Club
History 
1906 Rotary International Emblem
The Beginning
In
the summer of 1917 a group of men met daily in the Clinton House Drug Store at
the corner of Walnut and Water Streets. They talked about Rotary, which had been
started February 23, 1905, in Chicago by a similar group of men, and had since
spread to many other cities. Rotary's high ideals, exemplified by its motto "Service
above Self," appealed to the young Chillicothe businessmen. 
Club's First President
Walter Sears
Photo Courtesy of the Ross County Historical Society
Walter Sears,
one of the owners of the Sears and Nichols Canning Company that had a plant at
the southeast corner of Main and Mulberry Streets, had recently moved from Columbus
to Chillicothe. He had been a member of the Rotary Club of Columbus and he agreed
to help the group form a Rotary Club here. Twenty-nine active and three associate
members were chosen and application for a charter, under the sponsorship of the
Columbus Club, was made to Rotary International. Installation
of the Rotary Club, Chillicothe's first service club, was a big event! On November
13, 1917, the Columbus Rotary Club, nearly 100% strong, arrived on a special Norfolk
& Western train. The train was switched to a siding at Camp Sherman where
the installation ceremonies took place. At that time all of Ohio was in Rotary's
22nd District, and the District Governor and the immediate past president of the
Columbus Club were in charge. Major General Glenn, Camp Sherman's Commanding Officer,
was a special guest and the main speaker. It was a gala event with many other
guests including the Weber Male Quartet from New York City. The Rotary Club of
Chillicothe, Ohio, U.S.A., Rotary's 370th club, was now officially chartered.
1926 Rotary International
Emblem
Rotary's
Early Years During
the first year, twenty-seven new members were accepted. Meetings originally were
held Tuesdays at the Warner Hotel, but they were soon changed to noon on Mondays.
The initial club projects were the sale of Liberty Bonds and other activities
related to World War I. Meetings were moved to the Army Club due to the large
number of visitors from Camp Sherman, and later to a restaurant at the Clinton
House. In time they returned to the Warner House. In
the early years, Ladies' Night was one of the highlights of each year. The first
was held January 6, 1919, with dinner and entertainment, gifts for the ladies,
and dancing until midnight. A
dinner in honor of the city school teachers was held May 29, 1922. Originally
planned as a surprise party for our Rotarian school superintendent, it was so
successful it was repeated every year for more than thirty years. Probably
the most noteworthy of the Club's early community service projects was its successful
effort to convince the Federal Government to preserve the Mound Builder burial
grounds north of Chillicothe. Although the mounds had been partly destroyed by
agricultural use of the land and the construction of Camp Sherman, Mound City
Group National Monument was created in 1923, the mounds were restored, and this
important historical treasure has been one of Ross County's important landmarks
ever since. It was managed for many years by the Ohio Archeological and Historical
Society and, beginning in 1946, by the National Park Service. During
the early twenties the Chillicothe Rotary Club organized clubs in Ironton, Portsmouth,
Washington Court House, Wellston, Circleville, and Jackson. We helped in the installation
of clubs in Lancaster, Logan, Nelsonville, and Greenfield. Intercity meetings
were established to keep in touch with the new clubs. The first of these was with
Lancaster. By 1923 Chillicothe Rotary had about 75 members. During
the depression years the club set up stoves in many of the city and county schools
and arranged for free meals to be provided to the children. For a number of years
following the depression, free milk was provided to needy children. Aid
to crippled children became one of Rotary's major concerns throughout the country.
The idea started in Ohio and the Chillicothe Club sponsored annual crippled children's
clinics and Christmas parties. Assistance
was given to the Boy Scouts and the Salvation Army, and many children were given
a week's outing at the YMCA camp near Bourneville. A Rotary camp was established
along the Scioto River north of Chillicothe (at the south end of what is now Orr
Road) which was available to youth organizations for picnics. Forties
and Fifties During
the forties one of our own members was District Governor. We were now in District
231 and Charles C. Evans was Governor in 1943-1944. Many of our members served
in the armed forces during World War II, and the Club met at the Town House on
West Second Street. We set up a fund for the purchase of books for the Chillicothe
Public Library and placed new Rotary signs at the entrances to our city. In
1946 we moved from the Town House to Highland's Restaurant, across the alley from
the Warner Hotel, and when Walter Highland closed his restaurant to take over
the Warner Hotel dining room, we moved with him. Our meetings were held at the
Lynne House on East Second Street for three months in 1948, but for the most part
the Warner was Chillicothe Rotary's meeting place. As
the numbers of Rotary clubs grew, District 231 was split in 1950 and Chillicothe
found itself in District 232. Chillicothe's Dr. Nicholas H. Holmes was District
Governor in 1953-54. Members were still returning from military service in the
early fifties and we were still having annual intercity meetings with the Portsmouth
Rotary Club. After many years, Ladies Night once again became one of our important
occasions in 1953. Our Rotary Anns helped us celebrate Rotary's 50th anniversary
in 1955 and our own 40th anniversary two years later. In 1969 Ladies Night was
held at Scioto Downs race track. One
of Chillicothe Rotary's objectives has been the encouragement of understanding
between the farmers and the city dwellers. In 1950 the Rural-Urban committee had
a tent at the Ross County Fair intended to serve "as a meeting place for
Rotarians from the county and surrounding counties and a rest area for fairgoers."
Tellers in the late fifties refer to the Annual Farmers Tour each June, and for
the last 25 years we have invited farmers from the area to our Rural-Urban Day
each year. We
began holding joint meetings with our local service clubs. We had met with Altrusa
and Kiwanis in 1949, and throughout the fifties, sixties, and early seventies
inter-club meetings or picnics were annual affairs with Rotary, Kiwanis, Lions,
and the Exchange Club rotating as hosts. What year the first Rotary-Kiwanis golf
match was held isn't clear, but in 1948 the Teller headlined "Rotary Finally
Wins!" We won from time to time after that, but for the most part through
the years our golfers have been outplayed by the Kiwanians. When
the annual Kettle Newsies sale was started by the Jaycees in 1941 to benefit the
Salvation Army, Rotary soon became one of its enthusiastic supporters. A Rotarian
purchased a trophy to help generate competition among the organizations that manned
the kettles. Rotary's name was engraved on the cup as the winner every year until
the cup was filled, and a second cup was purchased. Until that practice was discontinued
in the early eighties, we failed only once to win the trophy, and Rotary has continued
to collect the largest amounts of money most years since then. Helping
the Youth 
The
Chillicothe Rotary Club's service projects have changed as the years have gone
by. In 1935 Rotary was instrumental, locally and nationally, in the formation
and early operation of the Crippled Children's Society, which is now the Easter
Seal Society. The new organization assumed and expanded Rotary's medical services
to crippled children, but our Club's Christmas parties continued for a number
of years. By the late fifties, other support programs had made our school milk
project unnecessary, and as the numbers of teachers outgrew available space, Teachers
Night became limited to new and retired teachers and was finally discontinued
altogether. Rotary still provides financial assistance to the schools for new
teacher orientation. Support
for young people, their health, education, and their world understanding, has
always been a concern of Rotarians in Chillicothe and throughout the world. In
the late forties we began sending local students to an annual World Affairs Institute
held in Cincinnati, and a few years later the Club sponsored a student at the
International Folk Festival at Wilmington College. We set up a student loan fund
in 1953. Under
Rotary International's Exchange Student program we have sent young people to study
in foreign countries and Rotarians have housed students who have come to Chillicothe
from distant lands. When Tulua, Colombia, became Chillicothe's first Sister City,
the club helped sponsor an exchange student from there. Realizing
the importance of Scouting to our young people, we were helping the Boy Scouts'
Chief Logan Council send underprivileged boys to Camp Mingo on Route 50 west of
Chillicothe in the late forties. We bought them a sound projector and dishes for
their
dining room in the fifties. A
three-day Pancake Festival at the Elks Hall was undertaken in 1960 and again in
1961 to raise money for the purchase of a station wagon for the Seal of Ohio Girl
Scouts Council and help meet the Club's $2,400 pledge to the Boy Scouts campaign
to build Chief Logan Reservation. The Club also built the council ring at the
new camp and has helped in its rebuilding in recent years. We
invited local high school students to attend our meetings from time to time as
early as 1940, and, beginning about 1961, 'High School Rotarians" became
regular visitors. Soon after that the Club began recognizing honor students from
Chillicothe and Bishop Flaget high schools at a meeting each spring. Rotary
had a lot to do with getting Junior Achievement started in this community in 1977
and we have provided financial support to JA over the years that followed. Since
1982, one meeting each spring has been dedicated to honoring the JA volunteers. The
Chillicothe Rotary Club and its members have been involved in the establishment
and enhancement of Ohio University's Chillicothe Campus since its inception. In
1946, before the first university classes were started in Chillicothe High School
(now Smith Middle School), the club set up committees to help arrange student
housing and aid the University with local problems and general public relations.
Rotarians have always been active members of the OU-C Regional Council and the
club contributed to the fund to establish a permanent campus in 1963, using the
last of its Pancake Festival profits for this purpose. In
1976 we awarded a scholarship to a student attending the, Chillicothe campus,
and in 1979 this became one of the Club's most important annual events. Every
year Chillicothe Rotary presents a full tuition scholarship for the following
year to an OU-C student from our area who has demonstrated outstanding academic
performance during his or her freshman year. Usually the speaker is a top Ohio
University official; OU President Charles Ping has addressed us four of the last
ten years on this important occasion. Goodbye
to the Warner The
Warner Hotel had been Chillicothe Rotary's home for most of its first fifty years.
Goldie Vernia had operated the dining room in its later years, and when she closed
it in 1964 to open the Valley House restaurant in the new Central Center, Rotary
moved with her. We were now in District 669, the club had about 95 members, and
that summer Bob Evans became our first third-generation member. A year later,
on September 20, we had a moment of silent prayer for Murray Anderson, who had
been the last living charter member of our club. During
the sixties and seventies Rotary or its members were instrumental in the establishment
of Chillicothe's outstanding outdoor drama, Tecumseh!, the city's construction
of the Donald M. Smith memorial swimming pool in Yoctangee Park, and the building
of a shelter house at Roweton Boys Ranch. Chillicothe
Rotary contributed to the YMCA building fund in 1967 and a few years later the
Pancake Festival was revived as an annual one-day affair at the YMCA. Pancake
Day has become a traditional Rotary project every fall, with half the proceeds
going to the "Y". In
an effort to promote better health, an annual Rotary-Kiwanis Heart Luncheon was
established in 1968. At this joint meeting of the two clubs, local Heart Association
representatives are honored, a "healthy" luncheon is served, and the
speaker talks about heart problems and progress in overcoming them. To
properly commemorate the nation's Bicentennial, the Rotary Club raised $7,000
in 1976 to bring Chillicothe its greatest fireworks display ever. 
Paul
Harris Fellows, Chillicothe Rotary Foundation, and PolioPlus
Chillicothe
Rotary had always supported the Rotary Foundation of Rotary International, which
is the largest organization of its kind in the world, but its members had not
provided strong individual financial support. In the early eighties we had only
three Paul Harris Fellows, honors that been conferred on them by the club. A Paul
Harris Fellow is a person who has, or on whose behalf has been, contributed $1,000
to the Rotary Foundation. A Rotarian who contributes $100 per year to the Foundation
is recognized as a Paul Harris Sustaining Member and becomes a Paul Harris Fellow
when the contributions total $1,000. A
strong appeal was made to the membership in 1982 to increase our support of the
Rotary Foundation, and the results were dramatic. Within about a year we had 33
sustaining members and two new Paul Harris Fellows! The contributions continued
to increase and by November, 1984, we had fifteen Paul Harris Fellows. In
1982 we decided to create a local Rotary Foundation in order to better provide
support to our community. Its first trustees were elected in March 1983, and a
Code of Regulations for the new foundation was adopted by the club a year later.
Funding came from Teller advertising, fines levied at meetings, club projects,
and individual support. By the summer of 1984 the Chillicothe Rotary Foundation
had more than $7,000. The goal was to reach about $20,000 and then begin making
limited contributions to worthwhile projects. The goal was reached and surpassed
within a few years. In 1988 the fund reached $30,000 and by 1991 it was $50,000.
Its trustees allocate about 10% of its total each year to community projects. The
Club tried new money-raising projects in the early eighties. We sponsored an annual
supermarket dash and operated a food booth each August at the Ross County Fair.
Volunteers to run the Fair booth were hard to get, and in 1986 it was partly sold
and partly donated to the Concerned Citizens for the Handicapped. A golf tournament
replaced it as a fundraising project, with the proceeds going to our local foundation. We
all provided financial support to HEMSA, an effort by our district and another
to provide medical supplies and safe drinking water facilities in Honduras. The
two districts raised $87,000 and purchased two trucks and a drilling rig which
were shipped to Honduras. A paid consultant supervised the drilling of the first
of the fresh water wells in 1985. We received a matching grant from the Rotary
Foundation of $308,000, which enabled us to drill a total of 200 wells. 
In
the late 1970's, Rotary International approached the World Health Organization
asked what RI could do to help control polio, which was killing 50,000 children
every year in the undeveloped countries around the world. In 1978 RI announced
the Health, Hunger and Humanity program, and the next year an inoculation program
was started by the Rotary Foundation in the Philippines. By 1982 the number of
polio cases there had been reduced by nearly 60% and RI adopted the goal of working
with WHO, UNICEF, and local health agencies to immunize all the world's children
against polio by the time of the 100th anniversary of Rotary International in
the year 2005. In
1986 the project was expanded and later the target date was advanced to the year
2000. In cooperation with the other agencies and organizations, Rotary would set
up medical teams throughout the world to inoculate children for polio, measles,
tetanus, whooping cough, diphtheria, and tuberculosis. More than $100,000,000
would be required for the project, to be known as PolioPlus. Contributions to
Rotary International for this project would count as payments for Paul Harris
Fellows.
We
learned more about the project, devoting one entire program to PolioPlus in November,
1987. At year end, PolioPlus pledge cards were passed out. Chillicothe Rotary's
goal was $25,000. The January 11, 1988, Teller reports "Astounding Success"
for PolioPlus: 80 pledge cards, $40,685! This would pay to inoculate 320,000 children.
The results were the same throughout Rotary. District 669 pledged $2,002,145;
our own total reached more than $44,000. "A spirit of delirious excitement"
pervaded the Rotary International convention in Philadelphia in May, 1988, when
it was announced RI had nearly doubled its $120 million goal by raising $219,350,449.
Women
in Rotary Another
major achievement for Rotary has been the opening up of membership to women. During
the sixties and seventies many Rotarians became increasingly restless with Rotary's
all-male status. In Chillicothe and elsewhere women were moving into key management
and professional positions but were not eligible for Rotary membership. The matter
began coming up regularly at RI's annual convention, but was always voted down,
with the heaviest opposition coming from representatives of clubs in other parts
of the world. In
1978, the Rotary Club of Duarte, California, unable to get RI's approval to admit
women members, admitted them anyway. The club's charter was suspended, but it
continued to meet and took the matter to court. Finally, in June, 1987, the United
States Supreme Court upheld a California Supreme Court decision that Rotary Clubs
in the United States cannot exclude women. Within a month Dr. Pat Carr, Chillicothe's
Superintendent of Schools, and Gas Company Manager Deb Burley were proposed for
membership in our club. Deb became our first woman member on August 10, 1987,
and Pat was inducted a week later. By the following June we led the district with
five women members. In 1989 Rotary International removed the world "male"
from the RI constitution and bylaws. In
the early eighties farsighted Chillicothe Rotarians were in the forefront in successful
efforts to convince the city to acquire the area north of Yoctangee Park now known
as the City Park Annex, giving sports-minded citizens a large number of new softball
diamonds and soccer fields. At the same time, when the Feast of the Flowering
Moon was organized, Rotary assumed responsibility for the Anything-That-Floats-But-a-Boat
Race, which has become a premier event at the Feast every spring.
In 1988 Chillicothe Rotary officially supported efforts to get the Pump House
Art Gallery off the ground. An auction garnered $13,000 for restoration work thanks
in a large measure to Rotary participation. Rotarians have continued to be involved
in this cultural addition to the Chillicothe area. Rotarians have initiated or
been the key figures in Chillicothe's downtown Streetscape project, acquisition
and restoration of the Majestic Theatre, and the 1991 Chillicothe High School
all-class reunion.
New Clubs and a New Home
During
our 1985-86 Rotary year we sponsored the establishment of a Rotary Club in Waverly.
Committee members found considerable enthusiasm in Pike County for a Rotary Club
of their own, and on June 26, 1986, Chillicothe Rotarians presided over Charter
Night for the new Waverly Club. Waverly became the seventh Rotary Club Chillicothe
had sponsored. In
1990 the Valley House closed so the building could be torn down to make room for
a larger commercial business. We moved temporarily to the Chillicothe Country
Club and a few weeks later voted to make it our permanent meeting place. We had
been meeting at the Valley House for 26 years. Sponsoring
a second Rotary Club in Chillicothe had been discussed for several years, and
on October 7, 1991, club members approved starting another Chillicothe Club. Five
months and a lot of hard work later we attended Charter Night for the First Capital
Breakfast Rotary Club, which meets every Thursday morning at the Pump House. In
1991 we sponsored the establishment of an Interact Club at Zane Trace High School.
Interact clubs are composed of high school age young people, "Junior Partners
in Service" of the sponsoring Rotary Clubs. The objective is to help them
develop a sense of civic responsibility and commitment to international understanding. Our
Interact committee and the Zane Trace administration, faculty, and students worked
long and hard to get the club organized. On December 9, 1991, the club's forty-some
members and school officials attended our meeting. Our District Governor and his
wife were on hand to greet them and we presented their president with a gavel.
Six weeks later the club's officers and advisor returned to receive their new
banner and certificate of organization. The new club was involved in projects
even before it was chartered. Service
Above Self In
1947 Rotary established the Rotary International Scholarship program. These scholarships
were designed to further international understanding and friendly relations among
nations as well as to provide deserving young men and women an opportunity to
broaden their education. In 1988 the Rotary Club of Chillicothe successfully sponsored
native Chillicothean Nikki Kaltenbach for this scholarship award. Nikki, a 1983
graduate of Chillicothe High School, attended Miami University and Ohio State
University, earning a Master's Degree in French. Awarded the Rotary graduate scholarship,
Nikki pursued her studies in French Medieval literature at the Center for Medieval
Studies in Poitiers, France, during the academic year 1988-1989. Continuing
the concern we have always had for crippled children, we manned the telephones
taking pledges for the 1989 Easter Seal telethon. This has now become an annual
event for Chillicothe Rotarians. Rotary also helps sell Root Beer floats each
June to benefit the Easter Seal Society. Our
club's involvement at a district level jumped in 1991. Jim Barrington headed the
World Community Service Committee of our District, now known as District 6690.
Four other Chillicothe Rotarians were appointed to district level committees last
year as well. We
provided $2,000 in financial support for one of Jim's committee's projects, Operation
Smile. A medical mission sponsored by our district went to Panama and repaired
facial deformities, especially in children. Rotary districts around the country
sent similar missions to other parts of the world. We
collected children's books which were sent to Montserrat in the Caribbean and
raised money selling pancakes on four different occasions during our 1991-92 year. In
late spring of 1992 we built a scorers' booth in the City Park Annex. Officials
can watch four different softball games from the booth's upper level observation
windows, refreshments are sold on the ground level. Looking
Ahead (Section Written in 1992) As
we in the Rotary Club of Chillicothe review our seventy-five years of fellowship
and service, we can look to the future with pride and enthusiasm. With about 127
members, we are the largest we have ever been. Including the First Capital Morning
Club, Rotarians are 160
strong in Chillicothe. We have 57 Paul Harris Fellows
and 19 Paul Harris Sustaining Members. Rotarians continue to be the prime movers
behind virtually every significant community effort. We
are organizing an Interact Club at Unioto High School. Meanwhile the Zane Trace
Interact Club has nearly doubled in size to more than 75 members and is tackling
new projects. Four
years after Rotary ceased being an all-male organization, our women members are
becoming key cogs in the Chillicothe Rotary wheel. They have been important forces
in the club's growing community service record and the high quality of our meetings.
With two women now on our board of Directors, five serving as committee chairmen,
and five as co-chairmen, the time has quickly arrived that we are all Rotarians
together and the club is richer for it. With
more than $50,000 in the Chillicothe Rotary Foundation's funds, we are supplementing
the Club's service projects and our individual community involvement with financial
grants to a wide variety of organizations and community needs. Our honor students
and High School Rotarians now come from schools throughout the city and county. We
are involved in a new project in District 6690 known as Gift of Life. Up to eight
children per year with life-threatening problems are flown to Children's Hospital
in Columbus from places such as Kenya and El Salvador. They receive needed surgery
and other treatment without charge and return to their homes. Here
in Ross County, Mound City Group National Monument has been renamed Hopewell Culture
National Historical Park, and will expand dramatically over the upcoming years.
Last year's District Governor described the Chillicothe Country Club as the finest
meeting place in the district, and we have won the Rotary-Kiwanis Golf Match for
three years in a row! As members of the Chillicothe Rotary Club, we can be proud
of our past, and the best is yet to come. | 
