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Californian Beginnings
In 1924, two Sacremento Kiwanis members came up with the idea of having a junior service club similar to Kiwanis but led by
students in high school. They first suggested it to the Kiwanis President who made a committee to look into the proposition.
They then went to the principal of Sacremento High School who found the right boys who would be interested in joining such
a club and presented the idea to the board of education. Eventually the very first Key Club meeting was held in May 1825.
Key Club and Kiwanis worked closely together with Kiwanis members as speakers at Key Club meetings and Key Club members as
guests at Kiwanis meetings. It was during these meetings that the focus of the club was found and Key Club became a service
organization.
Key Club Spreads Its Wings
Kiwanis groups across the nation soon became interested in the trend Sacremento set and through various articles about club
doings and principal meetings, clubs began popping up all over the states. By 1839, there were fifty Key Clubs in function.
When Florida made the first proposal of forming a federation of local Key Clubs the first state association was formed called
the Florida Association in 1946. This promoted Key Club and started new clubs all over the state. State officers were elected
and the first Convention was held in 1943 with attendance from Alabama, South Carolina, Louisiana, and Tennessee. This promoted
sharing Key Club information across the United States and promoted relations between the districts. It was at this very first
convention where an International Association of Key clubs was voted on and they elected their first president. During these
years, Kiwanis International formed a special committe to look over the work that Key Club did. In 1946, an entirely different
department was made. It was in that same year when the first publication of the Key Club official magazine, Keynoter, was
published.
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Key Club in Flight
Since the Florida Association, the rest of the Key Clubs in all different states modeled themselves after Florida and formed
districts nationwide. In 1946, the first Canadian Key Club was established. Now, Key Club is rapidly growing in popularity
all over the world with clubs in the Carribean and hundreds more added every year at international convention.
This information on the history of Key Club was taken from the official Key Club website at http://www.keyclub.org/keyclub/about/history/.
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