Fifty years ago today (April 13) Ralph Oslund attended his first Rotary Club of Penticton meeting and now at age 84 remains a vibrant member in especially good standing.
Coincidently today (Wednesday) is also the regular weekly meeting date of Rotary and a special tribute is planned to recognize his contributions to club and community.
“Ralph joined on a Wednesday in 1966 and darned if it isn’t our meeting, day 50 years to the date, how cool is this,” said club president Sandra Curnow. “He’s the most agreeable guy in our club, he comes to all of our events he’s always helpful, he’s always got good advice he’s just a gem of a member. I wish our club was full of Ralph’s.
Oslund continues to work at his downtown Main Street jewelry store that he opened in 1951. For a time he also had locations in Princeton and Summerland.
He and wife Sharlene have five children they raised in Penticton.
Since joining the original Rotary in 1966 (at one time there were three different clubs here) Oslund has held every position of office including president in 1991-92.
The early 90s were a time he remembers only too well, finding himself embroiled in a human rights issue which resulted in a division within the club. It revolved around the issue of Rotary International finally allowing women to join, something not everyone locally agreed with.
“Our club was founded in 1931 and for all those years it had been a man’s club,” Oslund said. “One member was a city councillor and he quit and a lot of other prominent members wouldn’t have any part of it and a lot of others threatened to quit so we had quite a to do. It was quite a year.”
It was the year after he took over the role of president and by then things had smoothed over considerably.
“I was very fortunate, we had some very capable women join and it just proved to everyone women could be very good members,” he said. “With every club you have a lot of knife and forkers who enjoy belonging to Rotary but they’re not too active but we found women who joined the club were very active and wanted to do things, I don’t know what we would do without them.”
Among Oslund’s Rotary treasures from the last 50 years are his Paul Harris (club founder) Fellow medal and the tattered program from April 13, 1966 meeting when his membership was accepted. The medal is in recognition for his contributions to the foundation’s charitable and educational programs. Now, 50 years later there are not many places where the long-time service club member can go without seeing something in the city he helped make a reality.
“Having people utilizing things, especially the kids at the playgrounds, it makes you feel that it was all worthwhile,” said Oslund.
That includes everything from the community centre and first Peach Festival to the Soupateria and international youth exchange program, which is very close to his heart.
“I very much enjoy seeing these young people come to our city and we enjoy learning about the country they come from and they learn about Canada and Canadians,” said Oslund.
According to Curnow, he drives the visiting students to and from each Wednesday noon hour meeting and is affectionately referred to as grandfather by the kids. When he joined Rotary, Oslund was the youngest member and now the most senior, he still looks forward to taking part in as many events and activities as possible, especially when it benefits someone else.
In his congratulatory letter to Oslund, Rotary International president K.R. Ravindran described Oslund’s efforts this way: “You have year after year decided to give your time to Rotary in order to make a difference in our world.
“Without your sustained commitment to service, Rotary would not be the vibrant force for good that it is.”