As we continue our countdown this year to Pioneers' actual founding date of November 2nd, just five months away, we reflect on yet another great moment in Pioneers' history....
The year 1961 was full of 50th anniversary celebrations, with Chapters planning their own special events for the momentous anniversary on November 2. The 50th Anniversary theme was also carried throughout the entire year, with dinner dances, assemblies, pageants, media coverage, and other Chapter events.
On September 19-21, the General Assembly meeting was held in Boston, birthplace of both the telephone and of the Telephone Pioneers. Several speeches were given at the meeting, and one in particular was especially inspiring to the Telephone Pioneers: “We shall build a greater communications system in keeping with the needs of a new era in man’s history—and a service organization unparalleled anywhere in the world.”
The second 25 years of Telephone Pioneers history encompassed numerous accomplishments, changes, and innovations, both before and after meetings were suspended during the World War II years. In 1938, the General Assembly in Philadelphia had adopted a plan to divide the association into 17 regions along company lines, though it was realigned into 12 regions in 1942. At an executive committee meeting in New York in 1940, the decision was made to establish Affiliate Membership, so that members could retain their status even if they moved to a different Chapter. In Cleveland in 1946, at the first post-war General Assembly meeting, the 12 regions were further realigned, in order to balance membership numbers, which had reached 100,000 for the first time.
Then, at 1958’s General Assembly meeting in Chicago, just two years before membership ballooned to over 200,000, a change was made that would transform the entire look of the organization well into the future—the Telephone Pioneers adopted a new focus: community service, referred to as the organization’s “New Tradition,” but which still endures today.
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