PROGRAMS At our regular Tuesday morning meetings we reserve about a half hour for the featured speaker or program. The public is welcome to visit and enjoy the program. Current lineup of programs and Speakers...

Port Orchard Rotary has a history of fascinating speakers and programs. Past club president Niels was awesome in his committment of arranging weekly programs for many years. Retelling the stories that surround various interesting, even outragous speakers and their visit to the club is a program in itself. Governors. An ex-con. A prostitute. Niels has kept our club (and the Bremerton Rotary club) not only informed, but entertained.

Niels Nielsen recounts: The weekly programs during the past 30 years have been very different and sometimes sensational. The editor of the Rotarian Magazine wrote a letter to me in March 1974 and said: "You have certainly had some of the most innovative programs we have heard about—ever." Some of the programs were covered by news media across the state and even in papers from out of the state and country.

The most famous report was in The Rotarian, January 1976 issue:

Washington - "There is no doubting the all-America credentials of Indian chief White Eagle, a Pawnee from Oklahoma. The distinguished tribal leader was a bicentennial guest speaker at the Rotary Club of Port Orchard, Washington. Club program chairman Niels Nielsen on behalf of the club has partitioned U.S. President Gerald Ford to proclaim a national Day for Native Americans." (Pictured above is Niels smoking a peace pipe with Chief White Eagle.) read more about Niels and our club...

:: Niels, thanks for your many years of service to the club and community::

Bob Cairns remembers a program: "I will never forget the first Rotary meeting that Danford Moore invited me to. Dan Clem, the Kitsap County Prosecutor, was the guest speaker and he spoke about a recent successful murder prosecution. Turned out that Dan and the defendant were whispering profanity to each other as a joke and no one really knew about it until the Bremerton Sun Reporter in the Rotary audience reported it in the next day’s paper. It made headlines and resulted in a mistrial. And I was there with my fellow Rotarians watching this unfold." read more of what Bob has to say about being in Rotary...

back to top >>