V.P. Canaday Leads By Example
March 1, 2007

A surprise visit by Kiwanis International V.P. Donald Canaday to our club last Thursday drew a large crowd of members and a number of guests including Canaday’s wife Linda, as well as Lt. Gov. Elect Tony Smith, Steve Shaffer, Doris Martin, Claudia Sprinkle, and Tim Buchannan, who presented several Bristol Sesquicentennial items to Canaday.

He was introduced by Lt. Gov. Mark Stokes who mentioned that they had been over to Mt. City to recruit members for a brand new club and already signed up 17 members. Not too bad! Canaday, who will be the President of Kiwanis in two years, has served as the governor of his district in Indiana and been a member of Kiwanis for 37 years. He retired from the marines as a Brigadier General and doesn’t appear to be slowing down.

General Canaday talked about our 87 year old club and how many people’s lives have been touched that we don’t even know about. He told a story of his wife’s father, who received a small scholarship from the Kiwanis, which led to a distinguished career in the navy and eventually retirement as a Vice Admiral.

He said Kiwanis has set an ambitious goal of 1 million members by 2015, which means we need to have about 750,000 new members. He stressed the importance of growth. It equals service so that we can affect more lives. His dream is that Kiwanis will grow so that no child will have to walk alone. As Kiwanis grows so will service to the community. We need to form new Key Clubs as well, because they are the leaders of tomorrow.

Gen. Canaday wants us to work to promote the new club in Mt. City. He already has talked to the high school principal there who is very interested in forming a Key Club in her high school. He went on to explain another Kiwanis program for kids, called BUG, or Bring Up Grades. It is primarily for kids with little hope of making the honor roll, to give recognition to under-achievers when then make improvement in their grades. Canaday has already gotten four elementary schools in Mt. City to use the BUG program, so the new Kiwanis Club will have a project from the beginning.

Malcolm is very impressed with Gen. Canaday and says with using his recruiting techniques, we can’t help but gain a lot of new members. Thanks for your visit, General, and come back and see us.

Back to Fundraisers/Projects