Tucson Sunrise Rotary

In early February 1976, Porter Williamson, District 550 Extension Chairman, met with Tony Orlich and Dave Hammond for breakfast in Walgreen's Drugstore at Campbell and Grant to discuss the feasibility of starting Tucson's first breakfast Rotary club. The next week a group of interested men met at the Black Angus for further discussion.

In March, Porter Williamson, Dave Hammond, Tony Orlich, Bill Psaltis, Ben Cohen, Laird Guttersen, Bill Stoffers, Dean Hooks and Karl Morton met at Coco's Restaurant on Campbell to organize a provisional Rotary club called "Tucson Sunrise". Karl Morton would be President; Ben Cohen, Vice President; Tony Orlich, Secretary; Dave Hammond, Treasurer.

The following week, District Governor Bob Evans visited the first provisional club meeting at Carrow's Restaurant on Campbell. On July 1, meetings were moved to Denny's on Broadway near Wilmot.

In late July, Laird Guttersen, Dean Hooks, and Chuck Lichte left Tucson Sunrise to organize the Casas Adobes Rotary Club. The Tucson Sunrise Rotary Club had fifteen members on July 29, but someone "on high" decided that the new club had to have 30-35 members before it could charter.

The first social outing was a picnic on Kitt Peak on August 29. Dave Hammond, Joe Prchal, Larry Cunningham, and Karl Morton volunteered to advise a Junior Achievement company as the club's first community service project. On October 26, 1976, Rotary International officially chartered the club as the "Rotary Club of Tucson Sunrise, Arizona, U.S.A."

On December 10, 1976, the club held its Charter Night Banquet at the Doubletree Inn with 27 charter members presented to District Governor "Sonny" Knowles. Shortly after chartering, 24 Sunrisers had become Sustaining Members of The Rotary Foundation, and Karl Morton had become the Club's first Paul Harris Fellow.