Rotary Club Turned Duo Into Doers
Call it Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventures in Rotary.
OK, this duo of doctors fails miserably as airheads, but retired physicians Bill Wood and Ted Fox are entertaining nonetheless.
Their adventures with the Coeur d’Alene Rotary Club span 56 years and include as many laughs as accomplishments. Since Bill and Ted joined Rotary in 1941, the club has helped add to the Coeur d’Alene area a camp, gardens, tennis courts, a band shell and a cultural center.
It’s brought in dozens of foreign exchange students and adults and poured tens of thousands of dollars into scholarships.
“Service before self,” Ted recites, and it’s obvious that this line is more to him than simply the Rotary creed.
Bill and Ted are in their 80s but were young doctors in 1941 when Rotary attracted them with its socialize-with-the-professional-community agenda.
Not just anyone could join this club. Rotary wanted leaders, visionaries, doers. It wanted men who weren’t afraid of the nurturing role, because their job was to mother the community.
Bill’s father had set the example. He joined Coeur d’Alene’s Rotary a year after it began in 1922, took his son to meetings and helped the club build Memorial Field. Bill was ready to serve.
“I wanted everyone to remember me as the fun president,” he says and laughs a little. Under his reign in 1954-55, Rotarians swung picks and shovels for a solid year to carve out Camp Neewahlu for the Camp Fire program.
“Instead, they remembered you as the slave driver,” Ted teases. But Ted’s presidency in 1963 was just as productive. During his term, Rotarians beautified the east end of the city with gardens.
More than momentum kept Bill and Ted in Rotary for 56 years. They admire the club’s goal to eradicate polio worldwide as much as they enjoy the weekly luncheons where jokes and dollar donations flow freely.
And the admission of women eight years ago just made a good group better, they say.
“There are so many good people in the club who want to help others,” says Ted, who’s produced Rotary’s weekly newsletter for 10 years. “Our time in Rotary has been time well spent.”
Paint party
Why should kids have all the fun? Coeur d’Alene’s Lakes Middle School is offering parents and teachers the chance to smear on the paint or pummel the clay for its upcoming art show.
Remember, these works will be exhibited in a middle school cafeteria, so submit something appropriate. Organizer Julie Brown says she’ll take paintings, sculptures, poems and stories. The work should be framed or matted and into the school office by March 20.
Do you think teachers will analyze the parents’ work for insight into the student body?
Hairy keepsake
Cataldo’s Ruth Hussa read about all these Panhandle families connected, however obliquely, to famous people and found a family treasure of her own few can match.
Ruth’s mother, who was born in 1879, cut off some of her own hair while it was still a rich, dark brown. She tightly wrapped the hair around several beads, attached the beads to a crocheted fleur-de-lis and created a unique brooch that Ruth still wears. The hair stayed dark and soft despite its age.
For Bob
The Coeur d’Alene Marimba Band planned a benefit dance for former marimba player Bob Twohawks months ago. But cancer claimed Bob quicker than anyone imagined it could. The dance is still on in Bob’s memory at 8:30 p.m., March 22, at Sorensen Elementary. Tickets are $7 at the door and the money will help cover his medical bills. Go dance for Bob.
Who’s the best music teacher in your town? Sing his or her praises to Cynthia Taggart, “Close to Home,” 608 Northwest Blvd., Suite 200, Coeur d’Alene, ID 83814; fax to 765-7149; call 765-7128; or e-mail to cynthiat@spokesman.com.
, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color photo