As was presented by long-time member Herb Kroon at the Noon meeting on June 16, the Mankato Rotary has been around in some fashion since 1935 when it was chartered with 15 members. Thirty years earlier Paul Harris founded Rotary International. Judge Milt Mason was one of the first members and remained in the club until the early 1980s. Eventually, the club, like the area, grew and morphed into offshoots. The St. Peter club in 1938, the New Prague club in 1945, Waseca in 1960, and North Mankato in 1969.  At its peak in the late 1990s, the Mankato Rotary Club had more than 100 members, perhaps attributing to the fact that women were allowed to join in 1987 (prior to this the “wives” were in Rotary Auxilliary clubs). JO Guck Bailey and Denise Zernechel, current active club members, were among the first to join. Both would later become presidents, following the lead of the first female president Carol Larson in 1993.