Rotary Club celebrates 50th anniversary

By Anna Krejci, Dells Events

wde-news@capitalnewspapers.com

The Wisconsin Dells Rotary Club is celebrating 50 years of existence this year.

Some of the club’s long-time members, most of whom had been members of the club for 20 years or more, shared memories of the club recently. John Van Wie, Dean Phillips, Jerry Hamm, Eric Helland and Peter Tollaksen reminisced.

Shortly after the club was founded by 20 men in 1959, Rotarians met weekly at Field’s Steak and Stein. Today they meet every Thursday for lunch at the House of Embers.

Some of the club’s fundraisers date back decades, like the tradition of selling beef at the annual Wo-Zha-Wa festival downtown. Member Jerry Hamm remembered the club used to show a live steer at the tent. That ended the year after the steer on exhibit escaped into the Wo-Zha-Wa crowds.

Other fundraisers the club does now throughout the year include a spring fundraiser and Riverfest. The club contributes funds for the elimination of polio around the world and runs projects like writing holiday cards, caroling and improving access to water in Nigeria and Guatemala with the club’s group for high school students, Interact.

According to Helland, who is also the city’s mayor, Interact started about 10 or 15 years ago. It has about 24 children involved who meet on alternating Mondays at Pizza Pub in Lake Delton.

The club also contributes funds to Christmas gift giving by the Kiwanis Club, to United Way, Easter Seals Camp Wawbeek, powerlifting and flood recovery, according to the club’s treasurer, Kara Zastrow. It also advertises with the Dells-Delton Hockey Association and supports local blood drives.

In donations and scholarships last year, the club contributed more than $10,000, Zastrow said.

The club gives $6,000 in scholarships to high school students every year. And it’s obligated to pay out $30,000 on a concession building that was put in at Rotary Park this year, Zastrow said.

Rotary International boasts a global membership of 1.2 million in 33,000 clubs, according to its Web site. Membership rose in 1989 after the club welcomed women. Now nearly 188,000 women are members, the Web site states.

In 1994 the first woman, Juli Mor, joined the local club and in 2001 Cathy Sperl was the first female president.

Van Wie, who joined in 1969, said initial resistance to women joining faded.

“A lot of the old hard liners back then were at that time either passed on or were no longer a real active part of Rotary. Rotary was going through a transition,” Van Wie said. “That’s when we ended up with our first female member. I must add we have several members now, and it’s been wonderful. It’s been a great addition to our club.”

One of the goals of Rotary Club is to provide a place for various members of the workforce to socialize and benefit from it. Member Dean Phillips who joined about 20 years ago said it used to be a rule that a club could only have one type of professional in it. That has changed now since the club has several chiropractors, lawyers and bankers in it.

Members of a local Rotary Club can visit other club meetings around the country and world. Van Wie recalled once stumbling in on a formally dressed Rotary Club while traveling, and the group made light of how he wasn’t dressed properly.

“Our club is a casual club. Some of them aren’t,” he said.

“We come dressed for golf,” Hamm quipped.

In earlier years, Rotary Club members used to take the entire Thursday afternoons off for socializing after meetings, like golfing or, according to Helland, playing cribbage.

With the current pace of business, Rotary Club members don’t dally so long after meetings, but there are still plenty of social events like the boat ride some members took on the Wisconsin River Oct. 8 to celebrate the club’s half century of history.

Members are held to standards expounded in the Four-Way Test. Members are supposed to live out the principles in their work and the test guides them in their thoughts and speech. Here is the Four-Way Test: Is it the truth? Is it fair to all concerned? Will it build goodwill and better friendships? Will it be beneficial to all concerned?

Members can be fined $1 for talking about business or wearing their company logo at the meetings — the club is about volunteering and socializing. Though Helland said being a member indirectly benefits a business while helping the individual.

“They talk about networking out there nowadays...Truly a service club is the best way to network. When I first started working when I got out of college I worked for a corporation as middle management. We were required to join a service club because that company wanted people out in the community to put on a good face, let the people in the community know who you are,” he said.

People are always encouraged to join. They have to be a local resident who asks a current member to sponsor them. Dues are $540 a year which includes meals at House of Embers and covers international and district dues, according to Zastrow.