THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, October 2, 1994 TAG: 9410010119
SECTION: PORTSMOUTH CURRENTS PAGE: 12 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Cover Story
SOURCE: BY PHYLLIS SPEIDELL, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 165 lines
ATTENTION ALL EXHAUSTED roosters, the Portsmouth Jaycees are looking for you.
Exhausted rooster is the nickname traditionally, and affectionately, given to former members of the United States Junior Chamber of Commerce. On Wednesday, the Portsmouth chapter of the Junior Chamber of Commerce turned 50 years old and the current members are searching for chapter alumni.
A reunion has been planned for next Sunday, that will mark the 75th anniversary of the national organization as well as the 50th birthday of the local chapter. Not only do the Jaycees want to celebrate with their past members, they are hoping to retrieve some of the 50 years worth of memorabilia that has been scattered over the years with members.
For the first time, the Portsmouth Jaycees have a permanent headquarters. Located in the Williamsburg Shoppes on Tyre Neck Road in Churchland, the Jaycees' office suite is in the final stages of remodeling and has plenty of wall space to accommodate photos, plaques, and whatever historic souvenirs the group can gather.
Although no official history of the chapter has ever been compiled, the Jaycees' record of community service is impressive. Equally noteworthy is the large number of former Jaycees who have applied their Jaycee leadership training to continuing service in other civic groups, boards and commissions.
The most striking aspect of the Jaycees' accomplishments, however, might be the genuine enjoyment the members derive from their good works and the camaraderie they share.
Exhausted roosters remember the earliest days when they built hitchhiker huts along High Street and Airline Boulevard to shelter GIs trying to get a ride. They remember sponsoring the Miss Portsmouth competition, a preliminary to the Miss America pageant. They remember organizing and running the regional soap box derby races, first at the Norfolk Naval Shipyard and then at Mount Trashmore.
``We got into everything,'' Jack Barnes, former Jaycee and former mayor of Portsmouth, said with a chuckle.
Barnes and Les Fry, a former School Board chairman and owner of a local advertising agency, were among the earliest Jaycees in Portsmouth. Fry, a chapter founder, had been only 20 when he joined the Norfolk chapter of the Jaycees. ``Then I thought it would be more fun to have a chapter over here in Portsmouth,'' Fry said.
The Junior Chamber of Commerce was a young man's organization, with an age range of 21 to 35 which, in 1987, was extended to 39. ``Whatever you were going to do in life, you had to do by the time you were 35,'' Barnes said. ``That was the purpose of the Jaycees.''
But that was 1944, when many young men were on active military duty. ``We had a hard time rounding up members and had to count on people who were bordering on the age limit or who were 4-F or both,'' Fry said. Finally 37 men, some of whom had found that their youth made them less effective in other civic clubs, signed up.
Barnes was not one of the charter members but probably was one of the most enthusiastic Jaycees. ``I lived and breathed Jaycees,'' he said. When the chapter was formed, Barnes was in the Navy in the Pacific, but when he came home to Portsmouth in 1947, he joined the Jaycees immediately. ``It was started by some of the most prominent young men in Portsmouth,'' Barnes remembers. He, like most of the members, was attracted by the Jaycee goal of individual development through community service.
``The best thing about the Jaycees was the people you met and the friends you made, but the key was the leadership training program,'' he said.
By working on projects to benefit the community, Jaycees learn how to chair a committee, raise funds, and get things done.
The Jaycees prided themselves on creating imaginative fund-raisers whose proceeds were used to benefit individuals in need as well as charitable causes.
Back in the early '50s they brought a traveling water show to Lawrence Stadium, complete with a water ballet and performing dolphins.
They also built stables under the stadium bleachers and sponsored a horse show for three years. ``The first year we did well, but we lost money the next two years so we quit that,'' Fry said.
For the last 10 years the Jaycees have created an elaborate but temporary Halloween haunted forest that sends shivers down the spines of thousands of visitors and raises about $10,000 annually for Jaycees' charitable work.
With proceeds from the annual haunted forest project and Christmas tree sales, the Jaycees support Camp Virginia (a state Jaycee sponsored camp for disabled adults and children). Locally they lend their volunteer and financial support to the Muscular Dystrophy Association, Easter Seal campaign, the Seawall Festival, the Adopt-a-Highway program, and a variety of other causes and needy individuals.
Forty years ago, the Jaycees ushered in the Christmas season with an outdoor Christmas party for the city's children at the intersection of High and Court streets. Jaycee volunteers supplied the movement behind lifesize plywood reindeer that pranced around the edge of the Hotel Monroe roof while searchlights focused on Santa Claus descending via a fire truck ladder to the street where he distributed candy to the children.
In 1964, the chapter raised $30,000 to buy the Pokey Smokey, a working scale model of a 19th century steam engine that still runs. Jaycees volunteered their labor to lay the tracks and afterward, to drive the train.
From the beginning the Junior Chamber of Commerce was exclusively a male organization, although wives often joined auxiliaries. In Portsmouth the Jay-C-ettes were formed in the mid-'50s. ``They were there solely to support their husbands in the Jaycees because when the men were in Jaycees, that was their life,'' Carole Masters said. She was an active Jay-C-ette during the '60s when, she remembers, community service was an expected and important part of many young families' lives.
``Back then the group was very close and most of our friends came from the Jaycees,'' she said.
In 1984, the bylaws of the national Junior Chamber of Commerce were changed, allowing women to join the Jaycees as full and regular members. Today, almost half of the 37 Portsmouth Jaycees are women, a ratio that reflects the national membership that is split evenly between men and women.
In 1991, Karen Virginia Fittler became the first female president of the Portsmouth chapter. Sonya Carr, the chapter's current president, is one of six female Jaycee presidents in the eastern Virginia region.
As the Jaycees' membership grew, new chapters were formed in Cradock and Olde Towne. The Cradock chapter has since disbanded and the Olde Towne chapter merged back into the Portsmouth Jaycees, fostering rumors that the Jaycees movement was dead in Portsmouth. Not so, Carr emphasized. ``We are still around and need more community awareness of what we actually do,'' she said. MEMO: REUNION
A Jaycee reunion reception will be held Oct. 9, at the Holiday Inn
Portsmouth at 3 p.m. All Jaycees, former Jaycees and Jay-C-ettes and
their families are invited to attend at a cost of $5 each. For
reservations, call Jack Barnes, 488-6465, Lee Inman, 465-1045, or Clyde
Brown, 393-0519
HOW THE JAYCEES STARTED
The Jaycee movement started in 1919 in St. Louis, where a young
banker, Henry Giessenbier, and a group of his friends realized that in
order to advance in their careers they needed experience in planning,
budgeting, training, communications, and supervision.
They decided to focus on community improvement projects as a way to
develop their management skills and when they banded together in a club,
the Jaycees movement was born.
Because the St. Louis Chamber of Commerce offered them their first
meeting place, the club adopted the name Junior Chamber of Commerce and
within five months grew from 32 to 750 members. More than 20 million
people have joined the Jaycees since, including President Bill Clinton
and former presidents George Bush, Ronald Reagan, Gerald Ford, and
Richard Nixon.
In the United States, membership has seen a slight decline since its
peak in the mid-'70s, but there are still more than 170,000 members
nationally. Since 1984 when women were permitted to join, their numbers
have increased to 50 percent of the total membership. Internationally,
the Junior Chmber of Commerce has active chapters in 88 countries.
ILLUSTRATION: Color photo on cover
Staff photos by MARK MITCHELL
Jack Barnes, left, and Les Fry were two of the earliest members of
the Jaycees in Portsmouth.
The chapter's bell.
Jack Barnes, a former Jaycee and mayor of Portsmouth, looks over the
charter for the organization and chats with Lee Inman, a current
member.
The poster Jack Barnes used in his 1956 bid for president of the
Jaycees.
KEYWORDS: PORTSMOUTH JUNIOR CHAMBER OF COMMERCE HISTORY ANNIVERSARY
PORTSMOUTH JAYCEES by CNB