What is it to be an Optimist? Not just any optimist, but an Optimist? I am a member of the Warner Robins Noon Optimist Club. There are many great civic clubs in Houston County. I belong to another one, the Warner Robins Civitan Club. There are Rotary clubs, Exchange clubs, Kiwanis clubs, Pilot clubs, and so on. I know I left off a lot of great clubs who do a lot of great things, so I apologize to them now. But back to being an Optimist.
This week, the Warner Robins Noon Optimist Club will conduct the 46th annual Optimist Bowl. The festivities are held at McConnell-Talbert Stadium on Saturday, November 1st. It lasts basically all day, as the teams start their games at 9:00 a.m. and the last game gets under way about 4:30 p.m. What exactly is the Optimist Bowl? It’s the day that the Mighty Mites, Mites and Midgets football teams of Houston County have their consolation game and championship games.
The instigator of this great program was Dr. V.W. McEver. Dr. McEver was serving on the Warner Robins City Council and was an active member of the Warner Robins Noon Optimist Club in 1958. (That was a good year, I was born that year!) The Noon club gave the city recreation department $300 to buy uniforms for the teams that year. The teams actually had to share uniforms! That’s right, the first game was played and then the uniforms were given to the teams for the second game. That must have been interesting. The games were played at Rumble Junior High School, where the teams changed out in the gym locker rooms.
In was only two years later that the club came up with the money to buy another full set of uniforms so that all four teams could wear their own uniforms. Cheerleaders were also added that year. Now the program has grown to over 40 teams, with four divisions involving hundreds of our young people. The only division that doesn’t have playoff games is the Mini-Mites.
During the growth of this wonderful program, the Warner Robins Noon Optimist Club has been there, providing thousands of dollars and thousands of hours of volunteer labor to keep the Optimist Bowl growing. As the season draws to a close, the club sells programs with all of the teams pictures in it. The club, by running the Optimist Bowl, is able to raise thousands of dollars that are then donated to the City Recreation Department to assist in funding the program for the upcoming year.
Sadly, on August 23, 2000, "Dr. Mac" passed away. In tribute to the lasting contributions he made to this great program, the Optimist Bowl trophy was re-named the "V. W. McEver" trophy. The names of each winning team are permanently engraved on the trophy as a lasting reminder of the contributions of Dr. Mac and all of the other volunteers who have worked so hard to make this impact on the youth of our community. I still miss Dr. Mac and the wonderful stories that he told every Thursday at lunch. I know, however, that he lives on in the lives of the thousands of youngsters that have benefited from his original idea. That is a legacy that will never die.
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