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2023 Parade of Flags

The 2023 Wooster Rotary Parade of Flags kicks-off on Memorial Day weekend. Celebrate our country and our community by subscribing or renewing today!

Join your friends, neighbors and local businesses to show your patriotic pride and support community organizations. Click the link below to order your flag subscription. You’ll receive a flag on five holidays in 2023: Memorial Day, Flag Day, Independence Day, Patriots’ Day and Veterans’ Day. The deadline for the first flag holiday is April 28th.

https://app.helpingwithflags.com/WoosterRotary

We are grateful for your support of this program and our community!

Parade of Flags Wrap-up

The Wooster Rotary Club Parade of Flags wrapped up its 14^th year placing American Flags throughout the communities of Wooster and Smithville. A total of 1,941 flag subscribers along with public and county agencies participated in the Parade of Flags this year. A total of 15 community groups along with Wooster Rotarians helped distribute and set out these flags over five holidays: Memorial Day, Flag Day, July 4^th, Patriot Day and Veterans Day. The Parade of Flags project is Wooster Rotary’s largest fund raiser and all profits support local community, national and international Rotary projects.

Class of 2021 Scholarship Winners

Including this year, the Wooster Rotary Club has made 200 scholarship awards for nearly $360,000.

Due to the COVID19 pandemic, the traditional senior awards assembly was replaced with a hybrid assembly on Thursday, June 3, 2021. Students being presented with awards were invited to attend in-person and scholarship groups who wanted to make their presentations were done electronically.

Club President Justin Starlin welcomed our finalists with a video about Wooster Rotary’s continuing support of educational opportunities.

This year, Wooster Rotary Club awarded $16,500 in scholarships to 9 Wooster High School seniors as listed below.

100 Years of Wooster Rotary - A Series

Courtesy of Ray Leisy, Club Historian

This starts a series on the history of Wooster Rotary, the first of which addresses the founding of Rotary International.

The first Rotary Club was formed when Paul P. Harris, an attorney, called three of his business acquaintances in downtown Chicago together for lunch at the office of Gustave Loehr, a mining engineer and a freemason. The other two attendees were Hiram E. Shorey, a tailor, and Silvester S Schiele, a coal merchant. The members choose the name “Rotary” because they initially decided to rotate subsequent meetings between their respective offices. However, the Club soon began to grow so quickly that they decided to select a permanent meeting place.

100 YEARS OF WOOSTER ROTARY (PARTS 1-6) THE FOUNDING

Courtesy of Ray Leisy, Club Historian

In 1915, Walter D. Foss, President of the Wooster Brush Company, after the death of his wife, decided to retire and move to Cleveland. Once he arrived in Cleveland, he decided to take up residence at the Hotel Carter in downtown Cleveland. He commuted back and forth to Wooster once or twice each week to keep in touch with the Company and family in Wooster.

At some point, he joined the Cleveland Rotary Club and soon decided that Wooster could benefit as well with a Rotary Club.

He enlisted his son, Walter R. Foss, President of Wooster Brush, Walter Whitaker, a Wooster Insurance Agent, and William Harris, a cashier at the Citizens National Bank. Together they compiled a list of candidates for the Wooster Rotary Club. They approached each candidate personally and explained the principles of Rotary and the qualifications for membership and all of the rules and regulations of Rotary. Some potential members who were approached declined, others who were not approached asked if they could join.

Soon, 24 potential members were selected, being an adequate number to apply for a charter and a meeting was set for January 21, 1921, although that is not the “official” date for Wooster Rotary. Walter D. Foss received a letter from the International Association of Rotary Clubs dated 28 February, 1921 accepting the Wooster application. The Charter itself carries a March 1,1921 date; Charter No. 834. So, we can have three celebrations if we want.

100 Years of Wooster Rotary - Part 7

Courtesy of Ray Leisy, Club Historian

A few Rotary members have been asking about the Rotary Youth Exchange program, no doubt prompted by the excellent article about our current inbound and outbound students in the Daily Record last week.

The Rotary Club of Denmark initiated the first Rotary youth exchange in 1927 with the Rotary Club of Nice, France following in 1929. The exchanges then usually took place during summer or school vacations and only lasted for a few weeks. Exchanges were abandoned in the mid-1930’s because of economic conditions and the impending unrest which ultimately led to World War II.

100 YEARS OF WOOSTER ROTARY (PARTS 8-20) THE EARLY YEARS

Courtesy of Ray Leisy, Club Historian

As you may note by the occupations of the original twenty-four members of the Wooster Rotary Club and their contacts throughout the Ohio business world, the Wooster Rotary Club held the promise of great things to come with special emphasis on “Service Above Self”. By 1924, the Wooster Rotary Club had grown to 55. That same year a Motion was made to pay the expenses of a Wooster Delegate to the National Rotary Convention. The second Wooster President, Charles Gary was sent as Wooster’s Delegate to the St. Louis Convention. Also, at that time the fiscal year for each Rotary Club ended on March 31st.

1924 was a very active year for the Wooster Club, contributions were made to the Boy Scouts and our first relationship with the International Society for Crippled Children resulted in an average donation of $4.00 per member to that organization.

In 1925, after an address by the Chaplain of the Ohio State Penetentiary, Wooster Rotary adopted a Resolution sent to the Ohio Legislature that prisoners be encouraged to further their education through correspondence courses organized by the State of Ohio. The Wooster Club was also recognized by the Crippled Children Foundation for buying an electric chair for a local Wooster citizen. This is the first time that Wooster used funds to support a local citizen. This also was the first time that the membership held a picnic at the newly opened Wooster City Park, known now as the Christmas Run Park.

100 YEARS OF WOOSTER ROTARY (PARTS 21-32) COMPLETING THE FIRST 50 YEARS

Courtesy of Ray Leisy, Club Historian

The 1960 to 1961 Wooster Rotary Year began with a new Club President, Al Burger Sr. In his first order of business, President Al pointed out that Wooster Rotary would observe its 40th Anniversary on January 21, 1961 and he was appointing a special committee to provide a suitable recognition of that date.

Of special interest were some of the programs for the year presented by Luke Sewell who recounted his 33 years in baseball with the Cleveland team and many other teams ending as manager of the St. Louis Browns; Albert Dix who spoke about his travels in Africa; Norman Auburn, President of the University of Akron, who spoke about his recent trip to Russia; Dr. Earle Kay of Cleveland and a leading heart surgeon who spoke about new advances in heart surgery (with slides); C.H. Lawrence, nuclear specialist, who spoke about the nuclear ship Savannah; Jerry McKeel, engineer with Goodyear Aircraft, who presented a program about the new space program; and Carl V. Weygandt, Chief Justice of the Ohio Supreme Court, and a native of Wooster, who spoke about his reflections upon Memorial Day.

100 Years of Wooster Rotary - 1971-1979

The 1971 to 1972 Wooster Rotary year began with a new President, Pete Bogner. The new incoming Board members were Keith Remy, Vic Dix and Francis Varga. President Pete’s first official pronouncement was for all Wooster Rotary Committees to meet and prepare a written report concerning the Committee’s project plans for the year. President Pete also called upon all Wooster Rotarians to make contributions to the Wooster Police Blue Coat Fund established to honor Wooster Police Officers Goodrich and Nisely, both of whom died during the July 4, 1969 flood trying to rescue others.

The annual family picnic on July 22nd at the OARDC drew over 350 Wooster Rotarians and their family members. The Wooster Rotary Club hosted the annual all-city club meeting at Lowry Center on Thursday evening, September 2nd. The speaker was Perle L. Whitehead, retired regional Boy Scout Executive. Members of Wooster’s eight service clubs packed the ballroom for an excellent program. Over 400 people were in attendance.

Ed Burkhart, Chair of the Wooster Selection Committee, announced at the September 30th meeting that Beverly Kimble, a Senior at the College of Wooster, had been accepted from all applicants from the Rotary 665 District as a Rotary Foundation Scholar to attend school at the University of Durham, England, for the year 1972-1973. Successful candidates were selected on scholarship, personality and potential as goodwill ambassadors. Since the program began in 1947, over 1,700 scholarships have been awarded.

The program on October 7th was a bit unusual in that four Wooster High School students teamed up to tell Wooster Rotarians “…how it really was with todays young people.” The speakers were Mike Buytendyk, senior class president; Bonnie Thompson, a member of student council; Sheri Black, senior class secretary; and Walter Hudson, president of the student council. The topics discussed were class curriculum, involvement by black students in school activities, the dress code and the deteriorating physical plant of Wooster High School and the need for a new High School.

100 Years of Wooster Rotary - 1980-1990

The 1980-81 Wooster Rotary Year began with Leonard Schnell taking over as President. President Len announced that the Wooster Club gave $1,500 to the Rotary International 3-H program in honor of Rotary International’s 75th anniversary. Overall, Rotary International had raised $5.5 million to date. President Len also announced that a Group Study program was being put together for the District to go to Bangladesh. The members must be non-Rotarians. The leader will be a District Rotary Member.

Brothers Dennis Webb and Doug Webb, sons of Rotarian Clyde Webb, both were sworn in as members. It was announced that Ted Bogner will be in charge of this years United Way Run. Rotarian Gene Buehler announced the grand opening of the new Buehler's store on Milltown Road.

As noted, this was the 75th Anniversary of the founding of Rotary. At this time there were 18,771 Rotary Clubs worldwide with 869,750 members. The total number of Paul Harris Fellows was 51,385. Wooster Rotary membership stood at 208.

In making his annual pitch for help and donations to the 5th Annual Wooster Gallery Auction, Dave Gallapoo was ready for a question from the audience on what Rotary does with the “profits.” Dave replied

- Support of the Wayne County Crippled Children Fund
- Hosting trips for International Exchange Students
- Sponsoring students to the World Affairs Institute
- Construction of an Outdoor Education Center at Spangler Park
- Helping with the design and construction of Diller Park
- Helping to develop the Wooster Drug Abuse Council
- Helping to establish the Wooster Art Center (now known as the Wayne Center for the Arts)
- Sponsor of the United Way Run
- Support for Ida Sue School
- Provide trophies for the College of Wooster Mose Hole Classic
- Provide trophies for the Wooster High School Debate Tournament
- Assist Meals on Wheels
- Assist Wooster Head Start
- Annual Senior Citizens Christmas Party
- Provide two heart Monitoring Machines to Wooster Hospital

Incidentally, the 5th Annual Rotary Gallery Auction saw 83 consigners consign 201 lots with gross sales of $11,862.

100 Years of Wooster Rotary - 1990 - 2002

At the first meeting of Wooster Rotary Year 1990-1991 outgoing President Al Van Wie turned the gavel over to incoming President Franklin R. Hall. W. Lee Culp returned for another year as Secretary and Frank M. Hayes returned for another year as Treasurer. Tim Zuercher was President Elect.

An Honorary Membership was given to Cliff Morrison. It was also noted that Wooster Rotary member Gillian Flynn, a former resident of South Africa, had been granted United States Citizenship.

Rotary at Work

Community Service & Community Projects
Salvation Army Christmas Fund $100.00
Residential Support Services $500.00
Civil Air Patrol Search unit $20.00
Buckeye Book Fair $400.00
Apple Creek Developmental Center Christmas Presents $100.00
Great Decisions $400.00
Wooster YMCA $705.00
People to People Capital Drive $2,000.00

Rural/Urban
4-H Scholarships $750.00
ATI-OSU $250.00

The Wooster Rotary Club, under the Chairmanship of Al Van Wie, celebrated the 70th Anniversary of Wooster Rotary with a dinner including members and guests and visiting Rotarians from Orrville, Rittman, Dalton and the District.

Memorial Day, originally known as Decoration Day, has its origins in family members who decorated graves of those who died in the Civil War. The origin of the event in history is uncertain. Many groups claim to have started the event.

After the two World Wars it became a general day of remembrance, not just for the Civil War. While the name “Memorial Day” was used as early as 1882, it did not come into wide use until after World War II when it became a day to honor both deceased and living veterans. It became a Federal Holiday in 1971 and the date for observance was fixed as the last Monday in May.

Since the organization of Wooster Rotary in 1921, Memorial Day has taken on significant meaning for the Club. There were at least two veterans of the Spanish-American War to join the Club in the early years, and many returning veterans of World War I added to the number of Veterans in the Club.

During World War II, Wooster Rotarian enlistees were granted “leave” and assured of membership without any loss upon their return. It was fortunate that all enlistees did return to reclaim their membership. Today, there are many men and women veterans in the Wooster Rotary Club.

Beginning in the early 2000’s, the Wooster Rotary Club went further by sponsoring a special day, generally around Armistice Day, to honor all Rotary Veterans and any veteran guests a Rotarian brought to the event. The Club has gone on to honor all Wayne County Veterans by providing funds for the Battlefield Cross dedicated at Wooster Cemetery last year and the Gold Star Families Memorial this year, unveiled yesterday by Wooster Rotary's own Lt. Col. Greg Long.

History of the Rotary Bell

In 1922 U.S. Rotarians organized an attendance contest; the challenge was that the losing clubs would join in giving the winning club a prize. The Rotary Club of New York City was declared the winner and to them was awarded a bell from a popular patrol boat, which was placed on wood that came from HMS Victory, Admiral Nelson’s vessel at the battle of Trafalgar.

2019 Veterans Day Meeting

Wooster Rotary honored our members, our family members (i.e. spouses, children) and community members who are veterans at our November 11th meeting. Major General (Ret) Tod J. Carmony was the day's speaker. He noted the impact that a nation of WWII veterans had on the generation after them, as parents and as community leaders, and how many of those veterans shaped his own passion to serve. MG Carmony is a Wooster native who served 39 years in the US Army; in addition to numerous deployments around the world, he also deployed to Mississippi as part of the Katrina Relief mission in 2005.

2019 Community Service Project

In the Spring of 2019, President Matt Long and Community Service Chair Chad Bailey oversaw the installation of 3 bike kiosks along the new Wooster bike path. The Rotary Club of Wooster donated approximately $10,000 and some leg work to purchase the kiosks for the City of Wooster.

Wooster Rotary Honors Member Service