History: a study of the club archives

“Rotary in the Fifties: How Different It Was!”

In January 1953, Rotary International reported that it was tearing down a house and barn on its chosen site in Evanston, Ill.  There by October 1954 would be a bright and shining new headquarters building of two-stories and a basement.

That spring in Auburn, A. T. Hansen, director for public and industrial eelations for West Point-Pepperell, was informing the club that textile manufacturing was the largest industry in the state.  He attributed its growth to the employers’ interest in their employees.  The Mill Village schools, he declared, were some of the best in Alabama.

In September 1953, the club minutes reveal, current History Committee Chair Ellsworth Steele introduced Principal O. B. Hodges to speak about the Auburn Schools.

In November, one of our speakers was Lister Hill.   Senator Hill had entered the Senate in 1938 and co-sponsored such outstanding measures as the TVA and the Hill-Burton Hospital Act.

As school opened in the fall of 1954, Jim Foy came to our podium as director of student affairs.  Jim lamented that whenever a student was involved in an accident or broke any law; some one grabbed a phone to tell him all about it no matter the time of day or night.

In March 1955 Rotarian Swede Umbach was elected president of the American Wrestling Coaches and Officials Association.   Swede had come to Auburn as freshman football coach in 1944.   In 1946 he introduced wrestling as part of the AU athletic program. Swede’s efforts were so successful that by March 1955 the Tigers had won 80 out of 91 dual meets and had going a 30-meet winning streak

That May President Reid Davis proclaimed that, for the first time, 100 percent of the club's members had contributed to the Rotary International Foundation.

Report of the History Committee for February 16, 2006