Pasadena Rotary Admits 3 Women--a First for Only 2

It wasn’t a first for Mary Ferguson, who has probably attended more than 1,000 meetings of the Rotary Club of Pasadena since she signed on as executive secretary to the group 21 years ago.

But it was for club president Philip Taylor, who presided over the introduction earlier this month of the Pasadena Rotary’s first three women members.

“This was the first time I have felt a compulsion to kiss a Rotarian,” said Phillips, who helped welcome Ferguson, Kathryn Hines, an insurance broker, and Joyce Richards, executive director of the Sierra Madres Girl Scout Council, to the ranks of the formerly all-male service organization.

The Pasadena club is one of the first in the San Gabriel Valley to admit women members since the U. S. Supreme Court ruled last month that women cannot be barred from membership.

As the largest club in the area, with 316 members, “we wanted to show leadership in recruiting highly qualified women,” Taylor said.

“We didn’t waste any time.”

Neither did Ferguson, who had long wanted to participate more actively in the group.

“I have always felt like part of the club, but now I can participate as a member in the community projects,” she said.

The three women said they felt at ease at the meeting, a weekly luncheon at a Pasadena hotel.

“I knew so many people that I didn’t feel out of place,” said Hines, who has clients who are members.

“We got a marvelous welcome. I expected a certain amount of resistance, but it was not there.”

Hines said her Rotary membership will probably help her in business. “It’s hard for women to get in the public eye and this gets you the exposure,” she said. “I didn’t want to join (the club) to change it. I want to benefit from it.”

Richards said that although she has been involved in promoting women during most of her professional career, she does not view the dispute over membership as a women’s rights issue.

“This is just something that has come of age, and there is not that much difference in the club now that we are there. We are just as professional as they are, and they are a class act. They don’t make fools of themselves, but they have a good sense of humor.”

Taylor said the Pasadena group began actively recruiting women as soon as the Supreme Court ruling came down, and the three women were welcomed by all who attended the June 17 meeting. He does not think the women will feel uncomfortable at meetings.

“Our humor is subtle and not crude,” Taylor said, “so the ladies don’t have to worry about that.”

Although many of the 31 Rotary clubs in the San Gabriel Valley are proceeding cautiously in seeking women because of members’ mixed feelings on the issue, the Pasadena club welcomed the idea.

The group is processing membership proposals for three more women, and Taylor expects them to be introduced as members at the July 8 meeting.

One club that has had a long time to get used to the idea of women members is the Duarte Rotary Club, which filed the lawsuit leading to the Supreme Court decision.

The Duarte club, which now has 10 women and nine men, was fighting for survival when its eight male members admitted three women in 1977, in violation of Rotary International bylaws.

By 1978 the club had doubled its membership, but after it introduced the women to other Rotarians, it was expelled from the international.

It changed its name and continued as the Duarte Ex-Rotary Club while it fought its expulsion through the courts. On winning reinstatement, it became the first club in Rotary International to have women in its ranks.

The Duarte club recently scored another first by installing Sylvia Whitlock as the first woman president of any of the world’s 20,000 Rotary clubs.