Club Plays Key Role

I n all our community news coverage this year, we've overlooked an important landmark - a birthday. Waitsburg's venerable Commercial Club is more than a century old. Its current stationary lists its origin as 1912 and Waitsburg's "One Of A Kind" history indicates it dates back to 1911.

According to the book compiled by Vance Orchard and published by the Waitsburg Historical Society, a special meeting of the Improvement Club on March 18, 1911, brought an end to that entity and launched the Waitsburg Commercial Club.

At the time a small group began drafting bylaws, 106 members had signed up and on July 7, 1911, a big housewarming party was attended "by 200 men from Walla Walla, Dayton and Waitsburg." Bylaws were adopted and W.B. Shaffer was installed as the first president.

Its 2012 president is Joy Smith, owner of Hugs, Gifts & Collectibles on Main Street, who has brought enthusiasm and energy to the group.

Her tenure occurs at a time when the town's economy, like that of so many communities, is struggling and local leaders are wondering how the Commercial Club can optimize its relevance to the town's business community.

The Commercial Club is the closest thing Waitsburg has to a Chamber of Commerce and it performs some of a typical chamber's functions, particularly when it comes to the organization of local events, beautification projects and streetscape improvements such as Hometown Christmas, citywide cleanups, Waitsburg Parade, Preston Park Easter Egg Hunt, downtown Christmas lighting, and community signage and branding.

Though the club doesn't have a "store front" like the Day- ton chamber does, the organization sponsors and organizes numerous activities from which local businesses benefit. But it faces a challenge. Many of the members who have worked so hard and for so many years are getting older. The club needs new blood and new ideas to stay on the cutting edge of growth promotion.

It has been noted by some in the community that the club focuses more on social events and fellowship, and not enough on bringing new visitors or new events to town. From the list of sponsored events above, we'd beg to differ.

And it misses the point of the club's role as a catalyst for creative energy and new directions, which can only reflect the energy that goes into it. The more businesses join the club and support it with their vision and participation, the more it will mirror their ambitions for this town's commercial health.

The club is equally important as a forum. Where else but at the Commercial Club dinners would you get a first-hand, in-person update from the new managers of Ski Bluewood and their vision for the resort, which is a critical economic force in our valley, particularly in the slow winter months when Main Street merchants can use all the regional traffic they can get to keep their doors open.

Where else does the top official from the Port of Walla Walla come to bring news of its development of the new Waitsburg Business Park and the job-growth potential it has for this town.

It's true that some of these business-related visitors come before the city council or the Lions Club, but the format at those meetings is a bit different and the presentations gener- ally shorter.

In recent years, members of the Commercial Club, par- ticularly Larry and Deanne Johnson, Robbie Johnson, Jeff Broom, Karen Stanton Gregutt and now Joy Smith have recognized there's room to play up and strengthen the "com- mercial" in Commercial Club.

They came up with new ideas to improve the town's streetscape, among other activities, something for which the city itself, present and past councils, also deserve credit.

But they can't do it alone. We strongly suggest that if you own or operate a business or a service company in Waitsburg or if you're based in Dayton and have clients here, to take another look at the Commercial Club and help it stay on a growth path, to grab the torch that is passing to a new genera- tion. You'll be made to feel very welcome.