Projects - Centennial History

November 12, 2008 marks the date of the 100th year anniversary of the Rotary Club of San Francisco. The club is preparing a book commemorating the first 100 years. A Ph.D. history program graduate student at Berkeley, Theresa Whitener, has been interviewing past presidents, culling through board meeting notes and other business documents, and calling on past publications from this Rotary, to create the storyline. At its 75th anniversary, the Rotary Club of San Francisco published a history written by Mitchell Postel. Under the History section of this website (under the About Us section), you can find major milestones of the club.

The project was begun under the presidency of William Ecker and is led by Rotary member Roger Steiner and supported by a grant from the San Francisco Rotary Foundation. As Roger notes, “This project is important to us because this Rotary has always been highly esteemed in the San Francisco community. You might say the Rotary has grown up with San Francisco. We’ve consistently maintained our meeting places and offices close to the financial district and attracted a multicultural membership and program participation. It was the tradition and history of this club which drew me to it, in spite of the fact that I live in Marin County.”

Roger credits Past President Bill Sturgeon with much of the material that will enliven the history of the club. "We've duplicated over 3,000 pages of his collection of correspondence, photographs, and other memorabilia for use on this project," he says.

The book should be available in early summer 2008 and will be available at Rotary International’s annual convention in Los Angeles as well as through the Rotary Club of San Francisco.