The recent sad passing of five our beloved district governors -- Anthony J. Palangi (1983-84), James T. Hebron, (1980-81), William L. Martin (1981-82), Dr. J. Donald Herring (2007-08) and Alfred Bevilacqua (1991-92) -- has called to mind our entire group of past governors, living and deceased.
Since our New York District was created in September of 1918 we have had 92 district governors, including our incumbent governor, Michael W. Malark. Each of them served for one administrative year except the first, Clarence A. Nelson (Utica) who served until year-end 1918 and then continued in office through calendar year 1919. Of the 92, 30 happily are still with us, and almost all of them continue their dedicated service to Kiwanis at some level(s) -- club, division, district and/or international.
The current "dean" of our group of living past governors, i.e. the one who served the earliest, is Stephen H. Hart Jr. (Irvingon) who served in 1968, and who incidentally is the last living past governor who served while our administrative years were still on a calendar year basis.
In some of our contested elections in years past attention was paid (arguably too much attention) to whether a candidate was from "upstate" or "downstate"; suggesting perhaps that we should alternate between upstate and downstate in our selection of our leaders. It seems to me we don't hear that very much anymore and, I think that's a good thing.
Anyway, just for the record, among our living past governors I count 18 upstaters and 12 downstaters. Among our deceased past governors I count 41 upstaters and 21 downstaters. Combined, that's 59 upstaters and 33 downstaters.
In our earlier years, upstaters clearly predominated -- an interesting exception being that between 1921 and 1964 five governors came from a single downstate club, the original New York City club (which unfortunately no longer exists), whereas in more recent times downstaters have tended to gain a greater share.
It was not until 1997-98 that we elected our first woman governor, Susan C. Ganey (Hamburg), daughter of the late Charles Wall (Hamburg) our 1960 governor, making Doreen M. Pellitteiri (Webster, 2008-09) our second but surely not our last woman governor. (I personally know of several woman Kiwanians I'm convinced would go a great job.)
In addition to our 92 district governors, eight distinguished Kiwanians were named Honorary Past Governors by the Past Governors Council based upon very strict criteria: George Prout (Troy) 1963; Ted Rand (Tonawandas) 1966; Dr. Walt Karwowski (Whitestown) 1982; Michael D'Auria (East Norwich), 1986; Gerald Hennessy (Rotterdam), 1986; Donald Miekam (Whitestown) 1989; Richard Trupkin (Woodside) 1997; and John Gaglione (East Meadow) 1999. Sadly, all of these great Kiwanians have passed on, and the Past Governors Council opted some years ago (regrettably I think) to discontinue the practice of naming Honorary Past Governors.
A personal note: As recently minted octogenarian, I feel privileged and grateful to have know all and worked with most of the district governors since 1958 as well as many earlier ones who continued actively on the scene long after they served as governor. It has been my good fortune.
Column Posted on Web Site November 9, 2010
Kiwanis is a global organization of volunteers dedicated