Past president and current board member Bob Crandell looks to the future at the headquarters of the Dundalk Optimist Club.    
    photo by Joseph M. Giordano

Optimist Club marks anniversary

by Joseph M. Giordano

In 1978, 30 members of the newly established Dundalk Hawks wrestling team needed a new practice mat.
    Without the money for a mat, the new team would have to dissolve.
    So with the thoughts of his kids in mind, Hawks founder Bob Crandell went to the Optimist Club of Dundalk.
    “We were practicing at the old Patapsco Elementary School [now Ateaze Senior Center] and didn’t have much money. I went to  an [Optimist] meeting and they cut me a check right there,” Crandell said on Tuesday. “And I joined the organization the next day.”
    Things are different now, with the Baltimore Council Department of Recreation and Parks providing local kids with extracurricular activities and after-school programs – things that, Crandell recalled, the Optimists used to provide.
    “We had a couple of baseball teams, basketball teams and football teams,” Crandell said. “Now it’s all done through the rec council.”
    The Dundalk chapter of the Optimist was chartered in 1949, a time when outside of school sports there were fewer organized activities for kids.
    Now, six decades later, the club and its 59 active members still play a vital role in the community. But they’re struggling to survive.
    “It’s going to be a rough road ahead,” said Crandell, a past president, while standing in front of the Dundalk chapter’s clubhouse. “We need more younger people to join. People are so busy nowadays.”
    The club met monthly at various restaurants in the area until 1991, when it bought and renovated the three-room home on North Point Boulevard.
    It was the same year that the club voted to allow women full membership benefits, according to the first woman member, current treasurer Shirley Panuska.
    “I used to help out in all kinds of ways when my husband [Chuck] joined way back in 1967,” she said. “It was great when women could finally become members.”
    If there are such things as dynasties in the Optimist club, the Panuskas are one of them.    
    Chuck Panuska was president twice, once in 1969-70 and again from 1986 until 1987. In between, their son, Allan, was president in 1977-78 and Shirley followed up as president from 1990 until 1991.
    “It’s a wonderful, community organization,” Shirley Panuska said. “It does so much for the children of the area.”
    While many people are oblivious to the organization most of the year, they certainly know it when the summer rolls around.
    The club sponsors the Boy and Girl of the Year, who ride in the Optimist-hosted Independence Day Parade. The two are chosen from the area’s four high schools, four middle schools, two Parochial schools and the Battle Monument School.             In total, the club sponsors 30 events, teams and awards every year and holds four fundraisers, a Christmas tree sale, a bull roast and Easter and Mother’s Day flower sales. 
    “We have a Youth Appreciation Week [in November],” Panuska said. “And of course the Firefighter and Police Officers of the Year.”
    Started in the mid-1960s as part of the national Respect for Law program, the club began its Officer of the Year program when Dundalk and Edgemere had separate precincts.
    “That program is invaluable for the morale of the officers stationed there,” said Baltimore County Police Department spokesman Bill Toohey. “They get recognition from the department, but [when they] get recognized by organizations like the Optimist, it’s a reassurance from the community and the residents that they acknowledge the officers’ duty and sacrifice.”
    In 1995, the club began its Firefighter of the Year Award.
    “We wanted to recognize all of our first responders,” Panuska said.
    As the club prepares to celebrate its 60th year with a gala Saturday at Del Capri – where the oldest living past president of the club, George Toda, now living in Florida, plans to attend – it’s up to the next generation to keep on helping the community, according to Crandell.
    “We need all the young members we can get,” said Crandell, who noted that the $60 a year dues can be paid quarterly. “We have a great roster now. People that are always there for you when you need them. But we need to think about the future, and as it looks now, it’s a tough road ahead.”

n The Optimist Club of Dundalk’s 60th anniversary party will be held on Saturday at 7 p.m. at  Del Capri on German Hill Road. For tickets and information, call Shirley Panuska at 410-285-3988.