Chartered May l, 1920 with James T. Milliken as its first president, the Traverse City Rotary Club quickly became active in the events and organizations that would later shape the Grand Traverse Bay region.

 

Rotarians established the Chamber of Commerce in 1921 and its first five presidents were all Rotarians. That same year, Traverse City Rotarians assisted in organizing clubs in Boyne City, Frankfort and Manistee.

 

In 1925, local businessman and Rotarian, Clarence Greilick, was instrumental in acquiring 450 acres of East Bay Township property, Grand Traverse County, that would later become known as the Boy Scout Camp and ultimately----Camp Greilick.

 

Located on Little Bass Lake, between Spider and Rennie lakes, Greilick, a lifelong camper and Boy Scout advocate, reckoned that the tract would make an ideal community camping site. He was assisted by William Hobbs, a friend, scout booster, Rotarian and Chamber of Commerce secretary.

 

Over the next few years, the Rotary Club approved purchase of additional camp acreage. In 1928, title to the property was transferred to the Community Camp Association, a group organized for camping purposes and whose objective was “to promote recreation; to provide and maintain camps for boys and girls; and to encourage and foster reforestation and conservation of natural resources.”

 

Ironically those themes were to prove incredibly farsighted. And today they remain vital to the roles, responsibilities and relationships of the club and its Rotary Charities and Rotary Camps & Services affiliates.

 

Over the ensuing years, a close relationship between the activities of the independent Community Camp Association and a Rotary Camping Committee was fostered.

 

In 1942, the club’s annual Rotary Show was birthed.

 

Like many of the service club shows of that era, it started as a take-off on popular vaudeville minstrel shows and was done in black face.

 

Tales abound of the antics at those early shows held at the downtown State Theatre. Many of them feature piano player Jack Freethy, Harold Johnson, Doug Linder, and a cast of hundreds. Club lore and legend has it that accompanist Freethy never used any music and sometimes played in different keys---just to keep the chorus on their toes.

 

The shows quickly became a community entertainment highlight, and were a welcome palliative during the depressing war years.

 

Ever mindful of promoting Rotary, the club assisted in the formation of regional clubs in Suttons Bay in 1946, and Elk Rapids, 1950.

 

In 1955 title of the campsite acreage was transferred to Rotary Camps, Inc., whose board was comprised of members of the Traverse City Rotary Club’s board of directors.

 

Also at that time, a committee was appointed to find a new home (campsite) for Girl Scouts. Rotarians Dr. Frank Power and Dr. John Hayes accepted that assignment, and in August of 1955 leases were signed between Rotary Camps, Inc. and the Scenic Trails Council of the Boy Scouts of America (East Bay Township property, Camp Greilick); and Girl Scouts of the Crooked Tree Council (Bass Lake property, Green Lake Township, Camp Sakakawea).

 

Rotary Camps & Services was birthed in 1955, successor to the former Rotary Camps, Inc. organization, and charged with managing the club’s Boy and Girl Scout camp properties, supporting young people and recreation, and the mix of land and natural resources vital to each.

 

In 1960, black face was eliminated at the annual Rotary Show. And in 1967 a portent of the future was hinted when the club signed oil and gas leases with Consumers Power Co. for the Camp Greilick Boy Scout Camp property.

 

With a lapse of seven years and no development by Consumers, in 1974 a new oil and gas lease was signed with A.G. Hill of Texas. Terms of the lease would result in an unprecedented 40% royalty to Rotary once all production costs were recovered. Traverse City attorney and Rotarian Al Arnold negotiated the deal.

 

In July of 1976, while the country is marking its bicentennial, paydirt in the form of free flowing “Texas Tea”(OIL!!!) is discovered at Camp Greilick.

 

This discovery and the foresight of key club members resulted in the formation of Rotary Charities, a public foundation incorporated in 1977, and governed by an autonomous board independent of the Rotary Club. The next year it qualified as a federal income tax exempt charitable organization, and in 1982 began to distribute interest income generated from the oil and gas royalties, to organizations in a five county region (Antrim, Benzie, Grand Traverse, Kalkaska and Leelanau) of Northwest Michigan.

 

(NOTE: The membership of the Rotary Club of Traverse City and the corporate membership of Rotary Camps & Services and Rotary Charities, is common to the three entities.)

 

For years a popular skit in the Rotary Show, “Willy and Wally” take their act in 1977 to the nation’s capital’s “Saints & Sinners Club,” where Bill Kildee and Wally Campbell are enthusiastically received.

 

The ensuing years found plenty of Rotary Charities grant making for good causes, and the emergence of common threads of leverage and impact. Charities quickly earned the reputation of being a catalyst for improving the quality of life in the region. Grant categories emerged and included affordable housing, education, environment, culture and recreation, strengthening families, community capacity building and health.

 

In the late 80s and early 90s, Charities and Camps & Services formed a Rotary Center Board to acquire and renovate the Park Place Hotel. It reopened in 1991 and to this day is a catalyst for downtown Traverse City development.

 

Over the years, Rotary Camps & Services has been instrumental in incubating such regional organizations as HomeStretch (affordable housing initiative); TART (Traverse Area Recreation and Transportation Trails, Inc.), Grand Traverse Regional Land Conservancy and the Traverse Bay Affordable Housing Land Fund.

 

In the early 2000’s, Camps & Services placed permanent conservation easements on East Creek Reserve, Camp Greilick and Camp Sakakawea.

 

 

THE ANNUAL ROTARY SHOW, a Traverse City springtime tradition, is the club’s largest fund raiser. In 2003 Rotary Charities marked its 25th anniversary and a history of 532 grants given to 218 organizations for a total of $30,844,412. As of the summer of 2005, that figure had grown to more than $34 million.

 

In June of 2005, Rotary Camps & Services celebrated its 50th anniversary. It remains in the land business, administering 1,737 acres in Grand Traverse County. It also leverages land so that working families might have access to affordable housing, while continuing to support Camps Greilick and Sakakawea and other regional camping opportunities; increasing public access to recreation, trails and parks; and protecting and improving the Boardman River and Valley.

 

Amidst all these activities, Rotarians continue to raise money for their community and the international service organization’s mission of world service. These annual fund raisers and service activities include:

1920/1922 -- James T. Milliken (*)

1922/1923 -- Arthur Rowley (*)

1923/1924 -- Clarence Greilick (*)

1924/1925 -- Guy M. Johnson (*)

1925/1926 -- Glenn W. Power (*)

1926/1927 -- Charles Poor (*)

1927/1928 -- Fred H. Pratt (*)

1928/1929 -- Bert H. Comstock (*)

1929/1930 -- Hugh J. Johnston (*)

1930/1931 -- Harry L. Weaver (*)

1931/1932 -- Arthur P. Eva (*)

1932/1933 -- William J. Hobbs (*)

1933/1934 -- Gordon C. Pharo (*)

1934/1935 -- Lars Hockstad (*)

1935/1936 -- Austin Batdorff (*)

1936/1937 -- Ben L. Taylor (*)

1937/1938 -- Donald Roxburgh (*)

1938/1939 -- Frank Sleder (*)

1939/1940 -- Robert B. Murchie (*)

1940/1941 -- Gerhard Harsch (*)

1941/1942 -- Kenneth W. Tinker (*)

1942/1943 -- Harold E. Johnson (*)

1943/1944 -- Douglas E. Linder (*)

1944/1945 -- Willis Heidbreder (*)

1945/1946 -- Arthur S. Huey (*)

1946/1947 -- George Olmstead (*)

1947/1948 -- G. Karl Fisher (*)

1948/1949 -- Harold Jordon (*)

1949/1950 -- John Minnema (*)

1950/1951 -- William Martinek (*)

1951/1952 -- Frank Power (*)

1953/1954 -- Erich J. Sleder (*)

1954/1955 - John P. Freethy (*)

1955/1956 -- Harford Field (*)

1956/1957 -- Mark Osterlin (*)

1957/1958 -- Paul Garthe (*)

1958/1959 -- Hal Votey (*)

1959/1960 -- Bob D. Hilty (*)

1960/1961 -- Ben I. Taylor (*)

1961/1962 -- James J. Beckett (*)

1962/1963 -- A. Kent Schafer (*)

1963/1964 -- John W. Rennie (*)

1964/1965 -- Jerry McCarthy (*)

1965/1966 -- Bruce Needham (*)

1966/1967 -- Jackson Bensley (*)

1967/1968 -- John R. Anderson (*)

1968/1969 -- Curt Alward (*)

1969/1970 -- Winton Klotzbach

1970/1971 -- Frank L. Stulen

1971/1972 -- Austin Van Stratt (*)

1972/1973 -- Kenneth Lindsey (*)

1973/1974 -- Davie E. Pearce

1974/1975 -- Kenneth Taylor (*)

1975/1976 -- Preston N. Tanis (*)

1976/1977 -- William F. Kildee

1977/1978 -- Joseph Groszek (*)

1978/1979 -- William McCort (*)

1979/1980 -- Joseph J. Muha

1980/1981 -- Robert W. Dopke

1981/1982 -- John C. Bay

1982/1983 -- Roger E. Jacobi

1983/1984 -- Don Good

1984/1985 -- Maurie Dennis

1985/1986 -- Kenneth Musson

1986/1987 -- Peter M. Strom

1987/1988 -- Jim VanEenenaam

1988/1989 -- George McManus Jr.

1989/1990 -- Leo J. Hughes

1990/1991 -- Gary L. Columbus

1991/1992 -- John C. Burns

1992/1993 -- Donald C. Fraser

1993/1994 -- Jack Stegenga

1994/1995 -- Paul Mocere

1995/1996 -- Daniel A. Jonkoff

1996/1997 -- K. Ross Childs

1998/1999 -- Ralph Sofferdine

1999/2000 -- Tom Gartland

2000/2001 -- William R. Shoskey

2001/2002 -- Robert Portenga

2002/2003 -- Wes Nelson

2003/2004 -- Paul LaPorte

2004/2005 -- Marilyn Fitzgerald

2005/2006 -- Edward Downing

2006/2007 -- Ron Sondee

2007/2008 -- Bryan Crough

(*) Deceased

 

District 6290 (From Holland, Michigan to Wawa, Ontario, Canada)

 

1953/1954 -- Arthur S. Huey (*)

1969/1970 -- R. Graham Keevil (*)

1979/1980 -- John R. Broadfoot (*) -- District 631

1982/1983 -- Frank L. Stulen

1987/1988 -- Franklin G. Sisson

2002/2003 -- K. Ross Childs

 

 

1920/1921 -- Leon F. Titus (*)

1921/1923 -- Demas Coclin (*)

1923/1925 -- Charles Sherwood (*)

1925/1926 -- William E. Votruba (*)

1926/1932 -- Sprague Pratt (*)

1932/1947 -- Clair B. Curtis (*)

1947/1948 -- Harold E. Johnson (*)

1948/1949 -- Hugh J. Johnston (*)

1949/1950 -- William F. Martinek (*)

1950/1955 -- Karl Fisher (*)

1955/1977 -- R. Graham Keevil, PDG (*)

1977/1981 -- Vincent E. Fochtman (^)

1981/1991 -- James H. Sargent (*)

1991/1992 -- William H. McCort (*)

 

(*) Deceased (^) No longer member