By DAVID GUNTER

Feature correspondent

SANDPOINT — Looked at through the lens of pop culture, the year 1966 had its share of highlights. For one, “The Sound of Music” walked away with numerous Oscars, including one for Best Picture. On television, the soon-to-be-legendary show “Star Trek” aired for the first time, while The Beatles hit the stage at Candlestick Park for what would be their last live performance.

Here at home, the news was its usual mix of the mundane and the material, but for one very important thing that took place five decades ago — Sandpoint Rotary was formed, beginning a half-century of service that has shaped this community.

“It’s the big 5-0,” said Dyno Wahl, incoming president for the organization, who begins her term on July 1.

According to current president Pierce Smith, the group will definitely be around to celebrate hitting the century mark 50 years from now.

“I’m sure that 50 years ago, they thought, ‘How long will this last?’” he said. “In Rotary, we don’t rest on our laurels — we’re always looking toward what we can do to help tomorrow.”

On May 14, Sandpoint Rotary will celebrate this milestone with the theme: “50 Years and We’ve Only Just Begun.”

Steve Verby, immediate past-president, points all the way back to that first year as the reason the group has been so long-lived and effective. With 22 charter members, Rotary launched Club No. 251 here under the leadership of first president Wally Staglund. At the time, two young men named Dar Cogswell and Jack Parker signed on to become Rotarians.

“Dar was 36 and Jack was 33,” Verby said. “And they’ve been continual members this whole time.”

Today, Sandpoint Rotary has nearly 80 members who, perhaps more than in any other community organization, represent the cultural DNA of the community.

“They come from all walks of life,” said Smith, noting that he, Verby and Wahl hail from the finance and accounting, judicial and arts administration worlds, respectively. Other members come from career fields that include doctors, lawyers, educators and architects, to name only a few.

Over its 50-year history, Sandpoint Rotary has developed a membership roster that is more gender diverse and age-inclusive than the national average.

“Our youngest member is 32 years old and our oldest member is 95,” said Smith, adding that the local club also has 35 percent female membership, versus the national average of 20 percent.

Apart from those distinguishing metrics, the club is closely aligned with its fellow organizations around the world, Verby pointed out.

“Rotary members are business, professional and community leaders,” he said. “It’s essentially a network of community volunteers.”

And that, more than anything, might be what sets Rotary apart. In hometowns large and small — and on every continent across the globe — the organization has made it a point to make a difference. Truly remarkable has been its successful push to eradicate polio around the world.

When Rotary International launched that initiative in 1985, more than 1,000 children per day were still contracting the dread disease. Since then, the group has earmarked $1.5 billion for immunization, touching the lives of more than 2.5 billion children in more than 130 countries in the process. The results have not been lost on the nations and foundations that also have thrown their weight — and their money — behind the cause.

“Rotary’s advocacy has played a role in getting many donor countries involved,” said Verby, adding that the most recent ally in the fight against polio has been the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which has pledged $2 for every $1 raised by Rotary.

As Sandpoint Rotary celebrates its 50th, the international organization can rightfully claim its leadership position in turning what was once a global scourge — in the 1940s and ’50s polio was responsible for paralyzing or killing half a million people every year — into a disease that many young people aren’t aware ever existed.

“This year, only six cases of polio have been reported in just two countries,” Smith said.

Elsewhere on the international front, Rotary invests heavily in the areas of clean water initiatives, mothers’ health and international conflict resolution.

Closer to home, Club No. 251 has mobilized its members for everything from the annual cleanup of the Long Bridge walking path to fighting childhood hunger through its support for Food For Our Children, funding causes that help older citizens through the Sandpoint Senior Center, partnering with the First Presbyterian Church to build a safety fence for the Habitat for Humanity neighborhood in Kootenai, building benches in parks and along trails, funding the public rest rooms near the clock tower at Jeff Jones Town Square, building the band shell over the stage at Farmin Park and the providing stairs to access the boardwalk along Sand Creek.

“We could go on and on,” said Verby. “A lot of people don’t know about these projects, because we don’t crow about them.”

“We’re called on to be partners and we try to help the community in as many ways as possible,” Wahl said, listing the city of Sandpoint, the Sandpoint Arts Commission, Idaho Commission on the Arts and the Sandpoint Urban Renewal Agency as some of the partnerships involved.

Elsewhere in its local work, the club has helped to fund the “pooper scooper” equipment that picks up goose excrement on the grass and sand at City Beach — thereby removing a public health hazard — and, on a far loftier note, is the sponsoring organization for the annual Chafe 150 ride to raise awareness and provide education about autism.

“In the past three years, the ride has raised $110,000 (for autism),” Smith said. “That’s money that has been used to train teachers in our school district.”

That kind of financial outlay would have been unthinkable back in 1966, just as Sandpoint Rotary’s current scholarship totals might have seemed out of reach to the original charter members. In 1966, the club started the program with a total of $300. This year, the group will hand out $16,000 in scholarships.

Rotarians share some common touchstones, no matter where their clubs might be located. The group was formed in Evanston, Ill., in 1905, leading to the motto “Service Before Self” and, a few years later, the creation of the now-famous Four-Way Test, which asks members to approach virtually any life situation by asking: Is it the truth? Is it fair to all concerned? Will it build goodwill and better friendships? Is it beneficial to all concerned?

Fifty years on, Smith is about to hand the helm over to Wahl after a term he has come to call “the year of youth,” based on the club’s work to support literacy in the schools, childhood nutrition through Food For Our Children and the partnership with Sandpoint High School’s Interact Club, which this year donated hundreds of books to Kinderhaven and raised more than $500 to buy dictionaries for schools in India.

Wahl plans to take a similar course during her year as president.

“A huge focus in my year will be literacy — getting books into the hands of kids,” the incoming president said, adding that Sandpoint Rotary will continue its partnership with The Village Green Project and Book Trust to expand the outreach to grades 1-3 next year.

With more than 34,000 clubs and 1.2 million members worldwide, Rotary has seen explosive growth since the 251st club formed here in 1966. And though the organization now serves more than 200 countries and regularly tackles some of the world’s toughest problems, its heart can always be found at the hometown level.

“All Rotary clubs make a huge difference in the communities they serve,” said Wahl, who already is making plans for the district meeting that will welcome about 300 Rotarians from 58 clubs located from the Tri-Cities to British Columbia when Sandpoint hosts the gathering in 2018. “If Rotary did not exist, I can’t even imagine the hole that there would be in so many places around the world.”

Sandpoint Rotary meets every Wednesday at noon at Tango Café, located in the Columbia Bank building.

The group’s 50th anniversary celebration is scheduled for May 14, also at Tango Café. Doors open at 5:30 p.m. for the event, which will feature and no-host bar and live music by the Swing Street Combo. Tickets are $50 per person, available in advance by e-mailing: sandpointrotary@gmail.com and leaving contact information and the number of tickets needed.

Information: www.facebook.com/sandpointrotary