“Gone are the days when the preacher’s face was long.
Gone are the days when he dare not sing a song;
Now we are come to a better, brighter age,
When we have preachers who are men, like Parson Myers.”
So sang the Kiwanians celebrating the second anniversary of “Baby Kiwanians” at the Red Men’s banquet hall in the Savings Bank Building Friday night.
For Parson Myers, who is listed on the roster of the North Carolina Methodist Conference as Rev. H.E. Myers, pastor of Duke Memorial Church, Durham, and who was for four years pastor of the City Road Methodist Church of this city, was the first president of the Elizabeth City Kiwanis Club and the club celebrated its second anniversary by inviting him to be with the club as its guest of honor on this occasion and to make the only speech on the evening’s program.
“I have served four charges in my work in the ministry,” Mr. Myers told the Kiwanians, “and I have rather made it a point not to return to those fields when I have been called away from them. But your invitation that I be here tonight came to me, I think, as to a friend rather than as to a preacher, and I came as a friend who appreciates friendship.”
The speaker then sketched the early history of Kiwanis in Elizabeth City, mentioning Cliff Sawyer, Claude Williams, Clarence Pugh and Cam Melick as among those who had first become inoculated with the Kiwanis spirit in Elizabeth City and who had spread the infection until the Elizabeth City Kiwanis Club celebrated its charter night. Smiles came to every face as he indulged in a few reminiscences of that historic night, June 2, 1922, when he himself was the recipient of a bouquet “too large for a corsage for Boush Leigh with a huge cabbage as its centerpiece.” He sketched the growth of the club, set forth what he conceived to be its ideal and reviewed some of its accomplishments.
“You fellows have been working in no unselfish manner,” he said, “to build a better community through creating a better spirit in your community. While I was your president you held up my hands in a way that was an inspiration. For what was accomplished, yours is the glory, not mine.
“There are as fine men in the Rotary Club as there are in the Kiwanis. Outside of each club there are men as fine spirited and as unselfish as there are in either of them. All are working on the ideal that the way to build a better city is first to build a better civic spirit in it, a spirit that submerges selfish interest to the common good. Then through the better spirit comes a greater measure of material prosperity as a by-product.”
C.R. Pugh referred t by Kiwanian President Sawyer as “the best program leader in North Carolina Kiwanis,” had charge of the anniversary night program, one of the features of which was lifting an American flag draped over a chair to disclose seated therein as the youngest guest of the evening “Baby Kiwanis” herself. Numerous prizes were awarded during the program, and the usual think in the way of songs and good fellowship prevailed., The feast was served by the degree of Pocahontas and Miss Katharine Spence was introduced as the newly elected accompanist of the club.
The Kiwanis quartet, which has a more than statewide fame, was right on the job and quite up to its usual high standard, despite the fact that Harry Kramer lost his voice on the recent trip to New York, and brought the assemblage to vociferous applause when it sang a special number “We’re Crazy About You, Parson Myers.” Kiwanians smiled broadly when Kiwanis President Sawyer hinted that nobody knew what else Harry Kramer had lost in New York and even more broadly when the president told them that Harold Foreman, Caruso of the quartet, had deferred having his tonsils removed in order that he might not jeopardize his being able to sing with the quartet for the occasion—though Phill insisted it was no joke.
A suspicious circumstance about the drawing of prizes was that almost all of them went to the same table and Bryan Combs got a new straw lid that just suited him and was a perfect fit.
From the front page of the Elizabeth City Daily Advance, Saturday, May 17, 1924
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