Centerville Noon Optimist Club Celebrates 50 Years of Serving Local Kids

All Photos from the Event are Here

Nostalgic Slide Show Pics are Here

50th Anniversary Celebration

Our club was started in 1968, so for Tuesday, June 19, 2018, there was no lunch meeting. Instead we had a wonderful evening of feast and fellowship at Canopy Creek Farm. This was a great night to celebrate all we have accomplished in being a Friend of Youth for 50 YEARS!

The social committee is chaired by Beth Duncan with members Diane Arehart, Vida McDowell and Jerry Stahley. This team and their crew of assistants put on an amazing party. We started with appetizers then we had food catered by City Barbecue and Nashville Hot Chicken. There was a special anniversary cake for dessert. The committee went above and beyond in the amount of work they had to do for us to have an amazing time. The committed worked before and after the party. The before effort is why it looked so amazing inside the building. It was like a fancy wedding reception yet on a reasonable budget!

President Chris McAlpine started the party/meeting leading us in the pledge and of course before we ate, Phather Phil gave us one of his inspirational prayers.

There was an excellent slide show of pictures running continuously during the evening. It was briefly stopped to show the award-winning video Greg Griffin, Debe Dockins, and Julie Noeth put together a couple of years ago about the club. The stars of the video are the club members. Thank you to Greg Griffin for his great efforts in arranging and setting up the video and PA systems. This was not simple since the venue had nothing in place.

The emcee for the evening was Joe Madden. Joe was wisecracking all the while helping us hear stories and learn about the history of our club. All of the previous presidents present shared stories from their time as president and the interesting things that occurred during their term.

To work off some the delicious food, Joe helped us get some exercise by having everyone stand up and then sit down based on how long you have been a member and then again based on how old you were.

Tom Novak chair of Avenue of Flags, announced we have broken the 2000 subscription barrier and are now at 2025. Tom expects the count to go even higher before the Independence Day deliveries.

There was also an opportunity to browse through the scrapbooks of previous presidents.

Music for the evening was expertly provided by Tom Greenlee.

We will be back to our normal schedule next Tuesday, 6/26/2018 at noon for lunch at Yankee Trace

Happy Birthday Kathy McAlpine

Our President Chris McAlpine had a special surprise for his mother. He called her up to the podium and announced how lucky it was that her birthday is June 20, the day after our party. This qualified her birthday to be close enough to get the Happy Birthday song treatment. Don Kelley directed us in singing Happy Birthday. I have to say this has to be in the top 10 most messed up performances of Happy Birthday in human history. This is now the 3rd straight week we have subjected ourselves and a seemingly innocent bystander to an audibly awful yet nicely intended rendition of Happy Birthday. If there is a fourth week in a row, this reporter will be wearing ear plugs!

Statistics to be proud of during the CNO 50th Anniversary

  • On March 19, 1968 we chartered with 42 members.
  • On October 1, 2017 we began the 2017-18 Optimist Year with 234 members.
  • Membership currently is at 259 members.
  • We have added a net of 25 new members this year!
  • Cumulative donations for previous 6 years was over $500,000.00.
  • For year ending 9/30/2018 donations will be over $140,000.00.

 

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