Posted by Murray Hanson on Mar 07, 2018
 
 Club President,Troy Dunn and the honorable Rod Mahler with his award and District Governor, Kyle Haugen
      
The Faribault Rotary Club was established 98 years ago on May 1, 1920 as Rotary's 596th club with 22 charter members and by the end of the first-year membership had reached a total of 35. Those early founders of our club established a tradition of record keeping that has now been passed on to me in the form of 6 boxes of records dating back to the first days of our club. My research into Rod’s time in our club revealed the following:
On March 5th, Rod Mahler has been a member for 60 of the 98 years our club has existed. He joined our club on March 5, 1958 at the age of 24. 
 
On that day Al Burkhartzmeyer did his classification talk.
Rod’s classification talk was on June 7th and his review in the bulletin the next week was as follows:
‘Rod Mahler need not take the back seat when it comes to public speaking. I wonder did the box have a ‘Green Door’ on it?  You did a fine job, and we all enjoyed your classification talk very much”
 
Rod missed 2 weeks in August of that first year with the mumps and then had 10 years of perfect attendance. I estimate that he has attended over 2700 meetings with over 90% attendance and over 3000 total Rotary events of which he would be happy to discuss any one of them with you.
 
Notable program speakers his first year were
  • U of M Hockey coach, John Mariucci
  • Congressman and future Governor Al Quie
  • Captain EM Morgan US Navy Pacific Fleet Naval Defenses
  • Mayor P. Kenneth Peterson- about the new Freeway coming
Rod’s 60 years so far give him the longest membership in our club history.
Other notable long-time members
- Palmer Dragsten 1948- 2006 / 58 years
- Al Burkhartzmeyer 1957-2012 / 55 years
- Tom Gerbig 1969- present / 49 years
- George Wickstrom 1974- present / 44 years
- Nuba Pletcher 1921-1965 /44 years (2nd picture)
-Dr. Donald Chathum 1921-1963 /42 years
 
Rod has those connections back to the first year of our club when the original 35 first year members were added during 1920-21. Nuba Pletcher and Dr. Donald Chathum who joined that first year were still members for 5-7 years after Rod joined in 1958.
 
When I joined 25 years ago, Rod was one of the first Rotarians to welcome me to the club fleecing me during fellowship just to be sure that I felt welcome.  He has always been welcoming and encouraging to new members over the years and is a true example of a Rotarian who puts service above self.
 
 He has served this club and Faribault continuously during his 60-year membership even most recently with the donation of our new American flag and sponsoring the membership of our new chamber President, Nort Johnson.
 
Thank you, Rod for your continued inspiration and  service to our club!