Sandpoint Kiwanis marks 100 years of service

SANDPOINT — One hundred years ago, Sandpoint Kiwanis began its mission of serving the community's youth.

Today, local Kiwanis and community members are celebrating the organization's centennial celebration with a ceremony at Camp Stidwell.

Participating are groups connected to the Sandpoint club's beginnings as well as its present and future.

The Spokane Kiwanis Club, which sponsored the Sandpoint club in 1926, will be represented — which represents a full-circle-and-counting moment. Connecting the Sandpoint Kiwanis Club's origins and its future are the same bell and gavel presented to the local club by Phil Brooks, then president of the Spokane Kiwanis Club. The items are still used at the club's weekly meetings, Vail said.

Also taking part will be local Kiwanians; the Kiwanis district governor, John Flaherty; Janice Coquillard, Salvation Army; Phil Voelz, Boy Scout Troop 111; Chris DeForest, Inland Northwest Conservancy; and Shery Meekings and Stacey Mueller of Creations.

The celebration not only marks Sandpoint Kiwanis' deep roots in the community, but its continued dedication to serving the region's youth.

"It's basically what Kiwanis is all about," former club president Howard Simmons said in 2003.

A 1928 article in the Kellogg Evening News — roughly two years after the club was founded — describes the club as such:

"During that time, it has carved for itself a very definite niche in community life," the article headlined, "A good organization" and reciting a list of achievements from a camp for undernourished children, a Halloween party and its sponsorship of the county fair.

"Work such as this only can be accomplished through organization, and the Kiwanis Club has amply justified its existence the past year."

The list of founding members reads like a who's who of community leaders of the day. There are business leaders and education officials, there are physicians, clergy, federal and county officials and forest products representatives.

At its formation, dues were $8 annually and meals cost 50 cents.

A year after its founding, the club helped found the Bonner County Fair, according to club documents which include a newspaper clipping from the period.

The club would receive its charter in a May 1927 ceremony with representatives from Kiwanis clubs from throughout the region in attendance, according to media reports of the day. What followed would be an evening of celebration, feasting and song.

In other newspaper reports, the Sandpoint Kiwanis Club's involvement in the creation of the county faire are detailed. The clippings note the club solicited funds to defray the expense of the fair with the club having charge of all exhibits in the women's department from 1927 until 1942 when the fair was paused due to World War II.

"Realizing a fair would develop agriculture, the Kiwanis Club decided to foster such an activity with the hope that the fair would develop into a permanent institution," Vail said.

The fair is not the only organization which its origins connected to the Sandpoint Kiwanis Club. Boy Scout Troop 111 was first chartered by the Sandpoint Kiwanis in 1934 and the connection between the two remains strong.

Established in 1947, the club's Camp Stidwell at Mirror Lake is another example of its dedication to youth and the community. The camp had been established by a group of local residents who found it increasingly difficult to manage. In the early 1960s, the group reached out to Sandpoint Kiwanis with an offer: Would they be interested in taking over the site. 

Vail said the group offered to deed the 159-acre camp to the club if they continued to manage the city as a public park, by reservation, and to primarily benefit youth groups. By 1964, the club took over ownership of the camp and renamed it Camp Stidwell in recognition of Charlie Stidwell, a popular educator, Boy Scout scout master and longtime principal.

Since its founding, the camp has continued to grow, adding docks, activity areas, pavilions and an archery range.

"With all the numerous improvements of the facility, trails, bridges, docks, signage and a whole lot more, reservations now exceed 8,000 user days per year," Vail said. "And we have continued improvement on the drawing board."

The camp has become a go-to place for outdoor recreation with 8,400 user days a year — up from about 1,400 a few years ago.

In 2023, the Sandpoint Kiwanis Club and the Inland Northwest Land Conservancy entered into a conservation easement to protect and keep the property, in perpetuity, as a rustic camping experience for generations to come. Vail said previously that the easement protects the original intent and restricts subdivisions, commercial facilities and trailer parks, with the acreage remaining in the club's ownership. 

"Officials from the conservancy will visit and tour the property yearly to ensure the agreement is being observed and both sides are satisfied with how things are going," he said. "What can and cannot be done is spelled out in the easement. Even if the property changes hands in the future, any new owner will be bound by the conservation easement."

    A view of Mirror Lake from the docks at Camp Stidwell. In 2023, the Sandpoint Kiwanis Club signed a conservation easement with the Inland Northwest Land Conservancy to preserve the site's use as a rustic campground into the future.
  

    Young campers of the Sandpoint Kiwanis Club's Camp Stidwell try out the rafts they made by tying "noodles" together.
  

    Kiwanis Club members wear festive hats as they ring a bell to attract donations for the Salvation Army in December 2025.