Photo by Keith Stewart
Sullivan Kiwanis Club President Cindi Reed (right) is presented the club’s gavel by Jim Dooley as part of the charter ceremony Monday night.

June 17, 2015

Local chapter receives charter Monday

by Keith Stewart
keith@newsprogress.com

Nearly nine months of meetings, soliciting, and discussing came down to Monday evening’s charter celebration as the local Kiwanis group officially reemerged in Sullivan after shuttering several years ago.
Held in a packed side room of the Red Apple Family Restaurant, the charter presentation not only included the installation of 16 members, but also three officers, and saw a show of support from various neighboring Kiwanis groups from Mattoon, Charleston, Decatur and Tuscola.
And two of those groups–the Decatur Golden K Club and the Tuscola club, were instrumental in reviving the Sullivan branch, that, according to member and local historian Paul Stone, was originally founded in 1929.
Dave Butler, who is not only from the Tuscola club, but also the current Kiwanis lieutenant governor for district 27, along with Jim Dooley, the 2014-2015 Kiwanis Governor for the Illinois and eastern Iowa district, and others began by going door to door, soliciting membership late last fall.     Login or Subscribe to read the rest of this story.