EVENING OPTIMISTS UPHOLD SERVICE TRADITIONS

With appropriate fanfare Thursday night, the Cape Girardeau Evening Optimist Club celebrated its 75th anniversary. There were good memories and good speeches, all of which attempted to capture the essence of what makes civic organizations like the Optimists so important to a thriving community.

Since being chartered in 1926, the Evening Optimists have labored to support Cape Girardeau in so many beneficial ways. Evidence of the club's commitment to our younger generations has maintained the spirit of the Optimist label: Friends of Youth.

Over the years, the club provided funding and equipment for playgrounds in our city's parks. The annual Youth in Government Day provides an opportunity for high school students to experience government operations firsthand.

Other Optimist programs, some shared with other Optimist clubs that have started since 1926 under the guiding wing of the Evening Optimists, include oratorical and essay contests, bicycle safety programs, a variety of youth sports programs.

Last year, the club started its newest project, the Tour de Cape Bicycle Ride. More than 200 cyclists have registered for this year's event to be held in October.

To raise money for all of its worthwhile causes, the Evening Optimists have sold Christmas trees since the 1950s and have operated a refreshment stand at the SEMO District Fair since the 1970s. Soon the Evening Optimists will have another fund raiser: Bingo every Friday night at the new Bingo World facility being completed on Clark Street.

Almost every other Optimist club in this part of Southeast Missouri owes its founding, in some part, to the Evening Optimists who have spread the objectives of Optimists International by organizing more and more clubs. The newest addition to the Optimist family is the newly chartered Fruitland Optimist Club.

Finally, no organization can be any stronger than its members, and the Evening Optimist Club has been blessed over the years with individuals who thought enough of the Optimist ideals to labor beyond the confines of the local club on behalf of those ideals. The club has produced five district governors. One of them, Charles Wiles, also served as international vice president and then international president. Another, Henry Adams, currently is on the organization's international committee.

Congratulations to all the members, past and present, of the Evening Optimist Club on three-quarters of a century of service to this community. You have been good ambassadors for Optimist International.