted to make up at every club in the Rotary world and did one meeting a day it would have taken you 28 years to accomplish the feat. Who knows about today?
On to 1966. Frank Logan, a second generation Rotarian and brother of John, Jr. was our president. 44 of our members were maintaining perfect attendance. Some of our best programs came from our members – as they do now. Taver Bayley recently returned from a 32-day visit to the Orient gave his impressions. Glenn Loughridge (along with Tom) had been to Russia and East Berlin and told of conditions in that part of the world. And member Lester Dicus, who was our city’s postmaster told of the brand spanking new system called a zip code. Plus SPJC’s Michael Bennett who spoke during a unique “father and kin meeting and former GE CEO Ralph Cordiner. Some of our new members that year included Dr. Ralph Frick and some others who, while longer members put their stamp on our club – Wallace Lee who was our host each week at the Fort Harrison Hotel and Don Harrison who was one of the stalwarts of our yearly swim meet. Dues in 1966 were $32.50 each six months.
In 1967, John Batstone, brother-in-law of Dave Perkins became our 40th club president. Our club was 42 years old but at one meeting we had two Rotarians making up who had both joined Rotary in 1916 – nine years before our club was chartered. We marked the 40th anniversary of our first Rotary offspring – the Rotary Club of Tarpon Springs in 1927 – notable since under the leadership of Harry Rabb, we just fostered the formation of another new club some 73 years later. Our member Don Williams (Karen Seel’s father) was elected to the Clearwater City Commission. And we continued to attract outstanding people from all walks of life to address our club including Mayor Everitt Hougan, Ray Dantzler, the long time news director of Channel 13 – then a CBS affiliate, Florida Secretary of State Tom Adams, former Governor LeRoy Collins and Peter Firestone of Firestone Tire. Among our newest members was Carroll Nall whose father was a charter member. And November 15th was declared Alfred Marshall Day in honor of his 42 years of service including being our Club President twice and our club’s first District Governor.
In 1968, our club continued its annual series of concerts which featured rather high brow musical acts like the Clebanoff Strings and the Norman Luboff Choir, Whittmore & Lowe – all for the benefit of UPARC. Our president in 1968 was J. Fred Campbell, the late husband of Harriette Barber and brother-in-law of Dave Hemerick. Fred’s year began with 165 members in our club – a number that would grow through the year. None of the new members who joined that year remain with the club but attorney Jim Baxter would be a strong member of our club until his retirement just a few years back. We set a record that year with 128 visiting Rotarians at one meeting. Our member Frank Tack was named Mr. Clearwater. And among our distinguished speakers that year were former GOP national chairman John Hamilton and then City manager Merritt Steirheim who would later become our County Administrator. We lost a long time member in 1968 - Edgar John Phillips who was one of our earliest Presidents and a member for well over 30 years.
1969 was a year when Joe Daily made a plea a third of the way through his year to redouble our membership efforts and did we respond! At one meeting alone, we inducted nine new members including two future presidents – Gene Ridenour (1978-79 president) and Herb Brown – who, of course became president pf the whole shooting match that is Rotary International. And a couple future Alfred Marshall Award winners were in the class of ’69 – Crockett Farnell and Dan Carlisle have both been recipients of the highest honor our club bestows. Offsetting some great gains were the losses of three stellar members who totaled 70 years of service in our club. Past president J. Fred Campbell, Sr., General George Estes and P. J. Sucher. Our programs ranged from the head of the Tampa FBI office to the head Veterinarian from Busch Gardens.
As 1970 began, we had 25 active members of our club who were Past presidents – not much different than today when we have 19 active members who have been our club president. One of them was our president in 1970 – Scott Hale. After 18 years, the club regretfully ended its Festival After Graduation program for CHS students as the graduating class had grown to nearly 700. On a related note member Bob Glenn retired after 15 years as the principal at CHS. Our member Jack Eckerd announced he would run for governor of Florida. We lost a long time member in Karl Rehbaum who joined out club in 1929. Our member Ralph Richards was interviewed by Hugh Downs on the Today show and our speakers for the year ranged from Roger White, the head of Morton Plant, State Attorney Jim Russell and Stanley Marshall, the president of FSU.
1971 saw a dramatic change in the way our club had operated. With 170 plus members, it became impossible for all the housekeeping chores to be handled by a volunteer secretary. We hired our first executive secretary – Dee Eckert. It’s amazing that in forty years, we’ve had only three executive secretaries – Dee, her daughter Jean Loveland and Sondra Lee. 1971 saw us sponsor another new club – the Rotary Club of East Clearwater. Our newest member that year was George Hardy. Ed Barley took the reins from President Scott mid year. In a very busy year, we also established an Interact Club. Our speakers that year ranged from DG Hampton Dunn, also sort of the unofficial historian of the Tampa Bay area and author of several books on the same, School Superintendent Nick Mangen addressed us as did Debby Dane telling us about a project that was to open up later in the year in central Florida – Walt Disney World. Glenn Martin, now a member, received a club scholarship with the goal of pursuing a career in law enforcement. Some dreams do pan out!
In 1972 – Long time member Jay Tiffin became our president with the new Rotary year. And four of our current members were serving o n the board of directors – Dan Carlisle, Ralph Frick John Logan and Carroll Nall. Sadly, we lost a long time member that year – John Polhill who along with Alfred Marshall and Andy Burwell was a two time president of our club. But we gained a new member who would be a future president and now 39-year member of our club – Harry Cline. The club had a night at the Bombers viewing a doubleheader of the nine time world champs for the princely price of $1.50. We were just short of a quorum at our weekly meetings as two of the five seats on the city commission were held by club members – Don Williams and Rick Hall. And our own Jack Eckerd was named Mr. Clearwater.
1973 saw us start to build in earnest towards a 50-year commemoration of our club’s founding – still two years away. At mid-year Riley McGraw became our president. One of our new directors was George Hardy. One of the members inducted or rather re-inducted into our club was Glenn Loughridge, who had moved to Perry, FL for a few years and joined their Rotary club up there. We lost long time member and business leader when Larry Dimmitt, Sr. passed away.
· 1974 saw us finalize our plans for a 50th anniversary celebration. The club chose to raise the funds necessary to provide the Hunter Blood Center, now Florida Blood Services with their first mobile collection vehicle. We raised just over $27,000 for the project the largest such project in our history. Two new members who would become presidents of our club were inducted in ’73 – John Slaughter and Lee Arnold. Also inducted was Paul Ponder who would later move another local club but eventually become a District Governor of District 6950. Among our speakers in ’74 were former US Senator George Smathers, Representative Bette Easley and basketball hall of famer and Rotarian Bob Petit.
In 1975, we held a celebration of our 50th Anniversary with our speaker RI President Bill Robbins – this was a big deal. In 2011 if you want to hear the RI president speak, you can just sit at the right table every Wednesday! Our long time member Bill Gilkey headed the committee that put this all together. Our Interact club at CHS continued to grow - among their members - Jared Brown. At mid-year the gavel was handed from George Bouse to insurance executive John Shafer. This was about the time we started having annual visits from Wall Street guru Bob Stovall – they were incredible presentations. Speaking of Wall Street, stock broker Jim Gibson was our newest member. Hollen Carlisle was named Mr. Clearwater in 1975.
In 1976 we were a club on the move – leaving the Fort Harrison Hotel after many years there. First we went to the YMCA for our weekly meetings and then bowing to how many of our members worked in downtown Clearwater re-located to Roebling Hall in Peace Memorial Presbyterian Church. Harold Korb was one of our new members in 1976. Our speakers that year ranged from journalist Lucy Ware Morgan (who most recently authored the series of articles on the judicial Taj Mahal). Also former US Senator George Smathers and another annual guest whose appearances were always standing room only – former GM Chairman James Roche. Attorney Don Hall was our president in 1976-77.
Part Three coming soon
Bob Clark will present part three next January (2012).