50 years and counting: Q&A with Richard Yerxa

SOUTH PORTLAND — In the days leading up to this weekend’s first South Portland Winter Festival, you’ve probably seen a member of the sponsoring Rotary Club out on Mill Creek Pond with a snowblower, keeping the ice clean for the various skating events to come.

His name is Richard Yerxa and he’s remarkable for two reasons. First, he’ll be 73 in March. By anyone’s estimation, that’s a fairly advanced age to take change of ice-cleaning operations that could easily be passed off to younger men. But that’s the kind of man Yerxa is, his fellow Rotarians say. No grumble, no fuss. If a job needs doing, he steps up and gets it done.

Yerxa’s second distinction is this: The festival is being staged to mark the 50^th anniversary of the South Portland-Cape Elizabeth Rotary Club and Yerxa is the only active member remaining from the charter membership.

Yerxa had been in charge of Yerxa’s Oil & Power Equipment for a year when he helped start the local Rotary Club in 1962, but he’d been working at the company his father, Philip, founded in 1938 since the mid-‘50s. Today, the company is based in Portland, where two of Yerxa’s four children – oldest daughter, Nicole, and youngest son, Chris – are helping to carry on the family name.

Q: How did you get involved in the Rotary Club?

A: Well, the Portland Rotary decided to sponsor a South Portland group, so, one of their members, Ray Frost, came around and talked to some of the businesses to see if we’d be interested in joining. I knew Ray from his work with the Boy Scouts and he convinced me how good it would be to get to know the different business leaders around town. I was young, my father had just died, and I was just starting on my own. So, I thought it was a good chance to get to know those people. Plus, it was obviously a group that did a lot of good for the community.

Q: How has Rotary changed over the years?

A: It hasn’t changed a lot – the principals have stayed the same, although the members have all changed, of course. A lot of them are dead now [laughs].  The amount of money we raise has increased by quite some, but that’s just based on the economy, the needs, and trying to do good, whatever the community needs.

Q: Do you get a different type of person joining Rotary now than when you started?

I think it has definitely changed as far as the type of person who is in it, but the mission – to serve the community – has remained the same, as far as I’m concerned, since the beginning. But yes, today it’s not only the owners of small businesses in town who join. We have a lot of professionals – lawyers, dentists, accountants – but also a lot of people who are not small business owners themselves, but employees of bigger companies, although often one’s who have fairly important positions.

Q: How has the business climate changed during your time in the Rotary?

A: Business was always more local at the time. It’s gotten progressively bigger, not only county-wide and nationwide, but worldwide now. That’s the way things have evolved. Everything is streamlined, no question about. Bigger is not always better, but that’s the way the economy goes.

Q: How has South Portland changed over the past 50 years?

A: It’s always been a bedroom community, I think, but it’s always been one of the better communities – more real, more normal, a more natural way of life. At least to me, anyway. Westbrook had the industry and Cape and Falmouth maybe had a little more class, I guess, but South Portland has always been the way life should be.

                                                                                                                        

The mall was built shortly after the Rotary was formed. Back then, there were no businesses to speak of out that way. Most all of the businesses, all small businesses, were located in Knightville. Most of them are gone now.

Q: Why have you stayed active in the Rotary Club all these years?

A: I just enjoy meeting people I would never meet otherwise. It’s always been a good class of people. I guess I just like knowing there are other people out there that have the same feelings as me about community and family – who like being helpful.

Q: The Rotary Club seems to promote a lot of family events. Is that an important aspect of the club for you?

A: Family is very important. I think that’s really the most important thing in any person’s life. It’s all about the person we bring up and the values they convey. That’s always right on tip of everything we do. We do a lot of family projects, like the lobster bake we hold every summer.

People probably aren’t as aware as they could be of things that go on behind the scenes that Rotary is involved in. Any project brought to us that’s worthwhile, we always get on it and do what we can, especially if it’s for young people.

Q: Of everything the Rotary Club has done in your time, what are you most proud of?

A: Well, the Rotary International almost eradicated polio. That was a major accomplishment for Rotary itself. As a club, we have always helped high school students from South Portland and Cape with scholarships. We help with the food cupboards, Bug Light Park was a project of ours, and we’ve donated money to Fort Williams Park – we put in a nice shelter there. Also, early on, we did the Little League ballfield in Cape Elizebeth. That was one of the first projects we helped out on.

Q: What would you like people to know about the Winter Festival the Rotary Club is sponsoring this weekend?

A: It’s just a great, cabin-fever thing – a chance to get out and enjoy the winter weather as a family, with our whole community, which, really, is also a kind of family. I think that a great project. Hopefully, it will become an annual thing.