Rotary's Founders: Gustavus “Gus” Loehr, Silvester Schiele, Hiram Shorey and Paul Harris

It’s always fun to trumpet out extremely good news. Therefore, with great pleasure, I want to congratulate the Rotary Club of Alpharetta on becoming a million-dollar club in Foundation giving. It is truly quite a feat! Achieving this in 43 years as a club is a tremendous achievement. They have made an outstanding difference as a club, for our district and Rotary International. A hearty and deserved congratulations!!

As it would happen, I am writing this newsletter on February 23, 2026. A perfect date to do so as it is the anniversary of our founding. Happy 120th Birthday Rotary!! We were officially founded on February 23, 1905, in the Unity Building in Chicago, Il. by attorney Paul Harris. The initial Rotary Club of Chicago included four members who you see in the photo to the left of this article. They are from left to right: Gustavus “Gus” Loehr, Silvester Schiele, Hiram Shorey and Paul Harris.

These three business associates Paul brought together to form Rotary came from a variety of backgrounds. Silvester Schiele was a client of Paul’s and was a coal dealer. It was with Silvester that Paul first shared the idea of a new kind of club for professionals. From that conversation Rotary was started and became the world’s first service organization with Harris being named the first president of what would evolve into what we now know as Rotary International. Silvester was the first president of the Rotary Club of Chicago. “Gus “Loehr was a mining engineer, and it was in his office on the seventh floor of the Unity Building on Dearborn Street that the four met on February 23^rd. Because of deteriorating health, Gus was forced to leave the club but remained a strong supporter until his death at age 53. Hiram Shorey was an invited guest to that first meeting by Gus. Hiram was a merchant tailor and is recognized as a founding member, though he only remained in the club for a very short time before he moved back to his home State of Maine. When he returned to Chicago sometime later, he rejoined the club briefly though he always remained a strong supporter of the Rotary cause.

I hope this short journey down our historical memory lane was as fun for you as it was for me researching and writing it. Join me in wishing our Rotary family a very Happy 120th Birthday!

Let me shift gears now in closing this article to the PELS meeting held in Atlanta. By the time you read this, we will have already had our PELS meeting as it runs from Feb. 28 to March 1. For those of you who might not be familiar with PELS, it stands for President-Elect Learning Seminars. As the title suggests, it is primarily for incoming club Presidents, however others certainly can and do attend. It is required that the President-Elects do attend this two-day seminar where they all come together to meet the District Leadership Team for Rotary year 2026/2027.

Much is learned at these sessions in terms of strategies along with developing personal relationships with the district leadership. However, many of them will say a key benefit is getting to know their counterparts in other clubs whom they can call on for additional thoughts, ideas and see what is working in other clubs. One of the key focuses of this year’s sessions was making sure the clubs don’t look at each other as competitors but rather as resources for each other and looking more at rating themselves based on how they have done in the past and working to always raise the bar in their own club. In the sessions they work to plan out their year working side by side with each other and hand in hand with the district leadership there to assist them. They also get to develop a close bond with their Assistant Governors, who are always there ready and willing to assist them. It is an extremely valuable time for these PE’s, meaningful to making their PE year successful, but also helping them plan for a successful year as Club President which in turn is vital to the overall Rotary organization.

In addition to meeting the Leadership at the district level, they also were treated to a few fun surprise guests. It is a fun and exciting two-day session, one I hope those of you reading this will aspire to in the future. It’s truly worth the experience.

If I can personally assist you in any way, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me via cell or email. I’m here to help and together we will….Unite for good!