A new Suffern Rotary Club tradition has begun! A monthly meeting tradition where a long-standing member will share their Rotary experiences with the new members!
Suffern Rotary Club began 95 years ago and there is quite a bit of history to celebrate and share! The club is fortunate to have a wealth of long-standing members that are loyal to Suffern Rotary; there are even a few that have moved to other locales but keep coming back to their Suffern Rotary. New members are eager to hear what it is that keeps them involved. In that endeavor, a different long-standing member will speak at one meeting each month to share history and reminisce about their time in Rotary. This will help new members learn more about Suffern Rotary: its history, traditions and members past and present.
Today Ira Emanuel was the first of the long-standing members to speak about what the Suffern Rotary Club was like when he started to attend in 1987. At that time only men were invited to join Rotary and Rotary International asked members to vote on including women in the membership. One of the executives of the board for Suffern Rotary at that time voted "No" on this proposition. Ironically the proposition was voted in and that executive inducted the first four women into Suffern Rotary in 1988: one of which was Donna Silberman's mother, and present members Donalee Berard and Maxine Hyrkas!
Ira proudly named some illustrious Suffern Rotary members, Bill Miele and Tom France, from the past who went on to become District Governors as well as our present member Larry Palant who will be DG this July. Ira displayed his wild red socks in honor of Tom France who started the "Crazy Socks" tradition with Suffern Rotarians. Another Suffern Rotarian of notoriety Ira mentioned was "Les" Rounds, a past Superintendent of Ramapo Central School District who founded RCC. "Rockland Community College was founded on a dream. Lester Rounds, a local school superintendent, proposed the idea for an affordable, grassroots, two-year college in his doctoral dissertation for Columbia University. Amid stirring of Rockland County’s conversion from sleepy hinterland to bustling suburbia along with a burgeoning school-age population, spiraling college costs, and growing need for advanced skills, Rounds and other forward-thinkers spent five years bringing the dream to fruition. In the fall of 1959, Rockland Community College opened its doors to 139 students: 87 men and 52 women, 119 full-time and 20 part-time. They were high school graduates eager to capitalize on an affordable, two-year alternative at their doorstep. They were homemakers with children to care for. They were veterans thankful for a second chance. (“Rockland Community College: The Early Years,” by Jamie Kempton, Donning Company Press, 2000.)"
Our "Happy Bucks" tradition actually came from the Spring Valley Rotary Club and we adopted it as our own. Ira shared some of the numerous past restaurants the club meetings were held at in Suffern such as Geppetto's, Motel On The Mountain, Carmichael's, Outback, etc. As Ira was reminiscing with humor, other long-standing members were chiming in comments to add to Ira's speech. Both old and new members enjoyed walking down Memory Lane with Ira today. We look forward to more walks down Suffern Rotary's Memory Lane.