At 5,000th meeting, Everett Rotary Club reflects on record of service

It’s an Everett summer attraction, one that keeps thousands of kids cool and entertained. The Forest Park water playground is also an example of generosity. It’s a gift, one of many in our community, from the Rotary Club of Everett.

Kids playing in the spray likely have no idea they’re at the Rotary Centennial Water Playground. Opened in 2007, it was paid for with $100,000 donated by Everett Rotary members. The project was planned as a tribute to Rotary International’s 100th anniversary in 2005.

The water playground and other achievements spanning decades were highlighted Tuesday at the Everett Rotary’s 5,000th meeting. The group holds a lunch meeting every Tuesday in the Commons at Naval Station Everett.

Thirty-year member Larry O’Donnell, a past president of the group, narrated a photo presentation of Everett Rotary’s history.

A service organization, Rotary was founded in 1905 by attorney Paul Harris in Chicago. Seattle started its club in 1909. And on Dec. 8, 1916, according to a history of the club written by O’Donnell in 1996, 25 prominent Everett men got together to form an Everett Rotary club.

They met in Weiser’s Cafe, on the northwest corner of Hewitt and Wetmore avenues. By the end of that gathering, the group had adopted resolutions creating the Rotary Club of Everett. As Rotary Club No. 272, the group got its official charter on March 1, 1917.

Tuesday’s program was as much an Everett history lesson as it was an insider’s look at the club. O’Donnell’s 1996 booklet, “Celebrating Eighty Years of Service: A History of Everett Rotary Club,” includes a list of charter members — a local who’s who. Many names that evoked power and influence in 1916 are still familiar today.

Among notables from Everett Rotary’s first year were Roland Hartley, then vice president of the Clough-Hartley Mill Company, who became governor from 1925 to 1933; William Howarth, president of the Everett Pulp &Paper Company; Samuel Bargreen, proprietor of the Imperial Tea Company; and James Best, president and manager of The Everett Daily Herald.

“They were the establishment,” O’Donnell said Tuesday. More than two-thirds of those first members owned businesses within a two-block area of the downtown cafe where they met.

It was likely no coincidence that Everett’s Rotary Club was born in 1916, shortly after the labor strife that erupted in a shooting battle on the Everett waterfront on Nov. 5, 1916. Now known as the Everett Massacre, the violence left at least five people dead, including members of the Industrial Workers of the World known as “Wobblies.” Shingle workers in Everett mills had been on strike that year.

“Conflict between labor and management was ever-present,” O’Donnell said Tuesday. “Everett was in a fight with itself.”

In O’Donnell’s history, Hartley was described as a “rock-ribbed capitalist and staunch opponent of anything smacking of socialism.”

The Everett Rotary’s first president was Clayton Williams, whose son Parker Williams held that title in 1966, the local Rotary’s 50th anniversary. Both men were attorneys. Howarth — an Everett waterfront park now bears his name — delivered the program speech at the first regular meeting, on the subject “The Golden Rule as Applied to Business.”

Later years saw many more esteemed members, including Monrad Wallgren, who was governor from 1945 to 1949 and also represented the state in Congress and as a U.S. senator; construction company founder Howard Wright; artist Bernie Webber; and Mark Nesse, former director of the Everett Public Library.

The water playground is a recent contribution, but Rotary’s work in building Everett goes way back. The Everett Armory, now owned by Mars Hill Church, was built in 1921 after the club lobbied the Legislature to fund it. The former Deaconess Children’s Home on Highland Avenue was built after Rotary sponsored a fundraising campaign in 1927.

In the 1930s, the Everett Public Library was built with money largely donated by Leonard Howarth, William Howarth’s brother.

Military service played a role, with many local Rotary members serving in World War I and World War II. The club founded the Twelfth Company Coast Artillery Corps, part of the Washington National Guard, during World War I.

Everett’s Rotary was an all-male club until 1987, when Barbara McCarthy of Frontier Bank became a member. “I felt very honored to break the way for women, but there were a lot of members who didn’t like it,” McCarthy said recently. Today, there are nearly 160 members and many of them are women.

Today, more than parks and buildings, the Everett Rotary makes a big difference in young lives. In 2012, the club’s scholarships for graduating high school seniors totaled $161,500.

“We take our purpose seriously, but not ourselves so seriously,” O’Donnell said.

Julie Muhlstein: 425-339-3460, muhlstein@heraldnet.com.

Talk to us

> Give us your news tips.

> Send us a letter to the editor.

> More Herald contact information.

More in Local News

A firefighter stands in silence before a panel bearing the names of L. John Regelbrugge and Kris Regelbrugge during the ten-year remembrance of the Oso landslide on Friday, March 22, 2024, at the Oso Landslide Memorial in Oso, Washington. (Ryan Berry / The Herald)
‘Flood of emotions’ as Oso Landslide Memorial opens on 10th anniversary

Friends, family and first responders held a moment of silence at 10:37 a.m. at the new 2-acre memorial off Highway 530.

Julie Petersen poses for a photo with images of her sister Christina Jefferds and Jefferds’ grand daughter Sanoah Violet Huestis next to a memorial for Sanoah at her home on March 20, 2024 in Arlington, Washington. Peterson wears her sister’s favorite color and one of her bangles. (Annie Barker / The Herald)
‘It just all came down’: An oral history of the Oso mudslide

Ten years later, The Daily Herald spoke with dozens of people — first responders, family, survivors — touched by the deadliest slide in U.S. history.

Victims of the Oso mudslide on March 22, 2014. (Courtesy photos)
Remembering the 43 lives lost in the Oso mudslide

The slide wiped out a neighborhood along Highway 530 in 2014. “Even though you feel like you’re alone in your grief, you’re really not.”

Director Lucia Schmit, right, and Deputy Director Dara Salmon inside the Snohomish County Department of Emergency Management on Friday, March 8, 2024, in Everett, Washington. (Ryan Berry / The Herald)
How Oso slide changed local emergency response ‘on virtually every level’

“In a decade, we have just really, really advanced,” through hard-earned lessons applied to the pandemic, floods and opioids.

Ron and Gail Thompson at their home on Monday, March 4, 2024 in Oso, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
In shadow of scarred Oso hillside, mudslide’s wounds still feel fresh

Locals reflected on living with grief and finding meaning in the wake of a catastrophe “nothing like you can ever imagine” in 2014.

The view of Mountain Loop Mine out the window of a second floor classroom at Fairmount Elementary on Wednesday, Jan. 10, 2024 in Everett, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
County: Everett mining yard violated order halting work next to school

At least 10 reports accused OMA Construction of violating a stop-work order next to Fairmount Elementary. A judge will hear the case.

Imagine Children's Museum's incoming CEO, Elizabeth "Elee" Wood. (Photo provided by Imagine Children's Museum)
Imagine Children’s Museum in Everett will welcome new CEO in June

Nancy Johnson, who has led Imagine Children’s Museum in Everett for 25 years, will retire in June.

Kelli Littlejohn, who was 11 when her older sister Melissa Lee was murdered, speaks to a group of investigators and deputies to thank them for bringing closure to her family after over 30 years on Thursday, March 28, 2024, at Snohomish County Superior Court in Everett, Washington. (Ryan Berry / The Herald)
‘She can rest in peace’: Jury convicts Bothell man in 1993 killing

Even after police arrested Alan Dean in 2020, it was unclear if he would stand trial. He was convicted Thursday in the murder of Melissa Lee, 15.

Ariel Garcia, 4, was last seen Wednesday morning in an apartment in the 4800 block of Vesper Dr. (Photo provided by Everett Police)
Everett police searching for missing child, 4

Ariel Garcia was last seen Wednesday at an apartment in the 4800 block of Vesper Drive. The child was missing under “suspicious circumstances.”

The rezoned property, seen here from the Hillside Vista luxury development, is surrounded on two sides by modern neighborhoods Monday, March 25, 2024, in Lake Stevens, Washington. (Ryan Berry / The Herald)
Despite petition, Lake Stevens OKs rezone for new 96-home development

The change faced resistance from some residents, who worried about the effects of more density in the neighborhood.

Rep. Suzan DelBene, left, introduces Xichitl Torres Small, center, Undersecretary for Rural Development with the U.S. Department of Agriculture during a talk at Thomas Family Farms on Monday, April 3, 2023, in Snohomish, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
Under new federal program, Washingtonians can file taxes for free

At a press conference Wednesday, U.S. Rep. Suzan DelBene called the Direct File program safe, easy and secure.

Former Snohomish County sheriff’s deputy Jeremie Zeller appears in court for sentencing on multiple counts of misdemeanor theft Wednesday, March 27, 2024, at Snohomish County Superior Court in Everett, Washington. (Ryan Berry / The Herald)
Ex-sheriff’s deputy sentenced to 1 week of jail time for hardware theft

Jeremie Zeller, 47, stole merchandise from Home Depot in south Everett, where he worked overtime as a security guard.

Support local journalism

If you value local news, make a gift now to support the trusted journalism you get in The Daily Herald. Donations processed in this system are not tax deductible.