About the California-Nevada-Hawaii District
In 1924, Sacramento High School in Sacramento, California was in trouble. Destructive
clubs and fraternities, although outlawed, moved underground and continued to exercise a
negative influence on the student population. Educators and community leaders feared these
detrimental effects and sought some means of replacing the clubs with wholesome youth
activities. Mr. John Dale, the principal of Sacramento High School, and Mr. Frank Vincent, a
faculty member, thought that what the school needed was an organization of students that
discouraged delinquency by its example. Mr. Vincent asked the local Kiwanis Club for help and,
together, they decided to pattern the new group after Kiwanis.
The idea of a junior service club similar to Kiwanis was presented to the school in 1924,
but it was not put into practice until eleven young men, the school’s key students, signed a
petition on March 25, 1925 which was sent to the Kiwanis International office, then located in
Chicago, with a request to be chartered as a Junior Kiwanis Club. By the time the charter was
granted and the club held its first meeting, the membership had grown to twenty-five members.
Through this group, Kiwanis hoped to provide vocational guidance to the students of the entire
school.
The club soon came to be known as the Key Club because of the positive influence of
these key students who held luncheon meetings each week to which Kiwanians came as guest
speakers. Key Club members also attended Kiwanis meetings, thus bringing these young men
into constant contact with the business and professional men of the Sacramento community. As
the experience of the Key Club grew, a noticeable trend toward expanding the original purpose
and activity was found possible, and the club was soon a complete service organization open ton
the whole school, Soon thereafter, a social program was offered to balance its service activities.
Over the following years, Key Club went through at period of expansion by word-of-
mouth. Other communities throughout the United States started Key Clubs patterned after the
one t Sacramento High School. By 1939, about fifty Key Clubs were chartered, many of them in
the Southern United States. In that same year, Florida formed a State Association of Key Clubs.
Then, in 1943, the Florida state association invited Key Club members from Alabama, Louisiana,
South Carolina and Tennessee to attend its convention. Following this, the Key Clubs formed an
International Association, electing Malcolm Lewis of West Palm Beach, Florida as its first
president. In 1946, the official constitution and bylaws were approved, and the association
became Key Club International.
The first five clubs officially chartered by Key Club International were those of
Sacramento, Monterey, Oakland Technical, Hemet, and Stockton (now Edison) High Schools.
Since Key Club was growing in the area of its birth, and a few clubs existed in neighboring
Nevada, by 1947 it was decided that a district should be formed. The first step was to hold a
conference in San Diego in October to which all the California Key Clubs and Kiwanis Clubs
were invited. A full slate of officers was elected and a set of District Bylaws and a Constitution
were adopted. John Cooper of Oakland Technical High School was the first District Governor of
the Cali-Nev District. The first official District Convention was held in Oakland in March 1948; it
was attended by eighty members representing the 23 recognized district Key Clubs. With the
chartering of the McKinley High School Key Club in 1952, the district became Cali-Nev-Ha.
The first edition of the Cali-Nev-Ha KEY appeared on May 1, 1954.
The advent of the new millennium saw the Cali-Nev-Ha Key Club District grow to over
500 clubs with nearly 29,000 members. It continues to grow. As of August, 2003, membership
exceeded 33,000!