History: a study of the club archives

“Closing out the 1980s in the Auburn Rotary Club”

Leafing through our club’s miscellaneous correspondence for the late 1980s and its bulletins for 1989-90 turned up a number of tidbits worth sharing.

In 1988-89, Ted Wilson was club president, followed by Ed Hobbs in 1989-90. Auburn’s Jimmy Duncan was our district governor in 1889-90 and visited our club officially on October 5, 1989. These three apparently engineered a big push to increase attendance.

Whenever a member missed a meeting, the attendance committee sent him a letter saying how much the club had missed him that day, enclosing a bulletin, suggesting that many members make up when they miss, and, somewhat threateningly, reminding the absentee "how much we value your membership.” It was not too difficult to read between those lines.

Just in case anyone missed the point, a December a letter spelled out the attendance rules—can’t miss four times in a row, must attend 60 percent of the meetings, and each member must make at least 30 percent of the meetings in the home club!

The make-up list for May 1989 included three for Allen Krebs and six for Russ Ramp!. We all remember Allen’s dedication.

Maybe the food at our meetings was the problem. In late 1988 we started to meet and eat at Aubie’s on Magnolia, but soon moved to Glorianna’s Restaurant on North College Street—only to finally adopt the Elks Club as our meeting spot in January 1990.

In July 1988, Keith McPheeters decided being dean was for the birds and wanted to go back to teaching. He asked for a leave of absence in order to retune for full-time classroom service at the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture at Taliesen in Spring Green, Wis. Keith pointed out that Spring Green did not have a Rotary Club and that the nearest was 45 miles away and he had to spend his time studying!

That November Dick Phelan joined the club and we have never been the same again!

Two brief reports in the bulletin might interest you:

Report of the History Committee for May 9, 2006