The brass plaques containing names of the donors and recipients of the Citizen of the Year and Young Citizen of the Year awards were stolen over one year ago from the Rotary clock in downtown Red Deer. They are gradually being replaced by the City in a different form. (rdnewsNOW/Alessia Proietti)

By Alessia Proietti

Citizen of the Year brass plaques

Rotary Club of Red Deer hopes to replace stolen plaques from downtown clock for 100th anniversary

Oct 14, 2022 | 3:24 PM

The Rotary Club of Red Deer says the best gift for their 100^th year anniversary would be to fully replace all stolen plaques from the downtown Rotary clock.

The service club was chartered in February 1923 in Red Deer, according to President Darcy Mykytysyn, supporting local community groups, particularly geared towards youth, seniors, and vulnerable populations, through grants and volunteer efforts.

“It’s pretty special looking back on the impact our club has had across this community for a century, but also at what the future holds”, he said.

The clock was inaugurated in Red Deer’s downtown core (corner of Ross St and 49 Ave) in May 2008 to honor their Citizen of the Year award recipients, confirms Ray McBeth, club member and Chairman of the “Citizen of the Year” clock campaign.

The three Rotary clubs in the city, Red Deer, Sunrise, and Red Deer East, raised roughly $53,000 for the clock and partnered with the City for its $15,000 base, McBeth said. The base consisted of multiple brass plaques, made by the Behrends Group in Edmonton, for the donors, Citizen of the Year and Young Citizen of the Year award recipients, of the past nearly 40 years, he stated.

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Just over one year ago, McBeth said he noticed while driving that the plaques were not on the clock. Thinking the city had taken them down for their usual maintaining and polishing, he did not pursue the matter further. However, after several days and speaking with the Mayor last November, he says they realized the plaques had been stolen.

“Stealing metal products, of course, is quite a popular way for criminals to make a dollar,” he said.

“I think they’re long gone now because as soon as the criminal element gets into it, first thing they do is melt them all down so there’s no way of tracing that and then they sell it off to various businesses.”

He says he worries that no replacement plaque will ever have the same appearance as the original.

The new plaques replacing the brass ones by the City of Red Deer on the downtown Rotary clock base. (rdnewsNOW/Alessia Proietti)

Phil Hyde, Incoming President and club member for 22 years, says his goal is to try to find the original plaques. If he can’t, he says he aims to recreate the plaques as accurately as possible for the 100^th anniversary of the club.

With incomplete records, he says retracing recipient and donors names has been quite challenging.

Once all the information has been found, he says members are working at finding a product to replace the plaques that would be value-less to potential thieves, as brass is very expensive to replace. The City has replaced some of the plaques with a few of the recipient winners, and says they are working with the club to replace the rest when the information is found.

“It’s a permanent recognition really for the winners,” he said.

“To club members, it has sentimental value. To the history of Red Deer with the Citizen of the Year, I think it has some strong value.”

The history, Mykytysyn says, is rather interesting as the Red Deer Rotary Club was not only the first Rotary club in the city, but also the first service club in all of Red Deer.

However, the president says he wants their 100^th anniversary celebration to honor all three clubs coming together as “Rotarians”. He states an event will be held sometime between February and June 2023, but no details have been confirmed yet.

For their Fall grants, Mykytysyn says the Red Deer club has roughly $20,000 to give back to the community. Applications are being accepted until October 31, evaluated against the club’s vision, mission and core values.

“Our members really like supporting projects that are proactive, innovative and leverage support in the community,” he said. “We want to support projects that impact the community so we are also very interested in hearing about the results achieved through our grants.”

Mykytysyn’s goal for the 100 year anniversary is to bring in new members.

“We call it ‘100 in 100’. We’re sitting at about 70 members right now; we’re working hard to get our club back up to 100 members. This club used to be 125-130 members at one point in time,” he said.

“Our motto is ‘Service Above Self’.”

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