For 50 years, he’s been there for his Rotary Club

LAKE STEVENS — For a half century, nothing has kept Loren Hole from his Rotary Club meetings.

Cross-country road trips, a yacht race to Hawaii — even a heart attack earlier this year. Hole never let any of that get in the way. If he couldn’t show up at his home club, he’d make it up somewhere else, on a different day or in a different town.

“I just decided that I was going to try to give 100 percent attendance every year,” said the unassuming 91-year-old, who is quick with a laugh. “The years just added up.”

The Rotary Club of Lake Stevens recognized Hole for the milestone last month. The Snohomish County Council and the City of Lake Stevens also honored his accomplishment.

Hole has been with Lake Stevens club for 25 years and before that 25 years with Everett Rotary.

At roughly 50 weekly meetings per year — each club can opt out of two annually — that’s more than 2,500 and counting.

“Very humble. Very community-minded,” said Gary O’Rielly, a friend and fellow Rotarian.

On a sunny afternoon at his home, Hole recounted his story. Trim and eager to talk, he wore a peach-colored cardigan over a polo shirt as he sat in a tidy office arrayed with Rotary plaques and ham radios.

Hole graduated from Spokane’s Lewis and Clark High School in 1943, then served as a radioman with the U.S. Coast Guard during World War II. The G.I. Bill helped him to study at Kinman Business University and at Gonzaga University.

He worked most of his career at Moore Business Forms. After stints in eastern Washington and Idaho, the company transferred him to Seattle in 1965. He moved to Everett as a district sales manager, just as the Boeing Co. was expanding its footprint in town.

He joined Everett Rotary in 1967 at the suggestion of his boss. Managers, he quipped, sometimes had “a certain way of suggesting things.”

Hole had long admired Rotarians and their charitable work.

The group’s motto is “Service above self.” The first club was founded in Chicago in 1905 to give civic-minded professionals a chance to meet and give back to their community. The name came from the practice of rotating meetings among members’ offices. Today, there are more than 35,000 clubs around the globe.

Membership is by invitation only. Meetings usually occur over breakfast or lunch, with guest speakers. The 34 Rotarians in Lake Stevens get together on Fridays for breakfast.

When Hole started, attendance was serious business.

“They don’t put as much emphasis now on attendance as they used to, so it’s become pretty lax,” he said.

A week before or a week after a missed meeting, he would make it up elsewhere, often in Bellingham, Lake City or Kenmore.

When traveling, he sought out meetings in Alaska, Arizona, Key West and New England. He has visited clubs in Canada and one in Venezuela.

“As a Rotarian, regardless of where you travel, you’re always welcome at another club,” Hole said.

His most famous meeting exploit may have come in 1978, while racing a yacht from Victoria, B.C., to Maui. He and the three friends on board were all Rotarians.

“We were probably 1,500 miles to sea,” he said. “I called a Rotary meeting with our four members.”

Back home, he persuaded the club that it should count.

In 2006, he and fellow Lake Stevens Rotarian John Morrison set out in a Triumph TR4A to trace the remnants of Route 66. They drove the two-seat British sports car to Chicago, then headed west to Santa Monica, California.

“We made up Rotary meetings along the way,” he said.

The trip raised more than $1,000 for charity.

In 2007, Hole started his club’s permanent community service endowment. He contributes $1,000 each year on his birthday. With the help of others, the fund now stands around $40,000.

Terri Spencer, who co-founded Lake Stevens Rotary, called Hole “a very positive man.”

“He’s always been very, very active,” she said.

Rotary hasn’t been the only constant in Hole’s life.

He was an avid golfer until last year. He serves as the treasurer for the Lake Stevens Senior Center and remains a trustee for the Snohomish County Hams Club, a group of amateur radio enthusiasts.

He and his wife, Lorna, are preparing to celebrate their 68th wedding anniversary in August.

“She was there to help me every step of the way,” he said.

“And I’ve almost got him trained,” joked Lorna, who is an honorary Rotarian.

Another standby is his 5 o’clock gin and tonic — just one. That’s been a ritual, he said, “maybe not quite 50 years, but almost that long.”

Noah Haglund: 425-339-3465; nhaglund@heraldnet.com. Twitter: @NWhaglund.