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The official BluesFest website |
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James B. Crouch,
a schoolbook salesman for Scott, Foresman & Co., was a
fun-loving charter member who won a waltzing contest at our
first District Conference in Fargo, North Dakota, in April
1921. Our first president, Fred Strong, presented him with
a bouquet of paper roses. Jim took his Rotary membership seriously,
however. The next year he was our first representative to
a Rotary International Convention, held in Los Angeles. He
became our second president in 1923, and was elected District
Governor at the 1926 District Conference in La Crosse. In
1944, 'J.B.' was elected to the very first Board of Directors
of the Waukesha State Bank. I remember him as a dignified
but friendly gentleman.
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James
B. Crouch
Our First District Governor
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Our
club has enjoyed its singing beginning with Tiny Ferris as song leader
and featuring Curt Callow, Russ Oakes, Ole Lockman, and C.C 'Doc'
Edmonson as a renowned quartet. Other noted song leaders through the
years have included Tony Olinger, George Pace, Russ Schuetze, and
Frank Hedgcock. |
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The
Avalon Hotel
Our Second Meeting Place, 1928-1968
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In the summer of
1928 our club moved from the old YMCA Building to the newly-built
Avalon Hotel where we held our Monday noon meeting for the
next forty years. The 75¢ price per meal dropped to 35¢
during the Great Depression, but bounced back to 80¢
by the end of World War II. We were paying $2 when the hotel
closed in 1968. Today, after sixty years of inflation, the
meal price has climbed to $9, an increase of nearly 2,500%
from 1932.
My father, Carl
Taylor, had wanted to join Rotary when he founded the Waukesha
State Bank in 1944, but his
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application
was blackballed. Rotary allows only one member from each occupation,
and the 'Banking' classification was already filled. Nevertheless,
we believed my father was rejected because he had come from Milwaukee
and started his bank in competition with the venerable Waukesha National
Bank. Stung by the rejection, Dad joined the Waukesha Kiwanis Club. |
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Fortunately,
our bank's vice president, John Davies Jr., came from an old-time
Waukesha family. He was admitted as a Rotarian in 1952 and he soon
pulled me in, too. Remembering my father's snub, in 1973 I sponsored
my competitor, Tom Loew, president of the Marine Bank when it opened
in Waukesha. |
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| Waukesha's
many mineral springs were already history when our Rotary Club
was chartered in 1921, and the city was well into the age of
business and industry. Our Rotary club was created by businessmen.
Waukesha County, however, had a nationwide reputation for dairy
farming. Cattle outnumbered people here in 'Cow Country USA'
until mid-century, but among our charter members only one, |
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Got
Milk?
Rotarian John Davies Jr. (right) Toasts Farmers in 1963
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William
L. Baird, a nationally recognized cattle breeder, represented agriculture. |
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