Lee County's most exclusive club set to meet April 29

Journalists don’t have the best reputation as mathematicians, so whenever I confront a question requiring calculations, I double-check myself.

And now, I can confidently tell you I still can’t join the most exclusive club in Lee County for another 14 years. It’s not because the dues are too steep for my journalist’s paycheck – there are none. It’s that to join the Lee County Pioneer Club, you have to have been a resident here for 50 years – in or before 1973 – and I didn’t get here until 1987. Never mind that’s more than half my life, rules are rules.

Once you meet that ironclad residency requirement you can go to the club’s annual meeting at the Lee Civic Center. This year's is Saturday, April 29. And if you can, my advice is to go: I can vouch for the fact that these folks throw the party of the year.

You might be asking how I can confidently say that if I’ve just finished telling you I’m not a member yet.

Ah, that’s thanks to privilege: the privilege of the press and the privilege of having the late Mr. David Bull as my neighbor. A few years ago, he invited me to come experience it for myself so I could write about it in these pages, so I jumped at the chance.

The club dates from 1949, when Lee County Bank Director R.A. Henderson founded it, and since the beginning, the annual gatherings have celebrated the 50-years-ago graduating classes from area schools. That includes some that no longer exist, like the then-segregated Dunbar High and Alva’s high school.

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As Theresa Clements wrote in her annual note about the event, it’s “a social organization comprised of many of the old families of Lee County who get together annually to catch up on one another’s lives and to have lunch together.”

As I reflected on it later, I realized I’d been a little concerned about being the only one without the earned right to be there, though I needn't have been; I was warmly welcomed (quite literally - the picnic pavilion has no air conditioning, but then again, club members know how to deal with a little heat).

But it was more than Southern hospitality that made the event feel like a family reunion. The more I looked around, the more I realized decades in a place can root you pretty firmly. It started with Mr. Bull, whose grandson, Andrew, is one of my big boy D.P.'s closest friends, but it went on from there. So many familiar faces — people about whom I've written, who've cared for my kids at summer camp, sold me horse feed, cooked me swamp cabbage or, like the late Charlie Powell, with whom I ate lunch, served as indispensable guides to Southwest Florida history.

Theresa also said the event will honor the oldest Lee County-born man and woman; the couple married the longest (both spouses must be there); the one who traveled the longest distance to the picnic; and the eldest person in attendance.

Approximately 1,200 invitations are mailed out: two-thirds to residents and the remainder to people who live out of the area. Normally between 600 and 700 people attend. The $10 tickets buy a plate of barbecue chicken or pork, baked beans, coleslaw, rolls, chocolate chip cookies and iced tea or lemonade.

Plus, Theresa wrote, “Through the generosity of the Edison and Ford Winter Estates, free admission on that weekend is given to the members of the Pioneer Club by presenting their membership card to the Edison and Ford Winter Estates (General Admission) on Fri. 4/28/23 and Sat. 4/29/23 and Sun. 4/30/23. An invitation has also been extended to the members of the Pioneer Club to visit The IMAG History & Science Center (General Admission) and the Shell Factory/Nature Park (General Admission) on Fri. 4/28/23, Sat. 4/29/23 and Sun. 4/30/23."

If you go

This year’s annual Lee County Pioneer Picnic is Saturday, April 29, at the Lee County Civic Center – Tinsley Pavilion off Bayshore Road in North Fort Myers. Registration and visiting begin at 10 a.m., lunch will be served at noon followed by presentations and a raffle at 1 p.m. Please email pioneerleecounty@gmail.com to receive registration information or you may register the day of the picnic.

This article originally appeared on Fort Myers News-Press: Lee County's living legends will gather at annual pioneer picnic