Be proud!  Your club is growing.  Our membership numbers nearly 700 from across the US with heavy concentration in the Midwest.  Our show draws thousands of people to our community every year.  One of our goals has always been to continuously improve our show by expanding and developing our regular features and adding new ones.  The Pioneer Engineer's Club wants to provide our members and patrons with a pleasant experience at our reunion.  Our community has benefited from our annual show through the tourism it brings and due to the fact that the vast majority of the revenue generated from our show is fed back into the local economy through the services and supplies we require from locals to put on our show.  We feel a responsibility to maintain a high standard of quality in our facilities and grounds in order to continue to draw people to our show.

    The grounds we have rented at the Rush County Conservation Club have provided the Pioneer Engineers Club with well over 40 years of enjoyable shows.  We have grown and expanded as much as possible at this site.  We utilized every bit of the 20 acres on the Conservation Club grounds whereas originally only a fraction of this was used. In addition to that, we also rented 13 acres for parking and some new additional acreage for camping.  These acres are often used to capacity as well. Just like our founding members did in the 1950's, we went on a quest to find grounds that fit our current needs.

    Holding our show at the Conservation Club made us dependent on three landlords: one for the main grounds, one for the new camping area, and one for our parking.  If any one of these parties would have chosen not to cooperate with us, our show would have been in a serious crisis.  Additionally, being renters, we were unable to put up any type of permanent facilities or wiring.  This meant year after year of putting up temporary structures and electrical systems and tearing them down again.  It also meant primitive restroom facilities.

    The Pioneer Engineers Club set up a Fundraising Committee in the fall of 1999 to study the feasibility of purchasing and developing our own grounds.  Their research conclusively found that there was overwhelming support for such a venture from our members. The consensus was that there was a great need for this project.  The Fundraising Committee then researched what the attributes of a permanent grounds should be for our club.  They determined that it should be centrally located in our county, preferably with access to a major road.  Further study indicated that in order to buy the amount of ground needed and build basic infrastructure on it, the club would need to raise $500,000.

    We have received many generous pledges from our members towards our grounds.  It is a source of pride to know that a large portion of the funds for our new grounds have come from the commitment of our members themselves.  Some families who have several generations or branches in their family tree who are interested in our show have had the clever idea of pooling their resources so that together they can leave a legacy of their families' commitment to our club.  Thanks to a generous donation from the family of Luther Caldwell, we have now surpassed $400,000 in our fundraising drive!  Our new grounds are named in honor of this founding father of our organization.  Other naming opportunities do still exist for sizable contributions. 

    If you would like to support the Pioneer Engineers Club in our fundraising efforts to develop our  grounds, please contact us.  Since we are a non-profit organization, this donation is tax-deductible.  We appreciate your contributions, no matter what size.  Although it looks like we are near our goal, please keep in mind that the feasibility study was done almost ten years ago and costs have increased.  In addition, the study was for basic infrastructure.  There is much potential at our grounds for additional projects.  By working together and sharing our individual gifts, we can reach our goals and make our plans a reality.  It is our hope that as our dreams come to fruition, they will prove to be a blessing not just to our club, but to our entire community by providing a place to host many family-oriented events.   

Another way to give is by going to www.giveline.com, choosing our club, and then shopping on their website!