Presidents of Rotary 1950-1959
John (Jack) Larson
President Yakima Rotary Club 1950
Born on a farm in Brookville, Kansas in 1904; Jack Larson and his family moved to Silverton, Oregon, where he began his career in the bakery business. He married there in 1926, moved to Wenatchee, Washington for a few years, and then moved to Yakima in 1934 to take a position with Cecil Gholson, owner of local combination grocery, bakery, restaurant, and meat market.
When the business failed in 1940, Jack bought the bakery equipment and opened what became known as Larson’s Bakery on North Second Street. The butter bars and butterhorns were among the bakery specialties; and often customers would add extra butter and nuts for an extremely sweet and tasty treat.
He sold this business in 1960, but local realtor Omar Andrews and he had bought the adjacent building, formerly the home of the Republic Publishing Company, in 1954. This building housed a brokerage firm, Investors’ Services, where Larson eventually became a full-time financial advisor.
Larson was active in community affairs, serving as an elder of the First Presbyterian Church and the Board of the Chamber of Commerce. He was elected to the Yakima City Council in 1959 and during his 12 years on the council, he was instrumental in street improvements, saving the Metropolitan Parks District, the construction of a new sewage and wastewater treatment plant, and the creation of the Sister City relationship with Itayangi, Amori, Japan. Larson was elected Mayor by his fellow council members for nine years of his terms in office.
Joining the Yakima Rotary Club soon after his arrival in town, Jack was President of the Yakima Rotary Club in 1950 and Rotary District Governor in 1957-58. He passed away in December 1998 at the age of 94.
Peter G. MacKintosh
President Yakima Rotary Club 1951
Veterinarian Peter Grant MacKintosh served as President of the Yakima Rotary Club in 1951 and was part of a number of father and son teams who have held that position. Peter’s son, Roderick “Rod” MacKintosh was club president twenty years later. He was born in Scotland in 1888 and came to Yakima in 1909, and was a charter member and past president of the Washington State Veterinary Medical Association. Jessie Ballard and Peter were married in North Yakima in 1917.
MacKintosh was a member of the Board of Directors of Yakima Federal Savings and Loan for thirty-six years and served as its president from 1951 until his death in 1955.
In addition to his professional involvement in the community, he was a collector of canes and walking sticks with a large collection of common and unusual canes. After his retirement, he began making canes with wood shafts and bone handles, giving most as gifts to friends and family. Peter MacKintosh died in 1965 at the age of seventy-six.
Merritt Bloxom, Jr.
President Yakima Rotary Club 1952
Merritt Bloxom served as President of the Yakima Rotary Club in 1952 before moving to Yakima Southwest Rotary in 1969 as a charter member of that club. Merritt Jr., was born and reared in Seattle and educated at the University of Washington and Stanford University. After moving to Yakima in 1938 he joined the H. R. Spinner Corporation and remained with the company until his retirement in 1988. He served as president of the fruit packaging business and was vice president of Mt. Adams Orchards and president of W. Y Transport.
He was one of the founders of the Bank of Yakima and served on its board for eighteen years. In addition to serving as president of Yakima Rotary in 1952, he was on the board of the Yakima Chamber of Commerce and was a long-time member of the Y.M.C.A. His hobbies included photography, boating, automobiles and kite flying.
Merritt Bloxom Jr., died in 1994 and was interred in Terrace Heights Memorial Park.
Fred C. Palmer
President Yakima Rotary Club 1953
Frederick Chester (Fred) Palmer, Jr., was born August 4, 1910 in Toppenish, Washington, and in 1939 married Helen Margaret (Peggy) Hayward in Multnomah County Oregon. After receiving his law degree in 1935 he was a partner in a number of law firms in Yakima, and was most remembered for his trial work and working on the Ahtanum Irrigation Case.
He was the youngest person ever to serve as president of the Washington State Bar Association when he was selected in 1947. At one time, he worked as Deputy Prosecuting Attorney in Yakima County. During World War II, he served in the United States Navy.
As were most Rotary Club presidents, he was very active in community endeavors, serving on the boards of the Red Cross, Yakima Country Club, United Good Neighbors (predecessor of United Way) and St. Elizabeth’s Hospital. At the age of 60, he died unexpectedly in 1970 and was buried in Terrace Heights Memorial Park.
John J. Noel Jr.
President Yakima Rotary Club 1954
John J. Noel Jr. was born in Yakima in 1916 and died there in 1988. He was buried in Calvary Cemetery in Yakima.
John was President of the Noel Corporation, a business his father started in 1934 as a Pepsi Cola bottling franchise. The Noel family, over the years, extended the enterprise to include a variety of businesses including television broadcasting. At one time, they owned TV stations in Yakima, Pasco, and Lewiston, Idaho. Those stations were eventually sold to the Retlaw Corporation which was owned by the family of Walt Disney.
Noel was very involved in his industries organizations, serving on the Washington State Association of Bottlers of carbonated beverages. In 1955 he was its president. He also served on a variety of community boards in Yakima and was president of the Yakima Rotary Club in 1954.
Robert G. Wight
President Yakima Rotary Club 1955
Robert Green Wight, President of Yakima Rotary in 1955 was the son of another club president, Holland E. Wight, president in 1926. A dentist in Yakima for many years, he was born, December 7, 1912 in Yakima and died there May 17, 1985. He was raised in Yakima and graduated from Yakima High School.
In High School he played cornet in the band, and was a member of the basketball team. He was also a member of the school’s “Thrift Committee” which helped students learn banking by creating saving accounts in the school’s home rooms.
Dr. Wight and Betty Johnson were married in Seattle in 1937 and were the parents of three: Robert Junior, Janet, and Robin.
During his lifetime, he received numerous honors from his professional organizations. In addition, he belonged to the Congregational Christian Church, Yakima Elks Lodge, Yakima Country Club and Masonic Lodge #24. He was also past president of the Yakima Ski Club.
Thomas C. Bostic
President Yakima Rotary Club 1956
Tom Bostic was born in Weiser, Idaho in 1919, the same year that Yakima Rotary was born. At about one year of age, the family moved to Ellensburg where he graduated from high school in 1936. After attending Central Washington College for one year, he transferred to the University of Washington and graduated in 1941 with a degree in pharmacy. That same year, he married Hallie Thompson in Yakima.
Most of his working life was in the broadcasting industry with a three-year break during the Korean War when he served as a Naval aviator. Following the war, he worked for the Cascade Broadcasting Company, owner of KIMA radio and television stations in Yakima, where he held a number of positions, rising to the position of company president.
He was very active in the community, serving in board positions at Memorial Hospital, the Yakima Valley Museum, Yakima Country Club, the Yakima Tennis Club and more. Bostic served as president of the Yakima Rotary Club in 1956. He was also active in the broadcast industry, serving on many state and national committees and boards.
He died in Yakima in 1956 and was buried in Terrace Heights Memorial Park.
James P. Connell
President Yakima Rotary Club 1957
James Price Connell was born in Auburn, Washington June 11, 1914. In 1937, he married Elaine Dahl in Pierce County. He was the president of Valley Neon Company in Yakima, and in 1957 was the president of Yakima Rotary Club. That year he was honored by the American Red Cross for his “outstanding service.”
Among his contributions to the local Red Cross chapter was the establishment of the blood donor program in the Yakima Valley in 1948. The award was presented to Connell by Rex Matthews (another Rotary club president), Red Cross board member and vice president of the national Red Cross fund committee.
Connell died August 25, 2004 in King County and was buried in Terrace Heights Memorial Park.
Roy H. Tufts
President Yakima Rotary Club 1958
Tufts Drug Company, a chain of six pharmacies in Yakima was owned by Roy Herman Tufts, a pharmacy graduate of Washington State College. Although he sold some of the stores, he still owned two until 1976 when he became the administrator of Yakima Community Hospital. Roy Herman Tufts was born in Yakima in 1915 and lived there until his death in 1991.
In addition to being president of Rotary in 1958, he was active a number of Yakima organizations including the Allied Arts Council, Goodwill Industries, the Chamber of Commerce and the Better Business Bureau. He was a founding member of the Yakima Hearing and Speech Center, an organization created by the Yakima Rotary Club. Tufts was also active in organizations of the pharmacy profession including, The Washington State Board of Pharmacy and the Washington State Pharmaceutical Association which he served as its president.
Sidney B. Reese
President Yakima Rotary Club 1959
In 1975, Sidney Bruce Reese was made a “Lifetime Member” of the Yakima Rotary Club in recognition of his service to the community and Rotary. He had been president of the club in 1959.
Reese was born in Orofino, Idaho in 1917 and later located to Milton-Freewater, Oregon, where he started the F. G. Lamb Company, a food processing plant. In 1950, he purchased the Lamb Fruit Company in Yakima. That company eventually became Lamb-Weston Inc., the world’s largest processors of French Fries. For 25 years, he was manager of executive services for them.
While living in Yakima he was a board member of the Fort Simcoe Area Boy Scout Council, and Vice President of the Northwest Horticultural Council which represented all fruit organizations in the Northwest. In 1953 he was president of the Yakima Valley Traffic Association.
He married Metha Thomason in Umatilla, Oregon in 1939. Sidney Reese died in 1986 in Milton-Freewater, Oregon and was buried there in the I.O.O.F Cemetery.