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Brief History Of Rotary Club Of Walnut Creek:
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Walnut
Creek gained a new community friend in 1937 when, on April 7, the Rotary Club of Walnut
Creek was chartered. It was the brainchild of O.P. (Opie) Erdahl (who became charter
president) Bill Gean and Dwight Porter. But the Club was not easily born. Walnut Creek was
little more than a village "out in the country," with a population of not much
more than 6,000, and portions of Main Street still unpaved.
The first challenge was to find a sponsoring club; after no small amount of searching, the needed support was finally elicited from the Rotary Club in Contra Costa's most populous and prosperous community, Richmond. After nine months of weekly meetings and many informal confabs in the local coffee shop, a Rotary district representative made his way out to "The Creek" and gave the group official sanction to begin formation of a club. Another four months of organizational meetings followed, leading to that April day when 22 local men, each in a different field of endeavor, became the charter members of the Rotary Club of Walnut Creek. In the early years, the nearest Rotary clubs were in Oakland, Berkeley and Pittsburg. Men from Orinda, Lafayette, Concord, Danville and points in between turned to Walnut Creek for Rotary membership. The next nearest club was formed in Martinez in 1944, with many more clubs to come in ensuing years, until today, more than a dozen Rotary Clubs with combined membership well in excess of 1,000 are in the area that was originally under the umbrella of the Rotary Club of Walnut Creek. Women joined the ranks of Rotary in 1989, and Walnut Creek Rotary's first female member was Claudine Fletcher, a motivational speaker. Worldwide, Walnut Creek was the 4191st club in the Rotary movement. Since that time, more that 25,000 clubs have been formed and now are thriving in more than 150 countries worldwide. |
