Club History

In 1958 we moved to our present location, here at The Rogue Valley Country Club.

"Over the years I have attended 11 RI conventions. At each one, I would drop by the Music Fellowship booth, in the House of Friendship, and inquire if they knew of any other Rotary club in the world that had a song that was written just for them. The answer was always NO. I always sang our song for them and they were impressed. The original was composed by a Medford Rotarian about one year after he joined our club. His name was Richard Werner who joined our club in Nov 1946. He taught students how to play different musical instruments. It was lost when the file cabinet, that I mentioned previously, was emptied. I had my daughter, Debra Anker, who has a Master’s Degree in music, make a new copy. She has a computer program that writes the music score as she plays on a keyboard. I sang the song once and then she played the key board. I then had her put in the words. We just put down the first verse. Most of you don’t even know that the song contains a second verse. I can’t remember it either." -- Robert Butler, Club Historian

The Medford Rotary Relays track meet began in partnership with high school coach Bill Bowerman, who later went on to coach at University of Oregon and co-founded Nike. This unique and very popular event continues today.