CAPE MAN TRAVELS EXTENSIVELY AS LEADER OF INTERNATIONAL CLUB

Charles Wiles is an eternal optimist. Fittingly, he's also president of Optimist International.

The civic organization has about 160,000 members and 4,400 clubs -- most of them in the United States, Canada and the Caribbean.

The international headquarters is in St. Louis. Wiles -- a marketing professor at Southeast Missouri State University -- handles Optimist business from a basement walkout office in his home, situated on a 30-acre, hilly, wooded tract just north of Cape Girardeau.

An avid hunter, the living room of Wiles' home is decorated with everything from a deer's head to a stuffed wild turkey, suspended in flight through the art of taxidermy.

Downstairs, in what he calls his Optimist International office, Wiles, 48, presides over civic-club business via telephone and FAX machine. "The FAX machine just runs all day," he said.

The wall behind his desk is covered with Optimist plaques and awards. "I've got a whole drawer full of these things. I ran out of room," said Wiles, who has been an Optimist Club member 20 years.

Since beginning his one-year term as Optimist International president Oct. 1, Wiles has become a weekend traveler. His expenses are paid for, but he receives no salary.

He's booked solid for the next year, with trips almost every weekend to places like Cody, Wyo., El Paso, Texas, and Augusta, Ga.

"I am on the road for New Year's," said Wiles, who -- along with other international leaders of civic clubs -- will be attending the Rose Bowl game in Pasadena, Calif.

Wiles, who has held a number of Optimist leadership posts since being president of the Cape Girardeau Evening Optimist Club in 1978-79, has traveled frequently on Optimist business.

"I am very definitely a frequent flier on several major airlines," he said. His wife Judy generally travels with him.

"We meet wonderful people," he said. "We are given a royal treatment."

But it's not always easy, even for one with an optimistic temperament.

In his first major trip last weekend as international president, Wiles and his wife had to endure a seven-hour stopover at the Denver airport because of a snowstorm near Billings, Mont.

They finally arrived in Billings Friday night and embarked for Wyoming in a four-wheel drive vehicle. But the weather was so bad, they stopped at a motel for the night.

They drove the next morning through snow and ice, arriving at Cody at 11 a.m.

But the meeting with fellow Optimists proved worth the trip, Wiles said.

Wiles, who grew up in Jonesboro, Ark., said his marketing background has been a big help in his civic-club efforts. "It's been easy for me to talk about marketing and promoting optimism."

Over the years, he has recruited about 70 new members to area Optimist clubs. "I've also been involved in building 25 new Optimist clubs," he said. His efforts have helped establish clubs from Marble Hill to Dexter.

Recruiting is a constant endeavor, said Wiles, for any civic club, not just the Optimists.

"The average life of a civic club member is five years," said Wiles, noting that attrition from members dying, dropping out or moving away amounts to about 20 percent a year.

That makes recruiting new members all the more important, he said.

Wiles estimated there are about 300 Optimists spread out among six clubs in the Cape Girardeau and Jackson area. "It's the hotbed of Optimism in Southeast Missouri, that's for sure," said Wiles.

He said his number one goal as international president is to promote continued growth of Optimist clubs in North America. His second goal is continued expansion of Optimist clubs internationally, particularly in Europe.

He said the organization is also looking at expanding into the Far East, such as Japan and Taiwan.

In Europe, Optimist clubs already exist in Germany, France and Hungary, he said.

"We just started a club in Venezuela and we have one in Beirut, Lebanon," he noted.

Optimist International has a staff of about 60 at its headquarters in St. Louis, in addition to staff members at its service centers in Canada and Germany.

The organization has an annual budget of $7 million. In addition, its two foundations raise about $800,000 annually.

Optimist clubs raised about $43 million last year, which went for some 70,000 local projects, primarily serving youth. Five million youth were served by Optimist programs last year.

Wiles is particularly proud of that fact. "Every one of those clubs has served hundreds, perhaps thousands of kids," he said.

Nationally, Optimist Club was founded 75 years ago in Louisville, Ky. The first Optimist Club in Cape Girardeau dates back to 1926.

The goal was to develop optimism as a philosophy of life, said Wiles. Out of that grew the goal of helping youth, and the first Optimist motto: "Friend of the Delinquent Boy."

Today, the civic group's motto is "Friend of Youth" and Optimist clubs sponsor numerous programs for youth, everything from bicycle safety to drug awareness, and tackle football to oratorical contests.

Wiles said that as president he wants to put a renewed emphasis on promoting optimism as a way of life.

"I'm not naive," he said. "I don't want people to think that means I have a Pollyanna attitude where everything will be OK. It won't be OK unless you work at it.

"But I also know that people who expect the worst get the worst, and people who expect the best get the best," said Wiles.