Blastoff January 3, 2011
The Rotary Club of Space Center (Houston), Texas, and U.S.A.
No Meeting Today
Rotary International District 5890 (589)
Club 2010
Chartered August 6, 1964
"Service Above Self"
Blastoff
Down History Lane Edition
January 3, 2011
Click
Calendar
for Club meetng dates in January
Our Presidents
We are now in the 47th year of the club's history with 46 persons serving as presidents. Three of our members have also been District 589 (5890) Governors. As club historian, I have the privilege of "getting to know" the Presidents either by interview or by artifacts from their tenure. I have come to realize that each, with her or his unique education, experience, and leadership characteristics, was a successful leader and each help shape our Club into one of the most admired and respected clubs in Rotary today. Under their leadership our Club members have generated and given back to the local and international communities over $1,400,000 since 1964 not to mention the time freely given to mentoring; professional seminars; fix up, paint up, and clean up community projects; visiting and helping senior citizens and people who are physical handicapped and/or mentally retarded; clean water projects and orphanages; giving life back to severely burned children and eye sight to the blind.
We are fortunate to have pictures of each of our presidents and district governors, so let's visit each one of these outstanding Rotarians in a
photo
review. Further, most of the President's Rotary year history are complete and can be viewed by clicking on
Presidents
and looking to the upper right corner of the page and select the year you would like to visit.
Let's go back 47 years to better understand the "Service Above Self" passion which drove our founding members to lay the foundation of service for our Club.
Many "special events" have occurred over the past 47 years. Unfortunately some of them are not in the history record and consequently will not be placed in the Club's history and archives. However many of these have been identified and can be viewed by clicking
here.
A more complete list is in the Club's History under
Special Occasions and Recognitions.
Our Service Heritage
From the 1964-65 history file:The community service program of the club began almost immediately as the Space Center Rotary Club began work to establish a public library (The Theodore C. Freeman Memorial Library, in honor of the deceased astronaut), in the Clear Lake area. Citizens of the area along with the Club organized the library and established temporary quarters in the Clear Lake City Recreation Center in January 1965. Two thousand volumes were donated by residents to help get the library started. The operation was entirely voluntary, from staffing to funding. Richard Veth and Richard Allen, members of Space Center Rotary, were elected to the first Board of Trustees of Freeman Memorial Library. Since that time, numerous Rotarians and Rotary Anns (Rotarians' wives) have served on the Library Board. Club members also participated in a variety of projects at the library: renovating the building, changing of partitions, constructing shelving, painting and landscaping. There was also a repainting job on the library by club members. Minutes of the Club Assembly dated February 16, 1965 gives a more indepth look into the Club's activities and plans. (Note: The grammar has not been corrected. In addition, Club member Vince Lipovsky is one of the 35 charter members of our Club.)
A Quick Glimpse at Our History