The Wilsonville High School Interact Club and the Rotary Club of Wilsonville dedicated the community’s second Rotary Peace Pole on September 15 at Wilsonville High School.
“On the pole, we have the phrase, ‘May peace prevail on earth’ in eight different languages,” said Lily Boehrer, co-president of the Interact Club along with fellow student Jenna Garlitz. “We have Chinese, Spanish, English, Japanese, and French, which are all taught here at the high school, and then we also have Russian and Korean, which are a part of our exchange program. And then Vietnamese too, since it’s a bigger part of our community.”
The installation of the pole required a few years of planning by the Interact students, with help from advisers Laura LaJoie and Jake McMichael of the Rotary Club of Wilsonville. “Now we’re finally able to see it through despite obvious challenges from COVID and everything,” Boehrer said at the dedication.
“Yes, especially from last year, just because everything was so crazy and nothing was consistent,” Garlitz added. “One thing that helped me was just the routine of Rotary and being part of a club and Interact just helped me stay motivated.”
The Wilsonville High School Interact Club was founded September 24, 2019. Interact Clubs are school-based service clubs for students age 12–18. They affiliated with Rotary International and typically sponsored by a local Rotary Club, in this case the Rotary Club of Wilsonville, which was founded in 1975.
“We hope to continue to grow community involvement in the future, along with providing a safe space for everyone to feel welcome,” Garlitz said.
The poles are part of a movement founded by Japanese activist Masahisa Goi to promote a mindset of international peace. After having experienced World War II as a young man — including the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki — he decided to dedicate the rest of his life to peace.
Although Goi passed away in 1980, his family carried on the movement, and there are now more than 200,000 peace poles worldwide. Peace poles typically include the phrase “May peace prevail on earth” in either four or eight different languages. The languages are chosen by those placing the pole and are often significant to the place or the sponsoring organization.
Rotary Club of Wilsonville dedicated its first peace pole last spring in the Rotary Rose Garden at Town Center Park in Wilsonville. It was dedicated to Rotarian Reg Keddie, a past president of the club and past district governor for Rotary. Keddie was passionate about the peace pole project and peace activism, and was active in Rotary peace activities. He passed away in 2020.
Wilsonville Public Library also has a peace pole, which was placed in 2008.
Rotary and Interact plan to install additional peace poles throughout the Wilsonville community to carry on Keddie’s legacy, starting with a third Rotary peace pole at one of the local middle schools next spring.
“One of the reasons the peace pole is so important is because, even though we might come from different areas or different parts from around the world, we can all join together through mutual struggles or interests,” Boehrer said.
The clubs envision a Wilsonville that contains perhaps dozens of peace poles eventually. LaJoie pointed to what’s been done in Sherwood, which recently held a tour of its peace poles on September 18, which was International Peace Day.
“They have over 30 peace poles with a full map and tour of their peace poles,” she said. “We intend to do the same kind of thing here in Wilsonville, with the help of Interact Club.”