Clockwise, from top, are the McCook "Kiwanis Kuties" of 1952, officers of 1948, a Kiwanis minstrel show of 1951, and "Kutie" Ray Search in 1950. (Courtesy photos) [Click to enlarge]

McCook loses an institution this month and I feel regret, as if I'm saying goodbye to yet another old friend. One of the oldest of the service organizations of McCook is the McCook Kiwanis Club. Kiwanis came to McCook in the 1920s, and immediately became a very important organization, known for the civic projects it sponsored, but equally for the fun the members had at their meetings. Now we have learned that the McCook Kiwanis Club will be holding its last regular meeting on Thursday, 3/27/08. After that date the Kiwanis Club will cease to exist in McCook.

When we came to McCook in 1957, Wade Stevens, a local attorney at the time, was kind enough to invite me to be his guest at his Service Club, the Kiwanis, which at the time met at the Keystone Hotel, and we ate the good food prepared by Ruby Butler.

In those days, the Kiwanis Club and the Rotary Club enjoyed a good bit of friendly banter, about the superior qualities of their respective clubs. At the same time, each club supported the civic projects of the other and often joined together in promoting a certain project that was deemed too big for either club to handle alone.

In 1957, the Kiwanis Club (male only) had an impressive roster of members. Some of the fellows had been a part of McCook's history almost from the beginning. Harry Culbertson had been an orphan, making his way alone as a newspaper boy in downtown Chicago. When a socially minded matron discovered his plight she arranged for him to be sent to an adoptive family near Culbertson, Neb., (strictly against his will).

Harry became a railroader and wrote extensively about the early history of "Father Burlington." He was also a baseball nut. He played on various town teams as a youth, and managed those teams when he got too old to play. He also used his railroad connections to arrange numerous trips to Chicago whenever the Cubs were playing.

He was a fine story-teller and regaled Kiwanians at dinner meetings on a variety of subjects.

George Burney and Frank Hoyt were two more old timers with a wealth of stories about the "good old days in McCook." Frank stayed active in the ag scene well into his senior years and told of accompanying a load of his wheat, on a barge, from Omaha to the Port of New Orleans, and watched it loaded onto a ship headed for Japan.

At that time, there were still several veterans of World War I who were Kiwanians. One of the more interesting meetings occurred, quite spontaneously, when Lafe Cook, a barber, began to dance a sort of jig and sang Doughboy songs from France, (some quite bawdy), from memory, to the great delight of the Club.

Two Kiwanis projects I remember very well involved work at the "new" lake north of McCook. One, on "Kiwanis Point," involved the construction of a roofed picnic shelter, overlooking the swimming area. (The Nebraska Game and Parks Commission has since replaced the original shelter with much grander facilities.) The second project was the planting of several hundred evergreen trees on the north side of the lake, west of the dam. The latter project took place on a Sunday in August, 10 days after our son, Matt, was born. This was his first outing, and the beginning of his lifetime love affair with the lake.

One of my favorite, more recent Kiwanis projects was the placing of sturdy benches in Norris Park, with plaques commemorating some member of the club.

The McCook Kiwanis Club had more than its share of jokers -- probably led by "The Mad Bomber" (alias Ray Search). Quite often, club meetings were punctuated by one of Ray's remote controlled bombs (a very loud fire cracker) exploded under some member's chair at a time when the poor fellow least expected it. Judge Wendell Cheney, was very proper, but not immune to Ray's bombs. Frannie Weiland, who was known to nod off during the programs, always reacted superlatively to the bombs, even when they occurred on the far side of the room from him. Distinguished guests, such as the visiting District Governor, were not automatically safe from the Mad Bomber.

Kiwanis had two main money-raising projects, though from time to time too many lesser money making projects left members grumbling. In the fall, for the first weekend of pheasant hunting, the Kiwanians had a giant pancake feed. In the first years these were held downtown at various locations, before taking up a permanent home at the McCook Junior High Cafeteria. The other was a musical revue, held at the Fox Theater, featuring the Kiwanis Kuties (members in drag). (Sometimes they presented a black-faced Minstrel Show.) Both these events were a lot of fun and were well attended by the community.

Another annual event was a softball game between the Kiwanis Club and the Rotary Club (sometimes played on donkeys), which gave the members of both clubs a chance to vent a little steam (and lose a few pounds), while proving highly entertaining to the public.

Fred Hanson, an attorney, was a McCook historian of merit, and regularly offered bits of original poetry for the education (and mirth) of the club. Doane Trail was one fellow who really listened to every program and could be counted on to quiz the speaker on the speaker's subject -- and very often add pertinent bits of trivia to the subject.

Asa (Ace) Wolfe, long-time County School Superintendent, was Mr. Kiwanis of McCook, and was the fellow to whom we turned for an interpretation of the rules. He was a serious fellow, who did not take part in the hijinx of some of the members, but he was popular and highly respected. When Ace ran for District Governor, Bill Lyons, an attorney, assumed the post of campaign manager, and showered delegates to the convention with promo pieces on Ace. By the time the convention opened everyone felt they already knew the great Ace from McCook, and he won by a landslide.

Bill Lyons was a very interesting fellow and a good Kiwanian. He was always the top ticket seller for the pancake days. In the weeks before the event he collared everyone he met to buy a ticket, and he did it in such an easy manner that people felt that they were being honored by being asked.

Bill gave the most interesting convention report that I ever heard. Usually, by the time the report gets back to the local club, it has become a very dry, boring program. Not Bill's. He made it a point to repeat all of the jokes from the convention, then interspersed the high points of the actual addresses. The result was that Bill had the local club almost weak from laughter, and everyone felt he had a good grasp of what had transpired at the convention.

One Kiwanis program I did not like at all. They had a program they called "Man Miles." A Club got points (number of men times miles traveled) for traveling to out-of-town Kiwanis meetings. That competition was quite spirited. Once, a car-load of McCook Kiwanians (average age near 80) traveled to Broken Bow for a meeting in February. They had car trouble and six very senior citizens were stranded for a couple of hours in the cold till some good Samaritan came along and got them going again. We were lucky that someone did not come down with pneumonia after that outing.

Though we are sad to see the Kiwanis Club disappear from McCook, we thank the members of that club, past and present, for the fine work they have done for our town and for the proud and noble presence they have projected over the last 80 years.