Newspaper columnist comes home to Kiwanis

What a difference a day makes.

Gary Stutzman was a Kiwanian in Aurora, Illinois, when his journalism career moved him to Oregon. Unfortunately, his new job as managing editor and columnist for Oregon’s Hillsboro Argus newspaper left no room for Kiwanis. Not at first, anyway. The Hillsboro Kiwanis club, which invited Gary to a meeting as guest speaker (and, of course, to join the club) meets Tuesday evenings.

“I had to decline the invitation,” Gary wrote in an Argus column highlighting his experience of rejoining Kiwanis. “That was when the Argus was a Tuesday/Thursday afternoon paper, meaning I had late nights each production day Mondays and Wednesdays. … I couldn’t add a late Tuesday night to the mix. I simply didn’t want to do that to my wife. However, I remember saying if anything ever changed, I’d love to be a Kiwanian again.”

Gary is a man of his word; because when things did change two years later, and the Argus switched to a Tuesday/Friday morning publication—allowing Kiwanis to fit into his schedule—he became a Hillsboro Kiwanian.

“Kiwanis was a big part of my life in Illinois,” Gary says. “ I wanted to get back into community service, and I felt the need to be part of a service club again.”

And, as he wrote in his column, “When I began to speak to the Kiwanians that Tuesday night not so long ago, I said, ‘This is very special for me, because I was a Kiwanian in Illinois. I’ve come home.”