By Pauline Masson-
When I called the Pacific Jaycees the guys in the white hats for their efforts to rescue the popular Halloween Spookfest that was running out of steam in 2009, they accepted the accolade in good humor by donning white cowboy hats when they delivered a check to the Chamber of Commerce to help fund the event.
Good fun and Good works had been a trademark of the Pacific Jaycees from the beginning.
Ever since they formed as a club in 1939, to fuel the transition from boys to men, the Junior Chamber of Commerce, (Jaycees) has added the exuberance of youth to Pacific civic life.
The U.S. Junior Chamber of Commerce was formed in 1920 in St. Louis as a leadership training organization for young men 18 to 36. In 1939 there were 760 Jaycee clubs in the U.S., 29 in Missouri, and a group of Pacific’s up-and-coming young men thought Pacific should have one.
The way they went about organizing a new civic organization caught the attention of both the U.S. and Missouri Jaycees.
No record was found of how many of Pacific’s young men joined up, or who they talked to about their new club, but they created enough of a stir among the 29 Jaycee clubs in Missouri that within two months of organizing a club in Pacific, the State Jaycees held their annual convention here.
Missouri Jaycee president said he wanted to come to Pacific so that other young clubs could learn from Pacific’s plan.
“Pacific’s Junior Chamber of Commerce has a program worthy of imitation in any community, regardless of size,” he said. “These plans will be used at the meeting to show other similar organizations what an energetic and enthusiastic group of this kind can undertake with every prospect of carrying them through to completion.”
On February 3, the Missouri Junior Chamber of Commerce, and the new Pacific Club met in the Pacific High School Auditorium to each elect officers. It was a banner event.
Pacific officers were William Jahn, president; Chub Faszold, vice-president; Max Siebold, secretary; and Ed Schaffer, treasurer.
More than 200 gathered for the two-day event including Jaycees from St. Louis, Festus, Sedalia, Jefferson City, Missouri and Muskogee, Oklahoma.. There weren’t enough hotel rooms in the city for the number of visitors so the Jaycees persuaded local residents to provide rooms for the guests and urged the citizens to show the visitors what a great place Pacific was.
This was the beginning of a decades long celebration of community boosterism.
In 1941, the Jaycees, along with the American Legion, Pacific Lions and Volunteer Firemen organized an “Old Home and Carnival Week,” July 17 to August 3. The annual summer community fair continued for more than two decades, halting only during 1943 and 1944 because so many members had been called to military service.
The new club met twice a month at the Junior Chamber of Commerce Hall, aka Junior Chamber of Commerce Headquarters, although it’s unclear where the hall was located.
Also in 1941 the one-year-old club launched one of the biggest community improvement projects in the city’s 80+ year history. They purchased and installed street signs on every city street. In the city’s history the streets all had names that were printed on the original plat and on city map but street signs had never been installed.
Mayor Clarence Mayle, no stranger to city promotion, was beside himself with praise, saying the singular project would never be forgotten.
The new group was seen as so successful that the local newspaper editor penned an editorial about Ken Shepard and the town band, which he noted entertained citizens at every public event but struggled with the cost of maintaining their instruments. The editor said if the successful Jaycees would “take up the matter” of band concerts he was almost certain everyone in the city would want to help.
Within weeks, the Jaycees announced a financial donation to the band and urged the rest of the city to contribute.
During the 1940s and 1950s the Pacific Jaycees dominated the Pacific Social Scene. Not only did they meet two times a month for club business, they enjoyed each other’s company so well that they held a series of banquets, dances, and card parties just for fun.
My friend, the late Mary Hoven once told me that when she and her husband David were young and active in the Jaycees the club was among the moving forces of Pacific city life.
“We were doing something every week,” she said. “If anything was happening, the Jaycees were there.”
In Mary’s youth, the Jaycees was a men’s organization. Ladies formed an auxiliary of sorts called the Jayceettes. But after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1984 that civic organizations could not discriminate according to gender, the Jaycees accepted the ladies as members.
There is little doubt that female sensibilities influenced the Pacific Jaycees regardless of whether the ladies were Jayceettes or full fledged members. In 1951 the club organized an elaborate Christmas lighting contest to illuminate the town for the holidays. They campaigned to persuade residents to decorate their homes. A lighting committee went to each house that was decorated with lights, and stood pad and pencil in hand to record the theme and overall image of each display, which were duly reported in the local newspaper with the announcement of the top three winners.
In 1957, the year Ick Noonan reached the age of 35 and was about to age out of the Jaycees, he launched a campaign to organize (reorganize) a Senior Chamber of Commerce. The effort earned him the Jaycees Outstanding Young Man of the Year award. Two years later, Mr.Noonan was named vice president of the Chamber of Commerce and three years later he was president.
In October 1960 the Jaycees engaged the PTA, the Chamber of Commerce, and Police Chief Pete Albertson in organizing a city-wide two-day Halloween celebration. Each child was given a coin purse as a souvenir and was awarded a silver dollar as a prize at the organized games they won. This was before John Heger’s successful Spookfest and the current Pacific Partnership Monsterfest.
A highlight of the Jaycees street festivities was a costumed parade down St. Louis Street that included a contest for the best costume. Donald Murphy captured first place dressed as a robot complete with eyes that flashed on and off. He received three silver dollars.
When the Pacific Jaycees reached its twentieth year in 1961 the cub bought property in the South section of the city and for several summer weeks members were visible clearing the lots.
In 1962 the Jaycees launched a club campaign to raise funds for their civic projects. They ordered 290 Christmas trees and persuaded Schneider’s IGA, Wolf Hardware and Powell Lumber to sell them. By Christmas Day only eight trees were unsold. They were donated to the American Legion.
In recent years the Jaycees have shown that members still know a thing or two about organization and promotion.
In August 2017 members of the Pacific Jaycees held a successful barbecue benefit to help elevate and restore the Historic First Baptist Church building on South First Street.
The Jaycees targeted local businesses, carrying menus to the industrial parks, the school district’s main office, city hall, banks and other large employers. A caravan of volunteers delivered the lunch orders to the businesses. The event raised approximately $6,000, the first large donation for the project.
“This was a great joint venture between the Jaycees and the committee to elevate the church,” said Cody Kelley, Jaycees treasurer. “Hopefully the Jaycees can use this as a model to partner with other organizations to support their projects.”
.Jaycees on hand for the event were President John Accola, Treasurer Cody Kelley and members Ben King, Lindell Nickelson, Benton Kelley and Fred Hoven. Brad Reed, Reed Insurance, provided the parking lot and fax ordering, tracking and delivery system.Norbert Gildehaus and Bob Masson, who co-chair the campaign to elevate the church, also helped that day.
Mr. Kelley said by encouraging groups across the public service sector to work together, the Jaycees want to be involved in the successful completion of projects.
The current club organizes a series of tournaments to benefit its local civic events and they host an annual golf tournament, with Mr. Kelley as chi\air, to benefit Adopt-a-Family, cementing their reputation as the guys and girls in the white hats.
I’m just saying.
