History
The Parkville Rotary Club was formed March 26th, 1946 under sponsorship of Kansas City Club 13. Parkville Rotary currently has 43 members and meets Friday at noon in the Distance Learning Center in the Park University Commercial Underground. Our club has enjoyed a long-standing relationship with Park University. The University and Parkville Rotary have worked together through the years on various community projects. The University is also home to the Parkville Rotary Club and Rotary District 6040 Archives. In those archives, Parkville has over 1000 Rotary Club banners from Rotary clubs around the world.
Service projects undertaken by the Parkville Rotary Club early in its history included promoting and helping to organize the Parkville Volunteer Fire Department, the Parkville Community Center, and the Drug Rehabilitation Center.
The Parkville Rotary Club has maintained the landscaping of the traffic triangle in downtown Parkville at Highway 9 and First Street for many years. The club donated a clock to the City of Parkville and installed it in the triangle. Our club continues to care for the triangle with our members volunteering to pull weeds, put down mulch, and other various tasks to keep the triangle beautiful.
Helping people of all ages from children to senior citizens, Parkville Rotary Club has been serving the community since the club’s inception. Parkville Rotary Club has provided assistance to victims of floods, tornadoes, and hurricanes all over the United States and various parts of the world. Locally, the club has helped to stock food pantries, provide meals on wheels, and provide funding for Synergy Services and other community needs which includes helping fund local parks and playgrounds. Over the past five years our club has raised and donated over $120,000 to provide to those in need.
One of our more current projects includes helping Rotary International lead a worldwide project to completely eradicate polio – END POLIO NOW. We are so close to making this goal a reality with only a handful of cases worldwide!
Every year, several high school seniors are awarded scholarships provided by the Parkville Rotary Club. Also twice a year, our club puts together bags full of personal necessities, food, and water to individually hand out to indigent people we see around the Parkville and Kansas City metro area.
Every year four high school teenagers are sent to a youth leadership camp known as “RYLA” which is short for Rotary Youth Leadership Academy. Also, this past year Parkville Rotary nominated an elementary school teacher from the Park Hill School District as an extraordinary teacher and she went on to win the District 6040 Literacy Teacher of the Year Award.
The newest and very successful local fundraising project is our club’s Flag Project. Club members place an American flag at homes and businesses four times a year; Memorial Day, Fourth of July, Labor Day and Veterans Day. The money collected from this project goes to our 501c3 not-for-profit charity fund and 100% of the funds are used to better Parkville, our nation, and the world.
On the lighter side, Parkville Club members participated in a number of Rotary fellowship type programs. Two of those programs include GSE (Group Study Exchange) and RFE (Rotary Friendship Exchange).
GSE is where a Rotarian team leader takes four non-Rotarians to another Rotary district in a foreign country for four to five weeks. There they live with local Rotarians and study their economy, businesses, and local entertainment. That district then reciprocates and sends a similar team to our District, 6040. Countries we have had GSE team members visit include: Argentina, Paraguay, Thailand, Philippines, France, Japan, Brazil, Turkey, Australia, and Holland.
RFE is where a group of Rotarians and their spouses visit a Rotary District in a foreign country and live with local Rotarians and learn their social and business lives. The other Rotary District reciprocates by sending a group back to our District, 6040. Countries that have been visited in this program, by our club members are England, Turkey, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, Philippines, and Canada.
Over the years, as Rotary has grown and expanded into new countries, our district’s designation number has changed to reflect this worldwide growth. Below is a list of the different district designations that Parkville has been a part of:
District 134 - 1946-50
District 194 - 1951-57
District 603 - 1958-91
District 6030 - 1992-99
District 6040 - 2000-present
District 194 - 1951-57
District 603 - 1958-91
District 6030 - 1992-99
District 6040 - 2000-present
Over the years the Parkville Club has had a number of members go on to be Rotary District Governors. Below is a list of those members:
Russell Jones, 1972-1973
Colin Campbell, 1981-1982
John Schott, 1984-1985
Robert Caplinger, 1986-1987
Paul Bosch, 1992-1993
David Napoli, 1996-1997
Homer Williams, 2000-2001
Colin Campbell, 1981-1982
John Schott, 1984-1985
Robert Caplinger, 1986-1987
Paul Bosch, 1992-1993
David Napoli, 1996-1997
Homer Williams, 2000-2001
The Parkville Rotary Club proud to say it participated in the chartering of several new Rotary clubs:
Gladstone Rotary Club - 1976
Kansas City International Airport Rotary Club - 1977
Smithville Rotary Club - 1985
South Platte Rotary Club - 1990
Platte City Rotary Club - 2002
Kansas City International Airport Rotary Club - 1977
Smithville Rotary Club - 1985
South Platte Rotary Club - 1990
Platte City Rotary Club - 2002
As you can see the Parkville Rotary Club has a rich history and will continue to support Parkville, our country, and the world for many years to come. If you have an interest in helping us better the world please message us through the “Contact Us” button on this website at the top of the page. Thank you for taking the time to learn about the Parkville Rotary Club and we look forward to hearing from you!
“WHATEVER ROTARY MAY MEAN TO US, TO THE WORLD IT WILL BE KNOWN BY THE RESULTS IT ACHIEVES.” —PAUL P. HARRIS
Our 1.2 million-member organization started with the vision of one man—Paul P. Harris. The Chicago attorney formed one of the world’s first service organizations, the Rotary Club of Chicago, on 23 February 1905 as a place where professionals with diverse backgrounds could exchange ideas and form meaningful, lifelong friendships. Rotary’s name came from the group’s early practice of rotating meetings among the offices of each member.
OUR ONGOING COMMITMENT
Rotarians have not only been present for major events in history—we’ve been a part of them. From the beginning, three key traits have remained strong throughout Rotary:
We’re truly international. Only 16 years after being founded, Rotary had clubs on six continents. Today we’re working together from around the globe both digitally and in-person to solve some of our world’s most challenging problems.
We persevere in tough times. During WWII, Rotary clubs in Germany, Austria, Italy, Spain, and Japan were forced to disband. Despite the risks, many continued to meet informally and following the war’s end, Rotary members joined together to rebuild their clubs and their countries.
Our commitment to service is ongoing. We began our fight against polio in 1979 with a project to immunize 6 million children in the Philippines. By 2012, only three countries remain polio-endemic—down from 125 in 1988.
NOTABLE ROTARIANS
Rotarians are your neighbors, your community leaders and some of the world’s greatest history-makers:
- Warren G. Harding, U.S. president
- Jean Sibelius, Finnish composer
- Dr. Charles H. Mayo, co-founder of Mayo Clinic
- Guglielmo Marconi, Italian inventor of the wireless radio and Nobel laureate
- Thomas Mann, German novelist and Nobel laureate
- Friedrich Bergius, German chemist and Nobel laureate
- Admiral Richard E. Byrd, American explorer
- Jan Masaryk, foreign minister of Czechoslovakia
- H.E. Soleiman Frangieh, president of Lebanon
- Dianne Feinstein, U.S. senator
- Manny Pacquaio, Filipino world-champion boxer and congressman
- Richard Lugar, U.S. senator
- Frank Borman, American astronaut
- Edgar A. Guest, American poet and journalist
- Sir Harry Lauder, Scottish entertainer
- Franz Lehar, Austrian composer
- Lennart Nilsson, Swedish photographer
- James Cash Penney, founder of JC Penney Co.
- Carlos Romulo, UN General Assembly president
- Sigmund Sternberg, English businessman and philanthropist
Ready to make history with us? Get involved.