GALENA ROTARY CLUB HISTORY
By Gordie Kilgore & Dwight Bischel

The founding year for the Galena Rotary Club was 1984. It started with a small advertisement in the Galena Gazette Newspaper. Randy Miles, formerly of Galena, was President of the Savanna, Illinois, Rotary Club. He felt there should be a Galena Rotary Club. The ad that Miles placed, simply asked that anyone interested in forming a new service club should meet with him. That meeting resulted in the founding of one of the most dynamic organizations in Jo Daviess County.
On Saturday night, July 14, 1984, in a special ceremony at the Eagle Ridge Inn in the Galena Territory, the President of Rotary International, Carlos Canseco, personally presented the club with its charter. In his address to the 24 charter Galena Rotarians, RI president Canseco challenge them to “discover a new world of service.” Also participating in the ceremonies were District 642 Governor Roscoe Haas, Past District Governor Mahmood Butt, and officers of the two sponsoring clubs, Savannah Rotary and Freeport Rotary., as well as Governor’s Aide Randy Miles. (District 642 later became 6420) Charter members of Galena Rotary were Joseph F. Beegle, John Bloor, George Bookless, Arman Delorenz, Joseph Drapeau, Bucky Ellis, David W. Flynn, Richard Hillard, Michael Hillard. Scott Lawlor, William F. Megan, William F. Merkle, F. Peter Merkle, Terry J. Miller, Kenneth Mulholland, Donald G. Olsen, John Osmanski, Kenneth L. Parrott, Terry Phillips, John G. Piquette, David H. Thiltgen, Monsenior Raymond J. Wahl, Richard H. Weis, and Roger D. Yardley. The club has grown from that original 24 to 86 members. Lawlor, Osmanski and Parrott (who was the charter Secretary) still maintain membership in Galena Rotary.
The club's first meeting place was the Log Cabin Restaurant on Main street in a building that had once been a bank.. That relationship lasted for three years until the club outgrew the space in the vault.. The club then moved to the newly renovated, historic DeSoto House Hotel. where two U.S. Presidents, Abraham Lincoln and U.S. Grant, had slept. While Pat McCarthy was president of Galena Rotary (1988-89), he got a rush call that Internal Revenue Officers were padlocking the DeSoto House for non-payment of federal taxes. He was threatened with arrest when he barged past the federal officers to rescue the Galena Rotary flags and records, but he went ahead and the officers backed down. The club then moved into the Lawlor Winery Building for a period. McCarthy said that before his term was over the DeSoto House cleared its financial problems and Galena Rotary moved back in. It is the meeting place for the club to this day. Don Olson led the Galena Rotary through its founding year, but all involved say it was the late Dennis Hirstein, the third club president, who put the Galena Club on a professional basis. Those who have served as President of the club are Don Olson (84-85), Terry Phillips (85-86), Dennis Hirstein (86-87), Thomas Morris (87-88), Patrick McCarthy (88-89), Roger Accola (89-90), Marc McCoy (90-91), Carolyn Gustafson (91-92), Philip Jackman (92-93), Kenneth Parrott (93-94), Bucky Ellis (94-95), Paul Kindig (95-96), Connie Shireman (96-97), Daniel Mitchell (97-98), Gordon Kilgore (98-99), Donald Gereau (99-00), Dale Freres (00-01), Dwight Bischel (01-02), Matt Taylor, (02-03),Romer Wilsek (03-04) and P. Carter Newton (04-05). Jack Morehead served as District 6420 Governor (01-02).
Bucky Ellis, a founding member of Galena Rotary, says he remembers only one major controversy. That came when Rotary International mandated the inclusion of women in Rotary Clubs. Ellis says he and another member, Bert Tower, actively campaigned against the proposal, but looking back, the inclusion was a good thing. Women have been a great benefit to Rotary.
Pat McCarthy was president when the club initiated two of its most important programs---the Rotary Roundtable and the Youth Scholarship program. The club's first major fund-raiser, to support those programs, was selling hot dogs at the U.S. Grant Boy Scout Pilgrimage and encampment held annually in Galena. Each year 7,000 to 8,000 Boy Scouts come to Galena for the weekend. Galena Rotarians felt that was a captive market for hot dog vendors. They sold lots of hot dogs, but when it was all over the profits amounted to just over $200.00. The club quickly turned to other activities to raise money for club programs.
Since 1987 the club has provided 350 $1000.00 and $1500.00 scholarships to the county's brightest high school seniors. It has amassed a charitable foundation of $300,000 to assure continuation of our scholarships. The ROTARY ROARS FOR YOUTH AUCTION, its vehicle to obtain the funds, has become the area wide charity and social event of the year every May. The Club’s annual February fund-raising event is it’s dinner time Variety Show held in the ballroom of the Eagle Ridge Inn & Resort.
The Galena Rotary Club has encouraged sophomore students in our county to do better through its STUDENT OF THE QUARTER AND STUDENT OF THE YEAR program. The award goes to those students who struggled in their first year of school, and have shown great improvement.
The club is striving to improve STUDENT LITERACY through its special audio equipment and cassette programs for high schools. It has initiated a reading and writing improvement program for high school youth utilizing the Wall Street Journal’s Monthly Student Feature Newspaper package. The program also improves their knowledge and understanding of the “outside” world as it affects them. And for the last three years the club has provided personalized copies of the Merriam Webster Pocket Dictionary to every third grade student in Jo Daviess County in an effort motivate the students to improve in written and oral language skills and develop information acquisition skills. The newest project underway is to provide government studies classes in middle and high school with personalize copies of the Declaration of Independence and Constitution of the the United States.
Realizing that physical health is also an important part of youth development, the club sponsors an AYSO youth soccer team.
The club sends promising students to its District's RYLA program which is aimed at developing qualities of leadership and good citizenship in young people.
It annually sends students to the WORLD AFFAIRS SEMINAR at Whitewater, Wisconsin. It has provided CAREER NIGHT speakers to help students focus on their career choices.
The club’s TEACHERS OF THE YEAR program recognizes the county's outstanding teachers whose students feel they were instrumental in helping further their education.
The club’s contributions, plus a Rotary International grant to Jo Daviess County Health Department provides needed vaccinations to our county youth. Internationally, it contributes to Rotary's efforts to stamp out Polio.
Through the Rotary International STUDENT EXCHANGE PROGRAM it has not only provided the county’s high school youth with opportunities to study overseas, but it welcomes foreign students to Galena to learn more about Midwest America. Plus, it yearly hosts an Exchange Student Ski weekend for all of the District’s exchange students at the Chestnut Mountain Ski Resort on the Mississippi River. Through Rotary International's $25,000. AMBASSADORIAL SCHOLARSHIP PROGRAM it has sent Jo Daviess college students to study at Universities overseas. In cooperation with Highland Community College it supports the LEADERSHIP INSTITUTE, a special adult program to train and develop community leaders in Jo Daviess County.
The Club’s annual COMMUNITY ROUNDTABLE, which started as a business roundtable has expanded to cover many areas of county and community concerns. In fact the first annual Rotary Roundtable in 1988 has been credited as the driving force that initiated the County zoning movement, which lead to the current County zoning ordinance. Considered by all to the one of the most effective public forums in the county to obtain results for the public good, the Rotary Roundtable broke new ground in 2002 with an interactive program called “Healthy Communities, Healthy Youth, featuring both adults and high school youth actively discussing the results of a special youth survey. The environmental health concerns of the county was featured in 2003, and the 2004 Roundtable focused on the future of farming in Jo Daviess. And this January’s Roundtable zero’d in on the state and future of education in our countyand the importance of our support.
Its DAY IN THE COUNTRY program for senior-citizens has become very successful, providing over 200 of the county’s elderly with a chance to get out and enjoy a meal and entertaining program in the heart of the Galena Territory. To help support the efforts of the Jo Daviess Workshop for the physically and mentally challenged the club is a sponsor of one of its fund-raising activities. The Galena/Jo Daviess Historical Museum is also a recipient of this activity.
Another service project developed in 2002 is the JO DAVIESS SENIOR RESOURCE WEBSITE, a central resource center for senior residents of Jo Daviess County and their families. The mission is to bring together the many valuable resources of he area into one place, so that residents and potential residents will have easy access for learning, sharing and discovering what our county has to offer our seniors. Easy to access and use, our goal is to make this the first choice for senior services information in both times of leisure and crisis.
It was under the leadership of then President, the late Paul Kindig, that Galena Rotary was the prime mover in rebuilding the APPLE RIVER FORT, at Elizabeth, Illinois. The Fort is now an official Historic Site under the care of the State of Illinois and is directed by one of the club’s new Rotary members. The Galena Grand Excursion 2004 culminated on June 28th, 2004, with a “Grand Celebration” of the completion of a recreational and historical amenity that will be enjoyed by both residents and visitors for years to come. “The Pathway on the Levee” legacy project led and participated by Galena Rotarians in a two year, $205,000. effort for the community represents a splendid accomplishment of Rotary International’s Centennial goal that each club complete a permanent visible community project. The historical pathway display markers all include the Rotary emblem.
As a part of the club’s international service, a Centennial“Twin Club Project” was initiated in 2004, teaming up with the Rotary Club of Combarbala, Chile. The Chilean club was striving to build public rest rooms in their town’s square and needed help in financing the project. Under Bob Werhle’s leadership a financial plan was developed. The Chilean club would create Combarbalite figurines and we would sell them. Along with grants from the Twin Club Project Foundation, the District and Rotary International Foundation the project has been a great success. Hands across the Equator. Contributions to the Rotary International Foundation through the club’s Paul Harris Fellows and Paul Harris sustaining members are among the best in the district. Thirty-five current members are Paul Harris Fellows as well as 14 spouses and relatives. In addition, nine of its past members became Paul Harris Fellows. The club’s sustaining members total 20. What makes The Galena Rotary Club so successful? It is an active blend of new entrepreneurs and executives, CEOs and “mature” members both men and women who have fun and enjoy fellowship, all with one purpose, that being to improve the quality of life in our communities, our county, country and in the world.
The Galena Rotary Club