The Crete Eagles Club #3909 was formed on March 9th, 1980 by “founder” John Breckner, along with Delbert Walker, Otto Jurena and many others. At that time the acting Auxiliary president was Blanche Hronik and then Wauneta Walker took over the official presidency from 1980-1981 and 1981-1982.
The club originally resided in the basement of the Sokol Hall building next door to the current location, which also happened to have a bar as well, but held the first meetings at the Blue River Lodge Northwest of town.
The building where the Eagles now call home, was built in 1915 and originally contained an automobile garage with the capacity for 20 cars. For many years after, the building was used as a bar. There was a steak house call “Joe’s” in the rear of the building and bars in the front called “’The Brass Rail”, “Charlies” and “The Alibi” before the Eagles moved in, in 1994.
Currently, the club has around 300 Aerie and Auxiliary members and does a joint coat drive and food bank collections yearly to help the locals in our community. Together, in 2016-2017, we have donated approximately $27,000 in monetary donations to the local community and most of the money earned comes from our Pickle Card and Keno sales at the club.
Each year scholarships are awarded to the local students by the Aerie and Auxiliary, after a detailed process of essays and reviews. We are so thankful to have so many bright, young minds apply for these scholarships and it seems to get harder to choose every year!
In the community we sponsor the State Eagle’s Bowling team, pool teams, Eagle’s #3909 slow-pitch softball team and baseball teams as well. Our members look forward to our events that are held at the club, such as the Annual Chili Cook-Off that takes place on the first NASCAR race of the year, where members can try their hand at winning the grand prize if their chili is voted #1!
The Aerie have been very active with our local football team, the Crete Cardinals, by supplying food for away games for 25 years. This past year the Wilber Wolverines won the State Championship and the Aerie hosted a steak feed in honor of their win.
The women of the Auxiliary host a Road Rally to raise money for the Nebraska State Project every year. This year the date was set for September 30th we were able to help support the new projects of Cancer and the MMI institute. We had a great turn out this year with 14 teams and would love to see some of you there next year because it is always a good time for a great cause!