Ken Remembers ...

When I joined Kiwanis in 1982, we had a song leader, Ken Jewel ( he previously had a famous choral group in Detroit, who really got a lot of good songs at every meeting. He used to stop us and say: "your sing like a bunch of old ladies" (that was before women were in the club). It is my opinion that letting women join the club is one of the best decisions that Kiwanis International has made. The hit the deck running and have participated at all levels of activity.

The Radio Auction was fun and a good fund raiser. At the first auction that I worked on, Paul Niles brought in 76 items and I wondered how anyone could get that many. Well, I found out that you just had to make the calls. On the actual auction day,club members had two hour time periods to answer the six phones located in the WLDR radio studio (Kiwanian, Don Wiitala, owned the station) or other activities such as calling the high bidders at the end of the day.. I enjoyed it so much that I worked the whole day.

During the winter months, the club sponsored a travel show, which covered many parts of the world. It was held in Lars Hoxsted Auditorium. The speakers had good pictures of a particular area and the events had good attendance.

For a long while, club members would provide transportation for seniors living in a number of apartments and condos. That transportation may have been dropped because of the liability for the drivers. Towards the end, the event became more of a community service than a fund raiser.

from Ken Wyckoff, via email
1 December 2-14