Brandon ’86 Rotary Club

The following are Past Presidents and other notable Brandon ’86 Rotarians:

AN EARLY HISTORY OF BRANDON ’86 ROTARY CLUB

In the fall of 1986, District 695 Governor, Bill Leonard, working with the Brandon Rotary Club, sponsored the beginnings of our provisional club.

The Brandon Club’s Group consisted of Mel Belisle, John Bennett, Lyle Aagg, Marshall Glass, Larry McLendon and Dr. Dick Reed. They not only sponsored us, but paid for our charter, rotary bell, gavel, American flag and club banner.

We were fortunate to have some former Rotarians to help us along the way in our own formation. Those men were as follows: Lambert Friederich, 18 years; Bill Durkin and Marion Link, each with 12 years; Fred Roche with 6 years, and Dick Thomas, 3 years. Stan Leonardo also joined us, but do not know the years of service. Lambert and Marion had served as President in former clubs. Bill Durkin transferred from the Brandon Club while Dick Thomas had belonged in Lakeland. Fred belonged to two different clubs in Massachusetts.
As early as October 30, 1986, our formation group met next to Ferman Chevolet at the Ramada Inn. Dick Reed, of the Brandon Club, guided us along the way and subsequently presided at our First Provisional Club Meeting January 9, 1987 at the Town House Restaurant on Route 60.
Officers and Directors were elected; they were as follows:

• • President: Dr. Bill Orr
  • Treasurer: Bill Durkin
  • Vice President: Dick Thomas
  • Secretary: Lambert Friederich
  • Director: Jack Barker
  • Director: Fred Roche

This group was elected to serve the fiscal year 1987, but later it was decided to continue on until the fiscal year ended June 30, 1988.

Out meetings were set for 7:00 am. Friday. Much discussion took place about selecting an appropriate name. The District Governor discouraged us from “Brandon Sunrise .. , in the event we chose to change the hour of our meetings. Since we started in 1986, the name evolved to Brandon ’86. We chartered with 25 members, holding our banquet at the Sabal Park Holiday Inn on March 7, 1987. The actual charter was granted February 24, 1987. The first new member was Ray Aquilina, who was inducted at our charter banquet Ray assumed the duty of Bulletin Editor, and that duty was followed by Dick Thomas.

Our first fund raiser was the July 4th Pancake Breakfast This event was chaired by Steve Tombrink. We even brought our own grill. We also took on a Christmas Party for the children, parents and nuns at the New Life Dwelling place. This event was run by Fred Roche, and our club has continued with both of these events.  Mitch Burley took over as our Treasurer and, by December, 1987, a new slate of officers was selected for 1988-1989. Fred Roche assumed the Presidency, and we expanded our Directors up to the number we now have. We did continue to grow with members, although many of our people were filling more than one role. President Bill Orr, spearheaded Armwood Interact, and after Fred Roche designed the banner, the Armwood Art Department put the fmishing touches on it for our club. At the New Life Dwelling Christmas Party, Jeff Miltner was our Santa Claus. He had two helpers, Cara and Lauren Miltner; Fred took a picture and wrote an article for the Rotarian Magazine. Other helpers were Interact students. Rotary International’s project that year was Polio Plus, Jack Barker was Chairman of this and succeeded in reaching 100% participation from our club. Internationally, it was a huge success and is a program still functioning.

In June 1987, we had outgrown the Brandon Town House and moved to the Picadilly Restaurant where we stayed until late 1994. Our Pancake Breakfast also moved here. The First Group Study Exchange came to visit from Wales in the U.K. We hosted a group of six men in our homes for two nights. Lambert and Katherine had the group and host couples over for a cookout one night Lambert pulled some strings, getting the group into Disney/Epcot, and he and Jeff acted as guides. Fred was able to secure a van from Brandon Chrysler, and the team had an overnight in Orlando, returning to us Sunday night. Brandon Balloon Festival was being held at the fairgrounds. We set up a 2-day Pancake Breakfast in exhibit hall. In addition to our members, the Interact Club helped out with serving food, cleaning tables and handing out flyers. We did this two years in a row. It was a great fundraiser. When Brandon started a food pantry, later known as ECHO, we supported it with canned goods each month. We turned over all of our “fine” money to the charity. Jack Barker came up with the idea of the Brandon ’86 coffee mug. It gets a great reception.

At the June 1988 Installation Dinner, we chose a Paul Harris Fellow, being selected by a drawing and presented by our Lambert Friederich who was already a Paul Harris Fellow. During the 1988-1989 fiscal year, we hit the ground running having made tremendous progress with all our programs in place. We bought our second grill for the Pancake Breakfast Eddie Johns chaired this event, and we exceeded  our previous year. Being at Picadilly location helped a great deal. We incorporated with Stan Padgett’s guidance, with Fred Roche, Mark Craft and Mitch Burley’s names on the Charter. One of our first projects was sending some donated hospital beds to the La Victoria Project Mark Craft’s Uncle Frank stored these for us before he moved them to Miami for export.
Our service account continued to grow, allowing us to donate money to Brandon Outreach, ECHO, the Prison Crusade, New Life Dwelling’s Christmas Party and S4TL. We established a scholarship for Armwood High School students attending a vocational school after graduation. The initial recipients were Sherry Weens and Stanley Martin.
The Santo Domingo well product was started during this fiscal year. Our own Lambert Friedrich was the driving force behind this project. We involved the Brandon Club to help us financially as well as Rotary International. The Rotary Club of Poniente in the Dominion Republic was also working with us.

By the end of the fiscal year, we had $9,292 in our service fund, carrying over $1,152.00 from 87-88. Our fund-raisers of the 4th of July Pancake Breakfast, Balloon Festival Pancake Breakfast and first golf outing were the big winners. After all of our payables, we turned over $4,700 to the 1989-90 Board. We also put our own Brandon ’86 Softball Team on the field, providing them with hats and shirts.

After a bang up Installation Banquet with our speaker, Rick Nafe of the Tampa Bay Sports Authority, Marion Link took office along with his Board of Directors and other officers. Randy Kizer stepped in to fill the Treasurer’s office, since Fred Sitzbudger transferred out of the area. Randy put $5,000 into a money market at Fort Brooke Bank. We really felt solvent. We continued to support many of the same charities, however, New Life Dwelling needed a concrete pad built and with Mitch Burley and our crew, this was accomplished. A fence was also built at New Life Dwelling Place. Some new charities we supported this year were the YMCA of Brandon, Missing Children Help Center and Dover Cub Scouts.

We sent more funds to La Victoria with help from Rotary International, and as a result, had enough money to up our Paul Harris drawings to four people.
Another event which was our first, was a family picnic at Mendard Park. We had a good turn out and lots of family fun. We also had enough funds to purchase our own television and VCR to run educational meetings.

Financially, we had another great year. Our money market was up to $6,892.50 while our Service Fund was now at $3,318.26.

Bob O’Neill was inducted as our 4th President for the years 1990-1991. Bob was our first Mayoral Candidate that fiscal year in conjunction with the 4th of July Pancake Breakfast. We instituted another income-producing program using fees from those members who missed meetings and did not make up. Craig Todd built a Rotary Wheel with various amounts from $10.00 to $15.00 lettered on the wheel. Some of our less than 100% members have contributed to the “Fine Wheel” frequently.

The La Victoria Well Project was still underway; however, we moved over to another club in the Dominican Republic. We changed from using electric to using hand pumps which were more efficient, not requiring power to operate. The Environment was a Rotary International theme this year, and we started out the “Save the World Program with tree planting and roadside cleanups. Those programs are still on-going.  The Officers and Board of Directors voted this year to award Paul Hanis Fellows to all past presidents. Since President Fred bought his own Paul Harris Fellow before this program was initiated, we only had to provide for three: Bill Orr, Marion Link and Bob O’Neill.

Rotary International was once again moving in the direction of more clubs. Brandon South became a reality, and both Ray Aquilina and Jerry Fields moved to that organization.
We had another good year financially, being able to send $7,800 to Rotary International for the Well Project, and in tum, using that contribution for 11 Paul Harris Fellows, three of which were for past presidents.

Our usual fund-raisers, the 4th of July Pancake Breakfast, Balloon Festival and golf outing were the major projects, and we gave to our usual charities. With our matching funds from Rotary International, we gave away $28,000.

1991-1992, Mitch Burley took the President’s job. We had a great cushion in our bank accounts once again. The Operating Fund had $4,000 and the Service Fund $9,852. This was one of the best years for the 4th of July Pancake Breakfast. It was in conjunction with the Mayor’s Race, our drawing on a house, and feeding nearly 1,000 people that day. We generated $2,600 profit from the breakfast alone.

Mitch and Rose Burley held the annual Christmas Party at their house, and a good time was had by all. John Gardner came up with the idea of a trust fund for our club. This soon became a reality under the guidance of Stan Padgett The trust fund became incorporated as “The Brandon ’86 Rotary Foundation,” the Board of Directors to be the last five presidents consisting of Bill Orr, Fred Roche, Marion Link, Bob O’Neill and Mitch Burley. Each year the longest serving board member steps down and as each succeeding past president moves up to chairman, the newest director would be the most recent past president of Brandon ’86.

In addition to our regular fund raisers this year, a couple of new ideas were tried. Mark Carson put on an art auction and Tom Linsky introduced breakfast with Santa. Both projects generated some money as well as plenty of fun.

This year’s golf outing was supported by Paragon Cable and our own Dan Wright Their help was tremendous in getting more money in our funds for both the Brandon ’86 Club and the Brandon ’86 Foundation. A new charity for us this year was Junior Achievement Mitch Burley became our second candidate for the Mayoral Race in conjunction with our July 4th Pancake Breakfast.  All together, Mitch’s term of office allowed us to start out 1992-1993 fiscal year with $5,700 in our Operating Fund and $6,852 in our Service Fund.

Mark Carson became our President for 1992-1993. A new fun program for the year was the beginning of “Mitchy Points”. Members earned “Mitchy Points” for their participation in our club’s functions, and awards were to be made at the end of the year. The second annual picnic was held at Ron Shillady’s house, a good time was had by everyone. Our charitable contributions remained about the same except for $1,000 donation towards the construction of the Joshua House. After all of our donations, we had $3,676 in the Service Fund and $14,028 in the Operating Account,

Jeff Miltner became our 1993-1994 President. The same fund raisers were on schedule for this fiscal year; and a new one for Adventure Island was proposed and was held. Unfortunately, we lost $2,721. Our other charitable donations remained about the same for the year, as well as our projects like tree planting and road clean-up. Tom Linsky rounded up his Interact Team, and they did a clean-up at Rotary’s Camp Aorida They also did our New Life Dwelling Christmas Party. A proposal to further our growth and Paul Harris Fellows was started this year. The Board agreed to help sustaining Paul Harris Fellows pay off their $1,000.00 contribution by supporting that pay-off with up to $250.00 of Brandon ’86 funds.

This year, through re-districting, our area became #6890, dropping the old district #695. Our new district picked up clubs east of us in Polk and Hardee Counties, and released Pinellas County from our group.  We had our “First Rotary Challenge.” The clubs within our district competed on Rotary knowledge. Bill Orr and Randy Kizer represented Brandon ’86, doing exceptionally well .
ECHO, one of our charities, put together their own golf outing for a fund-raiser. We supported this with sending our own Brandon ’86 foursome. We also supplied manpower and pick up trucks to move ECHO into new quarters.

Dr. John Busciglio recruited a new helper for the Well Project at La Victoria, Santa Domingo. He was a local priest who arranged to get one of our electric wells repaired and drilled two more hand operated wells. By the end of June, we should have 10 wells. We had another great golf outing with support from Paragon Cable. We made $13,152.93, half of which came back to our club, the balance to the Hillsborough Education Foundation.

July 1, 1994, we began the fiscal year with Steve Tombrink as our President Our Service Account had a balance of $2,635.94 and $15,094.60 in our Operating Account Budgeted funds from 1993 -1994 were dispersed, leaving us with $6,716.12. Once again, Mark Craft and Bob McConnell were given Honorary Membership, and a few months later upon Bill Orr’s resignation, he too joined the ranks of honorary membership. Due to the redesign of the seating at Picadilly Restaurant, we moved over to the Olive Garden on Route 60. The “Mitchie Awards” Program was reinstated to be chaired by Ron Shillady.

The District Governor gave Steve high marks on Brandon ’86 wishing other clubs were as good. We have excelled in attendance and only need to increase our membership.
President Steve appointed Fred Roche, Past President and Charter Member, to be Club Historian. Thus the above pages have unfolded. The scrapbook Fred started and maintained for 4 years has now been updated. Our original 25 charter members have now dropped to 9. From this number, only Lambert chartered as Senior Active. But with our club now eight years old, Jack Barker, Bill Durkin, Marion Link and Fred Roche are Senior Active due to years in Rotary and/or age combined.  Our own Jerry Fields created a window box to hold our Charter, and it has been hung in
the foyer of the Olive Garden. This was our second year of selling Entertainment Books under the guidance of Randy Kizer and Tom Linsky. This looks like a fund-raiser to continue building. Another idea for fund raising is Ernie Donni, chairing a seafood social. Rotary’s Camp Florida is doing well, and Rotarians and Rotary Clubs are working on $1,000 donations so as to bum the mortgage in.the Fall of 1995. The President of Rotary International for 1995-1996, Herb Brown, will be in town for this event.

This year’s tree planting chaired by Randy Kizer, was scheduled for Saladino Park with an assist from one of the 4th Grades at Brooker High School.  Plans are being made to move our meetings once again to a new Buddy Freddy’s coming to Brandon in 1995. We are sure a separate room will be available for us like the Plant City Breakfast Club enjoys on Mondays. Picadilly Restaurant has ok’d the location for our 1995 July 4th Pancake Breakfast.  We already qualified and were presented an Rotary International citation at the Spring District Assembly.  We sent another foursome to the ECHO golf outing this year. Our May business meeting took place at Rotary’s Camp Aorida with catered pizza and beer. Another meeting is scheduled for June 23rd at Jerry Fields Arts and Framing store.

Some new membership rules from Rotary International could help us with recruiting new members, as well as holding present members. As of July 1st, 1995, retired people with no prior Rotary experience may be proposed for membership. There is also word that make-ups can be extended to two weeks before and after regular scheduled meetings.
Eddie Johns headed up a work party for Rotary’s Camp Aorida to help with assembly of playground equipment Mitch Burley poured the concrete prior to getting all of the equipment.
Eddie’s crew consisted of Tom Linsky, Jeff Campbell, Jeff Miltner, Dan Hall, Steve Tombrink, Jim Barton, Mitch Burley, Ron Shillady, Alan Denham, Dave Newberry, Mike Menard, Randy Kizer, Mark Craft and Lambert Friederich. Earlier this Spring, Fred Roche and his floor installers put vinyl in the auditorium and dispensary at cost, and Fred donated the vinyl wall base and all installation materials to complete the job.

In all, we had a successful year end financially; dispersing $6,270 to such organizations as Rotary Camp Florida. ECHO, Brandon Outreach, New Life Dwelling, Prison Ministry, Gulf Ridge Council (Scouts) and Born to Read Program. The Rotary Camp Florida donation of $1,000 makes Brandon ’86 a member of their 400 Club. And while we are going to carry over $6,000 for the new Board, only $3,000 needs to be paid out for scholarships at Armwood High School. A total of $17,145 was actually donated this fiscal year. The Brandon ’86 Rotary Foundation also received $1,000 in the year-end funds. We haven’t been getting much attention for a few years but with this donation, our fund is at $6,257.88. Our progress towards making Paul Harris Fellows has been tremendous over our 8 1/2 year operation. As of June 30th, we have 21 Paul Harris Fellows out of 40 members with two more to be awarded at the June 30th Installation Banquet. Also, at this time, we have 33 who are sustaining members for a Paul Harris Fellow award, some of which may go to their spouse. I hope I have not overlooked any events or people who lead these events over the past 8 1/2 years. It was quite a project assembling all of this history.

T. Fred Roche Jr
Past President 1998-89