District 6580 History:

In 1913 The Rotary Club of Terre Haute becomes the first club in what is now District 6580. The second club to be chartered was Evansville in 1914, and Vincennes and New Albany came on board in 1915.

These four clubs were followed by Princeton and Bloomington in 1918; Madison, Washington, Franklin, Seymour, and Bedford, in 1919, which -- with five new clubs -- remains the best year ever for extensions in our district. 1920 gave us Greensburg and Jeffersonville, and Mitchell was organized in 1922. Two years later in 1924 we gained Sullivan, followed in 1925 by Columbus, and in 1926 by Bloomfield and Linton. Next came Rising Sun in 1933, Aurora in 1936, Brazil in 1937 and Corydon in 1939.

In our first 26 years, from 1913 to 1939, we gained 22 Rotary clubs. In the next 26 years we added only two -- and only one of these, Salem, chartered in 1954 remains today. (on 8 March 1955, West Terre Haute was chartered with 28 members. Thirty-three years later, on 22 March 1988, it became a casualty. West Terre Haute, to this date, is the only club from our district to have lost its charter.)

After West Terre Haute, it wasn't until 1965 that we started to add additional clubs with North Vernon, followed by Greenwood in 1966. However a period of eight years elapsed until Bloomington North in 1974. Five years later in 1979, Terre Haute South was admitted. The eighties with two clubs, Martinsville in 1980 and Seymour Noon in 1985 and the nineties with three -- Evansville A.M. in 1990, Brown County in 1992 and, our newest club, Clarksville in 1995 brings us to our present number.

When the Terre Haute club was formed, Indiana was in what was called the Central Division. It wasn't until the Rotary year 1915-16 that clubs were first grouped into districts, and all of Indiana was assigned to District 8. In 1918-19 our district number was changed to 11, and John Napier Dyer of the Vincennes club was the first district governor. He went on to become a director and vice president of R.I.

In 1922-23, our district number was changed to 20. Frank Hatfield of the Evansville Club was the second district governor from the current clubs and the first governor of the new district 20. In Rotary year 1937-38 our district number was changed to 155, and on 10 May 1938 Indiana was first split into three districts 154, 155 and 156 from north to south. Paul Crim of Evansville in 1938-39 was the first district governor of District 156 with 21 clubs.

We were to see two additional number changes before we arrived at our current 6580 designation in 1991-92. In 1049-50 district 156 became 226 and in 1957-58 district 226 was changed to 658. Lynn Stewart of Columbus in 1949-50 not only was the first governor of District 226, he also was the first half of our only father/son governor team since his son, Bob Stewart, served as governor in 1979-80. The first governor of District 658 and our present District 6580 were both from New Albany: Bernard Webb, 658 in 1957-58, and Don Sodrel, 6580 in 1991-92.

At the end of Rotary year 1912-13 -- when a group of men with vision were taking action in Terre Haute to build for the future by starting the first club in this district -- there were 50 Rotary clubs with a total membership of 5,000. By the year 1915-16 when clubs were first grouped into districts, there were 20,700 members in 186 clubs. Today there are almost 1.2 million members in 28,284 clubs in 155 countries grouped into 518 districts.

Paul Harris obviously had much more than a vision. Honor our legacy by inviting someone to join your club. Remember you are here because someone cared enough to ask you to join.

Honor our legacy by supporting the Four Avenues of Service. Honor our legacy by attendance at district meetings and district conference. Honor our legacy by living the Four Way Test. Honor our legacy by helping build the future with action and vision.

Storyline by Donald L. Sodrel, PDG 1991-92
Information and research obtained from:
Rotary International Archives
1996-97 Official Directory
"Focus on Rotary" RI No 991-EN
"Historical Review of Rotary" RI No 334-EN