Remarks by Wick Rowland, RCN President

Memorial Bench Dedication Ceremony

Niwot Market

December 16, 2023

Bert Steele and the Rotary Club of Niwot

The link between Bert and Rotary was organic and probably inevitable; so, our contribution to this memorial is natural and easy.

The Rotary motto is “Service above Self,” and Bert Steele was a living embodiment of that commitment.

Rotary was founded in Chicago in 1905 by Paul Harris, an attorney with, what for the times was, a remarkably progressive set of ideas about the role and social responsibilities of business and the professions.

Harris and his colleagues believed strongly in the dual notions of professional fellowship and unselfish voluntary service. They and their immediate successors quickly established a credo that centered on promoting three goals:

High ethical standards in their businesses and professions,
Application of the ideal of service in each Rotarian’s personal, business and community life, and
Advancing international understanding and peace through united service efforts.

These standards struck a strong chord in the first half of the 20^th century. As a result, Rotary quickly grew nationally and internationally, and now over a century later it is composed of 46,000 clubs worldwide and a global membership of nearly 1.5 million.

Along the way, Rotary set the model for the service club movement that led to the founding of other similar organizations, such as the Lions, Optimists and Kiwanis.

Rotary came to Colorado quickly, with the founding of the state’s first club in Denver in 1911 and soon thereafter in the 1920s with clubs in Boulder and Longmont.

There are now over 50 Rotary clubs in the Denver Metro region and six in the Boulder Valley alone. The most junior of those is the RCN, and that’s where the tie to Bert comes in.

Bert was part of that visionary group of Niwot leaders, many of whom are here today, who saw opportunities for the growth of a forward-thinking culture of business and civic activity in Niwot.

That commitment had led to the founding of the NCA and NBA in the 1990s and early 2000’s, and along with several other local leaders, Bert saw that Niwot was now ready to embrace the Rotary movement. So, in 2008-09 he, along with Eli Buzas and several others, chartered the RCN.

Having Bert involved at the outset was crucial to creating the Club’s operating philosophy around the Rotary goals of community service, and over time he was instrumental in helping the Club expand and sustain its activities into such things as Oktoberfest and our peaches fundraising project.

As a result, the Club prospered and established a foothold in the community, with a dynamic membership that has expanded to 35 strong and a wide range of service projects including food and winter coat drives, and high school award, community recognition and global water sanitation programs.

Others here have spoken about Bert’s broader role in Niwot, and in Rotary he also was admired as someone who was always there to help and to bring people together.

We saw him as cast in the mold of a true Rotarian -- as someone who quietly, selflessly had our backs, and who managed to get things done on behalf of the entire community.

In retrospect it has occurred to me that, although separated by a full century, Bert Steele and Rotary’s founder, Paul Harris, were both very much cut from the same cloth and would have greatly enjoyed each other’s company. They both understood the meaning of “Service above Self.” So, we are very proud to continue to claim Bert as one of our own and to help celebrate his memory here today.