EARLY DAYS OF THE MERCURY CLUB
BY ROBERT M. BEACHY
The Mercury Club was founded originally in 1920 as a local Lions club.
The members soon grew tired of the rules and regulations imposed by the
national organization and broke away, and renamed the club the Mercury Club.
It looks like this happened sometime in the 1940’s or early 50’s. From its
early days, the club distained rules and regulations. Although it was nearly
always made up of business leaders in Kansas City, the business roles of the
various members were down played considerably.
The club was intended to appeal to more mature business leaders and, in fact,
there was a limitation placed on special treatment of members under age 40.
When I joined in 1978, I was the youngest member by at least one year at the
ripe old age of 32. My father congratulated me on joining the club which he
had belonged to for eleven years, with a comment that he was glad to see some
younger people joining because he thought it might become a last man’s club.
At that time the essential strength of the club lay in men of my father’s
generation, many of whom had served in important positions within the
community, as well as having spent a year as president of the Mercury Club.
Virtually all of those men were in their 60s at the time and, lamentably,
very few are still alive. It was a pretty lively group in spite of their age,
although they all comported themselves as gentlemen in the best sense of that
word.
Fred Brady epitomized that group which also included Bill Scott, Bill Smith,
John Ruddy, Dick Newlin, Charlie Schmelzer, Dave Newcomer, Ed Biggar, Bill
Grant, Paul Henson, Tom and Jack Robinson, Jim Kemper and Herman Sutherland.
Among many others, these were all a part of “America’s Finest Generation.”
They had been through Depression, war and financial and social success. They
were pretty much a fun bunch of GENTLEMEN.
At that time in the 70s, we were going through a stretch when the next age
group down was serving as presidents, and that brought us such terrific
presidents as Woody Davis, Dusty Millage, Charlie Horner, By Schutz, etc. At
the time there was an unwritten rule that you had to be a member of the club
for 10 years before you could serve as president. Attendance was regularly in
the low 50s, and a particularly good speaker like George Brett would bring
out 65 members for lunch.
At that time most of us officed downtown and we, therefore, could afford the
luxury of a nice long lunch with a good speaker since there was virtually no
travel time involved. During that time frame, the speakers were truly
excellent, and it would not be uncommon to have the very top level business
leaders in the community speak to the group.
For that matter, many of those top level business leaders were members,
although a lot of them did not attend regularly. An exception might be Elmer
Pierson, the past president of Vendo, who came virtually every Tuesday and
Taylor Abernathy, chairman of First National Bank, who never missed a
Tuesday. Although these gentlemen rarely missed a speaker, due to their
advanced age, they rarely stayed awake for the speech. There were always one
or two tables of these really old guys who were entertaining to lunch with,
but then you had to try to listen to the speaker through their snoring.
Members like Jim Kemper, Herman Sutherland, Bob Wagstaff and Paul Hensen did
not attend too often, but certainly lent stature to the roster. One of the
traditions that existed when I joined was the system of fines for mentioning
your company’s name. The treasurer, who was called the “revenuer”, would
promptly present himself with his hand out and expect a $1 fine any time you
mentioned your company’s name.
The Welfare Fund was originally established in 1924 for the purpose of aiding
handicapped children. About that time R.J. Delano was president of the club.
The Delano school later became named after him and an annual beneficiary of
the club’s attentions. It is probably no accident that Mr. Delano’s son in
law, Herman Sutherland became involved with children’s health issues and has
served for many, many years as one of the guiding lights of Children’s Mercy
Hospital.
An Adjunct of the hospital itself evolved to be what was known as the
Crippled Children’s Nursery, which has been the principal recipient of
Mercury Club funds for decades. Now it is known as the Children’s TLC and
there is strong consideration within the present day Board of the Mercury
Club and the welfare fund to make it the exclusive recipient of our largesse.
In 1974 we became worried about the tax deductibility of contributions to the
fund and so a separate Welfare Fund Trust was established and it obtained a
tax exemption under Section 501(c)(3), making contributions tax deductible.
The Welfare Fund was funded through the proceeds of the Bingo games and
“fines.” Even though the Bingo ante was only a dime, we always raised over
$10,000.
It was a common practice when a member of the Mercury Club died for many of
his friends or admirers to make a contribution to the Welfare Fund in memory
of the deceased member, or a member who had been accorded some honor or
recognition.
At the end of the year, a call went out for those who were of a charitable
demeanor to make a contribution. At that point Bill Deramus would come
through with his check for about $10,000, so we could always meet our goal.
It was a blow to the fund when Bill died, but the members have gradually
brought the annual level back up.
The club always had the wonderful tradition of providing a turkey dinner with
boxes of candy each Christmas for the children at the Delano School. Although
Lou Ward never mentioned it, a number of people felt that he just might have
been behind the Russell Stover candy that Bud Mackey handed out every
Christmas in his Santa Claus suit. Only Bud could say how many years he has
sweated inside that suit and held those precious kids in his lap as he handed
out the presents and listened to the whoops of joy. It ought to be a
requirement that all first year Mercurians go to this event to carve turkey
and get an adjustment to your heartstrings.
Some of us go back almost every year. David Newcomer usually brings his wife
and kids. It is an amazing way to enhance your enjoyment of the holiday
season and feel real good about being in Mercury Club.
Another tradition, which continues to the present, is Bingo. I have always
thought it was a hoot to see some of the city’s most distinguished business
leaders locked in absolute concentration on a single game of Bingo. The
prizes for many years were actually brought by the members themselves.
Responsibility for the prizes was rotated through the Membership
alphabetically. For those who didn’t want to bring their own prize, you might
win a $10 gift certificate from Jack Henry’s, which would just about cover
the cost of a pair of socks. After Ernie Dick from Jack Henry’s died, the
club switched the certificates to Woolf Brothers. Eventually Tom Carpenter
from Woolf Brothers also quit the club and we changed to a plaza gift bond.
We had two social events every year, the golf tournament and the dinner
dance. As for the golf tournament, it was always held at Mission Hills
Country Club, or the Kansas City Country Club, and was followed by a lot of
drinks, some remarks by the tennis players who did not happen to play golf,
and a spirited poker game in which Bud Mackey always served as the banker,
and old Frank Bolin usually was the principal winner.
There were also some games of gin rummy where Marsh Douthat and I sat down as
partners and played Bob Esrey and Jim Lacy and learned exactly how fast you
can lose $20 in penny a point gin rummy. Eventually the social calendar was
expanded to include a pig roast at the farm of member Jay Olander. This
rapidly became a favorite event and the members anxiously looked forward to
the first full moon in August when Jay would spiff up the pigs and Morgan
would sharpen a stick at both ends. He would perform his magic over a
barbeque pit for many hours so that the hog was ready for eating about an
hour after the guests arrived.
Inasmuch as Morgan was an American Royal Barbeque champion, the fixin’s were
always fabulous. Jay would have his son in law, who was warden at the
penitentiary, order a cake for dessert from jail so some of us had familiar
tasting food.
When I joined the club in 1978, the meetings were always held in the wine
room of the Kansas City Club, on the fourth floor. Before that, under the
guidance of club Secretary Russ Rine, the club met in a basement level room
at the Hotel Muelbach, but in February of 1977, when it moved, everyone
seemed to feel that the Kansas City Club venue was superior in a number of
ways. Most of you will remember that we later moved down to the second floor
into a bigger room, even though our attendance began to slip down to an
average in the 40’s.
The bylaws at that time limited the membership in the club to 150 people, but
made a special provision that the club could also have 10 members under age
40. When I joined, the next youngest members were Steve Soden, Barry
Richardson and Pete Newcomer, none of whom attended on a regular basis. Steve
and I began to put up some of our friends for membership in the club and I
surmise that a large number of the club’s present members have evolved from
our endeavors.
When I became president in 1988, I noted that, although the club still had
150 members, the same number as it had in 1978 when I joined, the membership
had changed in that there had been 90 new members added during that 10-year
time frame. During that time the club embarked on a mission to recruit good,
middle-aged or younger members who owned their own businesses.
Although Sodden did not attend much, he nominated Fred Coulson for membership
and for a number of years Fred and I would each be responsible for five or
six people a year joining the club. At that time we developed a large core of
baby boomer members, many of whom still belong today.
During that era, the club was managed by a delightful retired gentleman named
Ken Spry, who had been in the military for awhile, and then served as
Executive Director of the Muscular Dystrophy, or Multiple Sclerosis
Foundation. Ken was very organized and never missed a Tuesday for many, many
years. He kept strict attendance records and could provide you figures at the
end of the year as to how many luncheons each member had attended. This was
extremely useful information in selecting officers and directors for the
ensuing year.
Ken also supervised the recruitment of speakers. He would prod the member
whose responsibility it was to obtain a speaker and a lot of times would give
him a name or names of someone who might be a good speaker. He would remind
us each year if we had not had anyone speak from the Royals, or the Chiefs,
or the International Affairs Council. At that time each board member was
responsible for obtaining speakers for one month during the year. Although we
continue this tradition, it is done without the watchful eye of Ken Spry who
would remind us that we had a speaker that was too similar last year or that
we hadn’t heard from a particular source for some time. It seemed that Ken
was always thinking about the Mercury Club, and so his thoughts were helpful
in countless little ways. He provided the corporate memory and continuity
that is invaluable to any organization and did it all as a low profile
gentleman.
In those days we did have a membership screening process under which the
names of prospective members were vetted by a membership committee and then
circulated to all of the rest of the people in their particular profession
for comment and feedback to the secretary before they were voted upon by the
board of directors. For that reason, occasionally a highly qualified person
would not be voted into the club because there was already a member of his
firm of about the same age in the club.
Each year we would have a big Christmas celebration in conjunction with the
annual meeting that always featured eggnog, spiked, and otherwise. We usually
had a local youth choir sing a few songs of the holiday season, a tradition
which some of us miss today. This was the one time a year when members like
Herman Sutherland and Paul Henson might show up.
This was followed the next week by the after Christmas lunch for the members,
as well as their children and grandchildren. Wives and in-laws were
rigorously excluded from this event unless their fathers had been Mercury
Club members. We never wanted them to get their mitts on those precious
silver dollars.
The club remains today a worthy symbol of those who have gone before. The
membership carries forward the traditions of community leadership and
service. We must never forget, however, the duty we owe ourselves and our
predecessors to keep the Mercury Club the most esteemed luncheon club in the
city.
LeShelle Moorman
Mercury Club Administrator
Phone: 816-8764940
Email: mercuryclub.kansascity@yahoo.com
