Frank Blenkhorn loved the Rotary Club of Santa Monica. He was not just proud to be a member, he did not just like the comraderie with club members, he was not just pleased to be part of such a dynamic worldwide organization. No, it was far more than that. Frank loved Rotary, and particularly our club. He cared for it viscerally. You know that he had almost sixty years of perfect attendance. But this was only an external manifestation of his inward dedication. When he had to miss a meeting at our club he would invariably phone me to find out what happened. He was concerned about our leadership, and wanted only the most dedicated to be nominated for office. Frank Blenkhorn loved the Rotary Club of Santa Monica.
I first knew Frank when he was still actively running the Credit Bureau of Santa Monica and I was a fledgling Jaycee. He always encouraged me and was always supportive of his adopted city and state. Frank, because of his business, knew everything about everybody. But his sense of privacy and propriety was such that I never once heard him divulge a confidence. He was an honorable man who was a living example of Rotary's Four Way Test. He was a devoted family man, with a lifelong love affair with his wife Doris and their three sons.
Frank
was a mentor to me: in Santa Monica, in the Jaycees, as a Director of Santa
Monica Bank and most especially in Rotary. I've known for a long time
that the best compliment you can give a man is to say that he was a
good man. Frank Blenkhorn was a good man. I still find it hard to
believe he is gone.
Bill Fritzsche