Looking up the story on the Tower Club

After an online reader going by the name "Budman" asked me to "find out what the Tower club is, who its members are, and what the goals of the organization are," I went looking for answers. Some readers have posted comments on the Southeast Missourian's website suggesting the club runs this town.

I've been hearing similar comments since a few weeks after moving here. But, as I wrote a week ago, the club is not that mysterious.

The basics: The Tower Club is a private group of 30 men that meets from noon to 2 p.m. each Friday for lunch on the 11th floor of the Hirsch Tower. Club dues help pay rent for the fairly mundane-looking room, which has a counter and kitchen sink on one wall and a tiny restroom. An old television sits in a corner. The view from the windows is amazing.

Oscar Hirsch, the man who started KFVS, founded the Tower Club in 1968 -- the same year he built the 12-story Hirsch Tower on Broadway. The club's existence is no secret, and was mentioned in obituaries for Hirsch and the late Richard Swaim, former president of the First National Bank of Cape Girardeau.

I've quizzed a number of Tower Club members, including former Cape Girardeau County commissioner Joe Gambill, invited to join in 1971, and John Mehner, Cape Girardeau Area Chamber of Commerce president.

Mehner said the perception that the club is "a controlling elitist sort of group" is wrong. The independent Tower Club has no legislative power; in the most recent election, Tower Club members supported opposing political candidates.

"It's a 40-year-old club of a bunch of guys who decided on their own to have lunch once a week," he said.

When I learned no women are allowed, I asked Gambill if the Tower Club was like the Little Rascals' "He-Man Woman Haters Club." He fairly hooted with laughter and cited the Zonta Club's "women only" rule, though he noted Zonta is a service club and the Tower Club is a social group. He and other club members compare it to coffee klatches and others that meet regularly at Sands Pancake House, Hardee's or Brenda's Restaurant.

Mehner also attends the Friday evening cocktails at the Royal N'Orleans Restaurant with men who call themselves the POETS, an acronym for -- well, this is a family newspaper, but the last two letters stand for "tomorrow's Saturday." Lawyer Al Lowes hosts what he calls a Basement Club meeting in his office on Fridays.

Many Tower Club members are influential members of the community -- among them are Harry Rediger, chairman of Southeast Missouri State University's foundation board; Cape Girardeau Mayor Jay Knudtson; lawyer and former mayor Al Spradling; Schnucks manager Dennis Marchi; and David Hutson. Former judge Stanley Grimm belongs, as does Rose Concrete president Larry Payne; and Bank of Missouri community bank president Moe Sanford. John Mehner's father, Jack, also belongs.

"As a group, we put no pressure on anybody," Gambill said. "The mayor is in there, and he's influential. We talk to him all the time when he happens to be there at lunch but that's talking to him one on one, not groupthink."

This is not the first Tower Club story in the Southeast Missourian. In a 2005 response to a reader's question to his Fact or Fiction column, publisher Jon Rust wrote about it. He is not a member, but his father, Gary Rust, chairman of Rust Communications, does belong.

Questions, suggestions or tips for Lost on Main Street? E-mail pmcnichol@semissourian.com or call 573-388-3646.