Blog 05/01/2023

The Wilmington Senior Men’s Club (SMC) was created on October 7, 1988 when four men, who were relatively new to the Wilmington area met to form a men’s club for the purpose of fellowship, information exchange, concerns, and ideas.  The four founding members were Theodore Hobbs (d:1997), David Oliver(d:2002),Lieutenant General James M. Lee (d:2017)(who retired to his home town after a distinguished military career, including command of the 196th Light Infantry Brigade in Viet Nam) and Dickson Baldridge who relocated from Connecticut (d:2019). Theodore Hobbs was elected as the first president and served two terms.  It was agreed that the club would meet on Friday mornings except for holiday weeks and the entire month of August.

The club began attracting new members and met in a number of locations before setting up at the downtown YMCA (around 1990) where it remained until 2010. In order to be eligible for membership, prospective members have to be age 60 or above and live in the Wilmington area. The club has never had any restrictions on race, ethnicity, or religion.  Jasper Reed, the club president in 1999 was African-American.  According to the club’s long time secretary, George Taylor, when he joined around 1990, there were about 30 members meeting in a small room at the YMCA.

The club’s format was, and still is, a coffee hour, a speaking program with Q&A and adjournment. Speakers have come from many different areas including the arts, public service, education, government and the military just to highlight some.

In 2010, the club moved to the Cameron Art Museum on Museum Drive where it remained until 2021 with membership nearly 200.  However, in March of 2020, COVID shut down the Cameron and the club until September, 2021. John Gill had just assumed the presidency in January 2020.  John remained as president through 2021 and was succeeded by John Weisz in 2022.

During this very difficult period for the entire country, the club lost a number of long time members to COVID and other illnesses.  When the club resumed meeting at the Cameron in the Fall of 2021, issues with the museum caused the club to make an emergency move to another location, the Wilmington Senior Center on South College Rd.  The SMC was happy to find another location but it came with some restrictions including not being able to meet every Friday and having to move the start time to 11 AM.  These changes did affect the membership numbers negatively along with the lingering concerns from COVID. In June of 2022 thanks to Paul Zambuto, John Wiesz, and the gracious staff at Lifepointe Church, the club was able find a new home at the Church where we continue to meet every other Friday at 10 AM

The Senior Men's Club of Wilmington meets at 10 a.m. weekly at Lifepoint Church, 3500 South College Road, Unit A. Coffee, doughnuts, and fellowship networking at 9:30 a.m. Open to men 55 and over. Annual membership dues $25 per annum. 

The mission of the Senior Men's Club of Wilmington is to promote fellowship and camaraderie for and throughout the membership.  We will seek common interest by providing speakers to expand our social interest.

Our goal is to recruit new members while setting a standard of ethical, moral and senior leadership.  We will drive growth within the community and build our awareness throughout the New Hanover County. 

Theodore Hobbs * ^  1988          Dave Pyle *    2006

Theodore Hobbs * ^   1989        John Horton *   2007

David Oliver * ^          1990            Tom White    2008

James M. Lee * ^       1991    Chris Guenther *  2009

Dickson Baldridge ^   1992       John Gangemi  2010

Omar Mardan *          1993          John Stewart  2011

Jack Miller *               1994             John Melia  2012

Edwin Olsson *          1995           Jim Watson  2013

George Houghton *    1996         Jerry Bagnell  2014

John Horton *            1997        Jim DeFrance  2015 

Robert Ochs *            1998          Jon LeBlanc  2016

Jasper Reed *            1999         John Russell  2017

David Mitchell *           2000            John Melia  2018

Glenn Fincannon *     2001          Philip Brown  2019

HC (Bud) Gaffney *    2002               John Gill  2020

Leo Bednarczyk *       2003               John Gill  2021

George Ball *              2004           John Weisz  2022                         Robert Barkalow *      2005           Philip Brown 2023                             

*Deceased  ^ Founding Member