July 1, 1955- June 30 1956

Attendance: 96.4%
New Members: 18
Members Lost: 12
Members end of the year: 152

The outgoing president, Len Wooton, was inducted into the Past President's Club with due ceremonies in a bridal procession, the "bride" Les Lewis, incoming president, dressed "fit to kill" as noted by the Apple Seed Editor.

Special arrangements were made for the first meeting, July 7th, whereby the chairman of each committee had his members seated at a special table so that they could discuss plans for the year's activities.

Classification talks were given by Dr. Ed Cadman on Orthopedic Surgery, Bud Gravette on Retail Credit Financing, Les Norlin on Hardware-Wholesale and Industrial and Dee Palmer on Wholesale Paper Products. It has been our experience that classification talks are considered some of our best programs.

On October 5th our District Governor, Bob Green, paid his official visit to the club.

Some of our outstanding programs were: Our "Wenatchee Chiefs" baseball team were our guests. Their manager, Edo Vanni, gave us a 15-minute running-fire talk on baseball and some very amusing incidents that occurred when he was playing in major league baseball; Rotarian Sam R. Sumner, Sr. a prominent lawyer of long standing, gave a forceful address on the U. S. Constitutional Convention. It made everyone appreciate the wonderful work our forefathers did in framing the Constitution of the United States; George Strandberg, Consulting Engineer for Stone & Webster, spoke on hydro-electric developments of the world with special emphasis on our own Rocky Reach Dam on the Columbia about 8-miles north of Wenatchee; Bob Richards, pole-vaulting champion and decathlon winner, gave a talk and said "all champions have the will to win;" John Morley, a columnist of international fame (he has completed 20 trips around the world) spoke to Rotarians and their Rotary Anns on the subject "After Hours."

Color slides and an accompanying talk by Gordon Lewis, son of our President, Les Lewis, of his trip with three other high school seniors through the Panama Canal, Trinidad, England, Holland, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy and Paris, France, furnished us with a fine panoramic view of those countries, the people, living conditions and major industries.

February 9th our guests were the 10 young ladies from Wenatchee High School chosen by the student body to compete in the finals for Apple Blossom Royalty. Rotary Anns Peggy Kells and Joan Vandivort were their chaperones. March 8th was Apple Blossom Royalty Day. Queen Jolly Ann Sachs and Princesses Carol Sutton and Trina Hansen each gave nice talks inviting all to come to the Festival.

June 14th, Flag Day, our featured speaker was George Alpiar of the Aplet-Cotlet Factory at Cashmere, Washington. He gave a very touching talk in appreciation for being allowed to become a citizen and said that naturalized citizens appreciate this better than native born Americans. How right he is.

All in all this was a fine Rotary year under Les as President. In his closing meeting he expressed his deep appreciation to all committees and general membership for the fine spirit of cooperation throughout the year.