Rotary in Anaheim First in County to Induct Woman

One member issued a respectful protest Thursday, but then Mary Lou Phillips was inducted into the Anaheim Rotary Sunrise Club, the first Orange County woman to join the international businessmen’s service club.

The member wanted it known that the vote to admit Phillips was not unanimous and that he believed women did not belong in Rotary, according to observers.

“It’s because of men like that that I almost didn’t come in. I don’t want to offend him. He has a right to those feelings,” said Phillips, 62, a widow of a Rotarian and a reluctant trailblazer.

Not Belligerent

“I hope to be able to prove to him that women have a place in Rotary. But I’m not going to go out there and be antagonistic or belligerent about it.”

For 21 years, Phillips was known as a “Rotary Ann,” the nickname for a Rotarian’s wife. After her husband, William, died last September, she continued helping in the club’s programs. Joining the club seemed like a natural move, said Phillips, who had also worked alongside her husband in their Anaheim printing business for 25 years. She now works as a sales representative for Hallmark Litho.

Her longtime friends in the club invited her to join last October, anticipating the recent U. S. Supreme Court decision allowing the Duarte Rotary Club to admit women. Unlike the Duarte Club, which needed women to keep the club alive, the 20-member Anaheim Sunrise Club and others simply see women as a good source of new membership, said Kenneth Clark, governor of the Rotary district covering most of Orange County and southern Los Angeles County.

“The idea is to get them before the Kiwanis or the Lions get them,” Clark said.

Phillips’ induction was delayed pending the Supreme Court decision. Half a dozen Orange County women will soon follow suit, Clark said.

Calling Phillips “a very charming lady,” Clark said she was the perfect choice to be the club’s first woman member. “She had no ax to grind. She just likes Rotary and its programs. She’s a true Rotarian.”

Phillips, whose mother won a seat in the Utah State Legislature in the 1940s, also serves on the Anaheim YMCA board and is working to form an Anaheim auxiliary for Florence Crittendon Services, a support agency for troubled teen-agers. She has two children and two grandchildren.

Her husband would be pleased to know she had become a Rotarian, Phillips said. “I can hear him say, ‘Well, leave it to Mary Lou.’ ”