Pastimes: Civic Clubs now and then….

By Maylon Rice

I’ve been enamored by the recent past history of the Town with the Red Brick Streets, since hitting the big 6-5 this year.

Now don’t let the Pastime headline fool you, I’ll not venture into the real civic clubs of Warren – those of the Junior Auxiliary or the GFWC – too complex and go back way too far in their origins for me.

In fact, the late Ellen Compton of Fayetteville had a great description of the women’s clubs in Warren she told me not too long before her death in 2019.

“I’ll never forget my mother, when living in Warren said it was a great town for Women’s Clubs,” Ellen said. “She said there were several women’s groups that met and the meetings were of the very highest caliber.” 

Dr. Neil Compton and his bride Laurene, lived in Warren a short time after medical school at the University of Arkansas in Little Rock. He was the County Medical Officer/Physician, making calls on all those who did not have a regular physician or used one of the mill doctors in the later 1930s and early 1940s.

Dr. Compton and his bride moved back to Little Rock for some additional schooling and then on to Bentonville, where he was a well-respected doctor, civic leader and naturalist, credited with saving the Buffalo River from government encroachments and a planned dam to create another hydro-powered lake.

But I’ll head back to the Warren civic clubs and community pride of these organizations in the 1950s and 1960.

Rotary Club was the absolute civic club for a school kid, like me, working at the Eagle-Democrat back in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

The former Publisher, W. L. Love, now back in an advisory position at the newspaper, was a life-long and “perfect attendance” Rotarian. He was indeed Mr. Rotary, a coat and tie every day at work and a business-like manner in all phases of life.

Rotary met at the meeting/dining/community room of the YMCA – every Tuesday at 12 noon.

The cooking was done by Bruce Tarleton’s grandmother and other ladies who assisted her in the preparation of meals in the industrial kitchen just off the meeting room.

My friend and life-long mentor, Bob Newton, with fussy W. L. Love, in tow,  – took me with them, to a Rotary meeting not long after being hired as the “Printer’s Devil,” at the Eagle.  It was the summer of my 7th grade year at the old Junior High where the U.S. Post Office now sits. 

We walked from the Eagle down the hill at Main to the yellow-bricked YMCA. While I was as scared of Mr. Love as an Alaskan Brown Bear or any American Grizzle, he was the life of the party and quite a jokester at the Rotary Club meeting. I saw immediately why he loved the Rotary Club.

Rotary first came to Warren from the El Dorado club, venturing out to sponsor a like organization in a suitable city – Warren was the El Dorado club’s choice. The first meetings were held in the First United Methodist Church fellowship hall, but later transferred to the YMCA, possibly after the new Y was built following the 1940s fire which leveled the old wood structure.

I have ventured back a few times over the years to Warren to attend Rotary Club meetings. The last time the club was in the First United Methodist Fellowship Hall.  John Frazer gave me one of the best introductions imaginable and the club was vibrant as always. I was amazed after my own stints at Rotary Clubs in McGehee, Wynne, Blytheville, and Mountain Home, how many women were in the club.

And how well the Rotary Club meetings were attended. I have followed the Rotary Club and the Warren Lions Club over the years. These clubs were two of the four main sponsors for Pee Wee YMCA football and baseball back in the day. Rotary wore green jerseys; Lions wore gold/yellow, the Bradley team wore red and the Southern wore dark blue jerseys. Each had two white stripes on the sleeves and white numbers.

Following back to a recent find in the Dickson Street Bookseller’s Shop, I found in a 1954-1955 Arkansas Almanac. (photo). This bi-annual publication, which later stepped up to a yearly publication in the 1960s, was an information treasure-trove. The 1954 issue had, of course, no mention of the Pink Tomato Festival, which began soon after.

Here are the trinkets I mined about civic clubs in Warren in that era.

There was the Rotary Club, meeting at 12 noon each Tuesday at the YMCA.

A  Lion International Club met at the Corral at 7:30 p.m. each Tuesday. The late Harry Lee (Buddy” McCaskill, was a beloved officer of the Lions Club. So was the late and still beloved pharmacist and owner of Gannaway Drugs, Hal Gibbs.  I can always recall each year Mr. Gibbs selling more straw brooms in the Lion’s Annual sale to aid the Lion’s No. 1 program – helping the visually impaired.

A Kiwanis Club met each Tuesday noon at the Corral. I am struggling to remember who was a Kiwanis Club member back then?

There was later on,  an Optimist Club, my uncle Lonnie Brown was a member along James Anders, Sgt. Bill Watson of the State Police, Captain Jimmy Lowman and several others in and around area law enforcement. They formed a boxing club and there will be more about that in a future Pastime.

The population of Warren was 6,905 in 1954-55; later on it would rise to above 7,000 and then decline. There were 15,987 people in Bradley County in the 1950 U.S. Census, down from 18,097 in 1940.

Bradley County boasted 1,405 individual farm steads in 1950, 213 of these farms had a working telephone and 874 had electricity.

But even with a small town, having a rich history of civic clubs and pride is a Pastime of Warren one should never forget.