Jane Strom
For The New Era
The Kiwanis Club of Sweet Home is celebrating its 60th anniversary this year as an active community service organization.
The club was chartered on Jan. 23, 1948, sponsored by the Lebanon Kiwanis Club, which was chartered the year before. The Sweet Home Club’s first meeting was on Dec. 4, 1947.
The club’s charter roster read like a “Who’s Who” of Sweet Home at the time, including Floyd Van Horn, E.C. Banke, Rev. Herman Mueller, Alan Eames, Glen Donaldson, Charles Anderson, Stanley Allison, Kenneth White, Cyrus E. Rogers, O.M. Lewis, Monroe M. Brown, John Davis, Joe Fallon, Tom France, Murrel A. Gilkey, W.G. Johnstone, Tom Kirk, Phyl Knigh, Clarence Kyriss, Donald R. Linkel, Orely B. Milligan, David W. Oliver, Clarence Ray, Ralph Smith, Lloyd Knight, Dr. John McKean, Ray Rhoades, Kenneth Brooks, Harold Jones, Charles Parker and John F. Russell.
Since the initial membership, the Kiwanis Club more than 200 Sweet Home residents have become members.
From the beginning, The Kiwanis Club picked up the reins of community service, involving its members in the Red Cross blood drive.
In June 1948, the club proposed the construction of a city swimming pool. It requested and received the support of other public, civic, business and governmental organizations.
By July 1, 1948, the initial plans for the pool had been drawn up by an architect. The pool briefly opened during Frontier Days on Aug. 16, 1951 before it was later finished and eventually enclosed and covered in 1958 within the high school complex.
Frontier Days, instituted by the civic, fraternal and social organizations of the community, was started to raise funds for the benefit of the pool.
The Sweet Home Rotary Club, founded in 1947, and the Kiwanis Club established a friendship that endures to this day. The December luncheon that members of both clubs share was initiated by the clubs in December 1948. At that time, the clubs decided they would alternately share the responsibility of hosting the luncheon, and this policy holds to this time.
Local Kiwaniians sponsored the high school Key Club, which was chartered under the Kiwanis Club charter on May 25, 1951.
Inter-clubbing, an activity involving three or four members of one club visiting another Kiwanis club, has always been an enjoyable Kiwanis activity and it is a great way to recognize the activities of another Kiwanis club. In November 1954, some of Sweet Home Kiwanis members flew from Langmack Airport in a private plane to an inter-club in Boise, Idaho.
In the past Kiwanis has sponsored a talent show, provided assistance to senior citizens and provided activities for the children of the community. Currently, the purpose of the Kiwanis is service to youth and elderly, community and nation.
The local club has contributed to international Kiwanis projects, including the recently completed project of supplying iodine to the regions of the world that do not have sufficient iodine in their diets.
Now, the international body is focusing on World Vision and SIGN (Surgical Implant Generation Network), which sets major bones of people injured in third-world nations.
SIGNS was begun by a physician-Kiwaniian in Richland, Wash.
Along with the international focus, Kiwanis has turned to serving the children of the world, “changing the world one child, one community at a time.”
In 1979, the club broke from its men-only policy by admitting women.
Those first women in the Sweet Home club were not always welcomed with open arms, Marjorie Kikel said. Among the first Kiwaniian were Kikel and Mona Waibel.
Neither of them knows for sure who was the first woman in the Sweet Home Kiwanis.
The DARE anti-drug program and Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) are two community endeavors that the Kiwanis Club sponsored and supported. The community also benefits from other Kiwanis donations and activities, including Special Olympics, Red Ribbon Week, children’s school supply contributions, Shoes for Kids, the communitywide cleanup, city drinking fountains, community birthday and anniversary calendar, bike safety classes, bike helmet donations, bough collection for the Singing Christmas Tree, scholarships for high school seniors through the Key Club and Kiwanis Club, Chuck Smith Law Enforcement Scholarships, Key Club sponsorship, Key leadership training, HOPE, Pregnancy Care Center, SMART, the finalization of the skate park, assistance to needy senior citizens and Salvation Army Christmas bell ringing.
With the invitation from Sweet Home Economic Development Group to supply concessions and services to patrons during the Oregon Jamboree, the club purchased its first trailer in 1991. The club recently purchased a larger trailer to accommodate concession materials for the Jamboree, Mountain Mud Festival, Crawfordsville Bridge Day and other civic activities to which Kiwanis members are asked to contribute.
The club began taking orders for fresh strawberries and frozen berries in the mid 1990s and orders are being taken for this project.
The club is holding membership drives to bolster club membership and to include new participants in the joy of serving the community.
Meetings are held every Wednesday at the Jim Riggs Community Center from noon to 12:50 p.m. For more information, call 367-7054.