Photo by Monique Schoenfeld, Town Crier
Billy Russell, left, a member of the Rotary Club of Los Altos since 1950, stands in the Community Plaza in downtown Los Altos with the club's newest, and returning member, Steve Shepherd. The club raised more than $220,000 in 1993 for the construction of the plaza, which includes inscribed brick blocks and a Rotary tree in the center.
Town Crier Staff Writer
Los Altos service club documents six decades of service in new book
Another year, another president. And another takeoff on one of those Dean Martin celebrity roasts. Mel Kahn, outgoing president of the Rotary Club of Los Altos, endured a parade of bad "short" jokes and silly skits.
"I would have to say he was head and shoulders above what was expected," said one Rotarian in assessing their president for 1998-99. Boisterous laughter ensued.
The lengthy tribute, lasting all of last week's Los Altos Rotary Club meeting, ended when Kahn tried to say a few words, only to have his audience walk out in mock abandonment.
OK, so this cast of characters is not likely to play Vegas anytime soon. What they have been doing, quite effectively, is contributing to the community - and in big ways. Whether it's the fine arts (Rotary's annual Art in the Park event), youth involvement (Partners For New Generations), AIDS awareness (the Rotary AIDS Project) or capital improvements (fund raising for the construction of the downtown Community Plaza), members have made a beneficial impact that is indisputable.
This year marks the 50th anniversary of this Los Altos service club. To commemorate the occasion, Rotarians have documented their activities in a new book. Titled "50 Years of Service - The Rotary Club of Los Altos," the book went to press last week. The group is printing 250 copies, available for sale by the end of July.
At 123 members strong, the Rotary Club of Los Altos is by far the largest service club in town. While other clubs have declined in membership or have died out altogether, membership in Rotary has remained strong.
With its motto "service above self," the Los Altos Rotary took hold in February 1949 as an offshoot of the Mountain View Rotary Club. According to the book, the new club boasted 26 members, including 24 from the "Mountain View-Los Altos Rotary Club." Key figures from this era included Guy Shoup, the founding president, who was instrumental with his brother, Paul, in putting Los Altos on the map. Gene Tarbell, one of the charter members, still attends meetings on occasion and attended a 50th anniversary party held in March.
Billy Russell joined the Los Altos club in 1950, just one year after its formation. He is still with the club.
"One significant difference (between then and now), at the time I joined, Rotary clubs were pretty much on their own," he said. "They weren't very structured. We sort of did things our own way."
The early days of the club saw involvement in the formation of the local Babe Ruth Little League and sponsorship of the long-standing Los Altos Boy Scout Troop 37.
"I served on the Girl Scouts council a few years," Russell said.
Rotarians also got involved in building the swimming pool at Covington School in the early 1950s. Russell said the manager of the Kaiser-Permanente facility, a Rotarian at the time, donated the concrete for the pool.
By 1958-59, the club had raised $3,256, considered a lot of money at the time. Contrast that with the Rotary raising more than $75,000 this year from its annual art show alone.
Fines were, and are, a big part of Rotary meetings, and unsuspecting members can be hit for virtually any reason - one of the most obvious, for getting their names in the paper.
Typical fines ranged from 25 cents to $2 in the old days. Now, $5 fines are getting off cheap.
The club's book notes "several milestones" during the volatile 1960s, including a $750 contribution to memorialize a room at the newly-opened El Camino Hospital. Russell said several Rotarians played prominent roles in the building of the hospital.
The club also contributed in a big way to something called Books for the Blind, in which members raised money to buy tapes and tape recorders and volunteered time to record books for distribution to blind kids.
Members also donated a tree planted at the corner of State and Main streets in the center of town. "The Rotary Tree" became a subject of controversy in 1993 when city crews felled the tree to make way for construction of a new Community Plaza, which Rotarians raised more than $220,000 to help build. A new "Rotary Tree" is central to the plaza today.
Former Rotary president Dick Henning, who started the Celebrity Speakers forum as a dean at Foothill College, was known for his lively and entertaining meetings at the dawn of the 1970s. New, younger members joined the club, "adding vitality," according to the book.
The club sponsored a Foster Parents Plan for kids overseas and Henning started the first Paul Harris Scholarships, named for the club's founder.
Joe Renati, named "outstanding new member of the year" for 1971-72, went on to become a club president himself, in 1975-76. Renati started two Interact Clubs at Mountain View and Los Altos high schools and presided over the first Rotary Fine Art Show at Lincoln Park. The art show turned out to be Rotary's biggest annual fund-raising event.
In 1980, Los Altos Rotary founded the first Rotaract Club in the district. The club provides a forum for civic-minded youth ages 18-30.
The 1980s were a time of big change for Rotary clubs nationwide. A 1987 U.S. Supreme Court ruling forced the club to enroll women members. The businessman fraternity that was the Rotary now had to be a little more politically correct during the lunchtime bantering.
"Rotary would have declined without women in it," Russell said. "Women made the club much stronger."
Of the 123 members in this year's club, 28 are women, about 23 percent.
The Los Altos club undertook a major effort in 1986 to raise money for an ambitious PolioPlus campaign to eliminate the disease worldwide by 2005. Los Altos' District 5170 asked the club to raise $65,000, several times above any previous fund-raising goal.
The club not only took the challenge, but set, and met, its own goal of $85,000.
The year 1989 was one of the most heart-wrenching times facing Los Altos Rotarians. The disease of the '80s, AIDS, had hit close to home, afflicting Steve Angius, son of beloved Rotarian and legendary Los Altos High principal-coach, Dude Angius.
After Dude asked for help, the club formed a task force that eventually led to the Rotary AIDS Project. The centerpiece of the project was a 30-minute documentary, "The Los Altos Story," which chronicled the suffering and loss victims and members were experiencing. One of the film's most poignant scenes was member Walter Singer announcing to stunned Rotarians that he, too, had contracted the disease through a blood transfusion. Singer, dubbed "Mr. Los Altos" as a friendly ambassador to the downtown business community, died of AIDS in 1992.
The award-winning film was made in six different languages and more than 20,000 copies are now in circulation to promote AIDS awareness.
A bronze bust of Singer, created by Rotarian Ingrid Jackson-MacDonald, sits in the Community Plaza as a tribute to his memory.
In addition to "The Los Altos Story," Rotarians distinguished themselves in the '90s with a long list of projects.
The Young at Art competition, started in 1992 by member George Perham, offers students in five area high schools a chance to show work in prominent settings, including the annual Rotary art show, now titled "Fine Art in the Park."
The most notable community service project undertaken by Los Altos Rotarians was fund raising for construction of the Community Plaza in 1993, led by member Walter Scholey. The effort was hard-fought, coming amid the controversy over the repaving of Main Street and debate over the plans for the plaza. The Rotary raised funds by selling inscribed bricks that residents could buy to commemorate a loved one.
Former Los Altos Mayor Marge Bruno became the first woman president in Los Altos Rotary in 1995 and initiated the Partners in Education program for tutoring in the schools.
The following year, president Bob Adams expanded the program into "Partners For New Generations." The project joins adult volunteers with students across a variety of programs involving several youth services agencies such as the Community Health Awareness Council and the YMCA.
Local Rotarians also have helped outside the immediate community. In 1997, the club began helping the East Palo Alto Teen Home, which houses girls ages 13-18. The court system places girls in the home for a fresh start.
Russell typified the motivated spirit of many in the club, living the "service above self" motto: "I come from a long line of people ... we refer to the family community genes."