“The big question everyone asks when we start something new is: Where are we going now? We’ve just finished a very successful year with such programs as the Student Exchange Program, Club Growth, and Community and International Service Projects. As a board member I saw why these things took place, because of the dedication of Past Pres. Ron, his board, and each of you Rotarians. Our club is successful because each one of you became excited about our projects and our future and worked to see that each was successful. So where are we going now? The answer lies in the hands of myself, the board, but especially the hands of my fellow Rotarians.”

 

To quote D.P. Peggs, our new District Governor, ‘The only thing that goes by itself is going downhill’. To obtain the success for the next year we must reach out to new ideas, new fellowships, and new projects to keep our club active and growing.” (“Reach Out” was the R.I theme for 1978/89).

 

At his meeting with the Dist. Gov., Mike said that his strong and weak points were “Youth and Ignorance”. Youth brought the enthusiasm to make us work, and the ignorance he referred to he clarified as meaning “Ignorance of what we can’t do”. (Mike’s wife Carol looked so youthful that at the District Conference in Nanaimo she was mistaken for an exchange student and when she entered the hall was directed to where the students were gathering. A couple months later, Mike and Carol’s first child was born).

The Sept. 1978 bulletin announced our first big project of the year: The First Annual Kitsap County Rotary Golf Tournament. The entry fee was $25, and the net profit was $178.

 

Other fund raisers were our first casino night, which raised $720, and sale of fireworks, which raised over $2,000. What had become known as the Sam Anderson walk, from Silverdale to the meeting, raised $90 for the Foundation.

 

Among our community project donations were $350 to the YMCA handicapped swim program, $100 to Holly Ridge for new chairs, $500 the Kitsap Library for landscaping, $250 to 4-H for scholarships and awards, $500 to O.P.E. for a fire alarm system in their new facility, $55 to Campfire Girls to send one girl to camp for one week.

 

In April 1981 we held our second casino night and grossed $6,104.50. Casino nights (before legalized gambling) were hectic, fun but hard work. Most of the gamblers smoked, and dealing cards to half a dozen smokers was tough on non-smokers. They were also mostly drinkers, and as the night wore on some of them didn’t seem to pay attention to their cards and lost a lot of money. They didn’t seem to care; they loved gambling and often remarked that their losses were “in a good cause”. To a dealer it sometimes seemed that it was not beneficial to all concerned, but there was enough goodwill and friendship going around to more than make up for it; that and the bottle of Crown Royal that Dick Maurice passed around after all the dust had cleared in the wee hours.

 

From The Rotarian: “Montagu M. Bear  joined the Chicago Rotary Club in 1905, the club’s charter year. He was a designer and engraver who gave Rotary its first symbol, a simple buggy wheel representing civilization and movement. Except for adding a cloud of dust, some streamers, and the words ‘Rotary Club’ the buggy wheel satisfied Rotarians until 1912. Then for seven years Rotarians experimented with redesigning the wheel. By 1919, except for one additional modification made five years later, the wheel as we know it today was officially adopted by the Rotary Board. The wheel is more a six-spoke gear than a wheel. The teeth of the gear are important, because gearing is essentially the way motion is transmitted from one portion of the machinery to another. Thus the Rotary wheel is symbolic of the way Rotarians mesh with the community, the businesses represented in the clubs, and the world. But the gear doesn’t transmit power if it isn’t locked to another rotating part. Thus in 1924 the groove, or keyway, was added to the Rotary wheel. The key is a small parallel-sided piece that fits into a groove and prevents relative motion between rotating parts. Thus the Rotary wheel is a working wheel.”

 

For Valentine’s Day the club held its first “Sweetheart Dinner.” It didn’t say where, but the cost was $6.50 a couple, with all proceeds ($200) going to the Rotary Foundation.

 

A Paul Harris quote: “The adventurous Rotarian - the person who responds to the ideal of service with purposeful action - finds his reward, like the sailor who loves the sea, in the journey itself.”

 

Outgoing Pres. Ron Pettygrove summarized some of the highlights of his year:

 

We started our meetings with five minutes of Rotary information.

 

Our big fundraiser, selling fireworks, brought in $1,800.  

 

We held our first Installation/Outstallation.

 

Vern Andor gave District Governor Harold Woodland a tour of Kitsap County in his airplane.

 

As a community project we bought a reading-aid instrument for the new library on Sylvan Way where the visually impaired could sit and read.

 

We spent an evening at the Eastwynd senior citizens home, for whom we had contributed $100 toward the purchase of an organ. 

 

Ron and John Loidhamer walked from Silverdale to the meeting (8 miles!). This  began a tradition, later called the Sam Anderson walk, starting from Sonny’s house near the Fairgrounds, which lasted until there were too many of us and it  became hazardous. When Ann Lawry was slightly bumped by a fender at an  intersection we changed this activity to Lions Field. We had the choice of walking or contributing $5 to the Foundation.

 

There was another Mariners night, this time with the ladies. Progress.

 

TRADITION: January was designated “Take a Rotarian to Lunch” month. That  didn’t last, but Ron Pettyrove and Lew Bruser have kept their Jan. 22 lunch date ever since. 

 

At the end of Ron’s year we had 35 members, with 94 percent attendance.