About Kiwanis Club

Eleven years after our club was formed, the Kiwanis Club of Cheviot-Westwood sponsored the Price Hills Club in 1948. Dr. Foster M. Williams was president. On August 27, 1955, the Kiwanis Clubs of Cheviot-Westwood and Colerain established the new White Oak – Monfort Heights Club presenting its charter at the Sheraton-Gibson Hotel Roof Garden. Dr. Ray V. Skogsbergh was president and participated in the chartering, giving them a gift from our club – the gong and gavel.

​

Our twentieth president, Henry Betz (1957), forty-second president, Charles Mitchell (1979), and fiftieth president, Walt Spliman (1986) have served as Lt. Governor of the Sixth Division. Linc Stokes, Lt. Governor-elect in 1992, was unable to serve as Lt. Governor due to illness, and Terri Murdock was killed in a tragic auto accident when she was on Kiwanis business before she became Lt. Governor. We have been supportive of SWOKMHA for children’s mental health through the years. Our own Oreste Barone was the director of the greater Cincinnati Horse Show in 1968 and $10,000 was presented to Nick Seta at the Longview School. In more recent years we have given substantial seed money for two vans for the Longview children. More recently we are supportive of the multi-divisional support of SOKKS (Southwestern Ohio Kiwanis For Kids) to support Kiwanis Priority I and Major Emphasis projects for children. In 1996 we began to participate in the AKtion Club, endorsed by International, in support of the Mentally and Physically Challenged.

 

Early in the history of our club, the meetings were held on the second floor of the Westwood Town Hall, then in the old frame club house of the Western Hills YMCA, Montana and Cheviot Avenues, until 1965 when the meeting place was moved across the street to the St. James Episcopal Church. In 1979, we moved to the Westwood First Presbyterian Church. Good country cooking was the main attraction to lure the men of Cheviot-Westwood community to lunch every Tuesday and the gourmet cook was Virginia Kercheval from 1948 through 1979. Virginia’s mother and father, Vernon and Jesse Bratton were part of the kitchen crew, and after their death Virginia’s daughter Jo Ann, worked with mom along with her children when not in school. Starting in 1979 Connie Renshaw and her nine teams of Westwood First Presbyterian ladies and friends had continued to prepare very satisfying, delicious full luncheons for appreciative members up until we moved to the Boudinot LaRosa's in 2019. The diversity of the interesting and informative programs week after week have been another highlight of our Club.

​

Just to mention a few of the biggees: Waite Hoyt, Joe Nuxhall, Dan Tehan, Tom Luken, Judge Olive Holmes, George Smith, Linc Stokes, Julie Isphording, Pete Rose, Tony Yates, Jim LeClair, Sam Wyche, Art Ney, Don Deming on the “Great Steamboat Era” and some of our own: Tom Griffin on “Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo”, and Bob and Dottle Meyer on “Around the World in a 1930 model A”, and “Our trip to Alaska”, and many others. More recently we have been privileged to hear from Dennis Janson, Steve Chabot, Tim Hedrick, Bob Braun, Carol Williams, Ken Blackwell, Judge Sylvias Hendon, Phil Heimlich, Cliff Radel and Gary Sullivan.

​

One of our most satisfying Youth Services Projects was Andy Brady’s Cheviot-Westwood Kiwanis Youth Orchestra and Music Clinic which he directed each summer from 1962 through 1974. Our club sponsored a Key Club at Western Hills High School from 1961 to 1963, and at LaSalle High School since January 28, 1982, and Mother of Mercy since February, 1994. The Charles W. Reusing Scholarship is given annually to outstanding Key Club members at LaSalle & Mother of Mercy.

​

The ‘Kiwanis Bulletin” came into being when our Club was 9 years old in 1946, under the creation of Al Huneke, owner of the Western Hills Press and a charter member.

​

Jim Hader is currently our longest active member having joined the club in 1946 when Cheviot-Westwood was nine years old. During his 53 years of membership he has had 48 years of perfect attendance. Russ Witte has 45 years perfect attendance, joining in 1947 and this is his 51st year of membership. Twenty-one of the 61 presidents of our Club are still members and take a vital part in the activities of the Club.

​

Members who have served as Secretary have been Laurence White, Rev. William Kohler, Bill Gehringer and Earl Applegate. Jim Weber served as secretary from 1975 to 1995. Those who have served as treasurers are: Joseph Gunter, Waiter Springmeier, Bill Gehringer, Dave Eckert, Ted Beck, Charles Reusing, Jim Lunsford, Paul Hartlaub, and John Rathkamp served as treasurer from 1978 to 1993. Matt Roth began as treasurer in 1993. What special people the secretaries and treasurers have been!

​

Henry Hader (1944) and Jim Hader (1961) have been the only father-son presidents of our Club. John Weber, Sr. was president of the Colerain Club in 1957 and son Jack, Jr. was president of the Cheviot-Westwood Club in 1976. There are five other sets of parent-children in our club: Charles Baverman and son, Mark, John Murphy and son, Mike Murphy, Ron Roth and sons Matt and Dan Roth, Jack Geller and son Steve, and John Weber, Sr., son Jim, grandsons John III and Paul Weber.

​

Kiwanis International opened the doors to business and professional women in 1987, and Cheviot Westwood had its first lady president, Terese Murdock, in the 1996-97 year. Marilyn Ward became the Clubs first lady secretary in 1996. There are several committee chairs that are held by lady members.

​

In 1996-1997, our Community Services Budget put $63,000 into community needs with an emphasis on young people including scouting, scholarships, music ventures, sports, YMCA, and many other special projects. We acknowledge a “Citizen of the Year,” bid at the 4-H auction at the fair and give beef, pork, and lamb to needy institutions. Our Major Emphasis Committee supports needy projects under the Kiwanis International theme “Young Children-Priority One”. In 1996-97 our club gave $25,000 from the Community Service funds, 2,399.00 from Committees, and from individual member contributions for a total of $46,491.10 to the Kiwanis International Major Emphasis $75 million project Iodine Deficiency Disease (I.D.D.) to eliminate I.D.D. and its concomitant mental retardation from Third World countries who have not had iodized salt for their diet. That was our first ever major contribution to the world wide community to fulfill an International Kiwanis obligation (which took us just one year) beyond the confines of our own backyard community.

 

When the highlights of our history have been recorded, we have to conclude that the meaningfulness of our Club is the people who have met together frequently not only for food and fellowship but also to “Build” and to make this community a better place in which to live.

 

We cannot forget the many Kiwanians (too numerous to list) who have done so much in the past, to make the Kiwanis Club of Cheviot-Westwood, the top notch club it is today.

​

A toast to the hundreds of members who have made Cheviot-Westwood come alive with their dedication, their vision, their talents, and their labors! Let us continue this fine tradition.

​

Bill Gerhardt, Historian