(WSB photo, last March – Denis Sapiro at center, presenting grant to Summit Atlas Garden Club)
By Tracy Record
West Seattle Blog editor
When the West Seattle Grand Parade starts rolling down California Avenue SW from The Admiral District to The Junction next Saturday morning, Denis Sapiro will be riding toward the front of the parade as this year’s recipient of the Orville Rummel Trophy for Outstanding Service to the Community.
Denis is the president of the Kiwanis Club of West Seattle, one of the local service clubs that make life better in a thousand ways you likely are not aware of. A major Kiwanis focus is to help kids and teenagers. And Denis has helped generations of them – he’s been a Kiwanian for 56 years.
The Orville Rummel Trophy is named for the man who founded the parade in 1934 as then-commander of American Legion Post 160 and chair of the Hi-Yu Committee, which staged the now-defunct West Seattle Hi-Yu Summer festival. (After many years of presenting the parade, Post 160 turned it over to the West Seattle Rotary Service Foundation.) The award dates back to the parade’s golden anniversary – the first one was presented in 1984.
Back to our current recipient: Denis had been involved with Kiwanis before he came to Seattle in the ’70s, he nonetheless found the local club by accident, when he saw a mention of the club’s pancake breakfast on a reader board maintained by the late entrepreneur and community advocate Warren Lawless. The pancake breakfast is a hallowed Kiwanis Club of West Seattle tradition to this day, a traditional start to the holiday season, often launching the day that concludes with the West Seattle Junction Hometown Holidays tree lighting, incorporating not just a hearty breakfast but also Santa photos and a Toys for Tots drive.
His career was a form of community service as well; he came to Seattle to continue work he had done in California, “working on ships for safety and regulatory compliance.” Later in his career, he moved on to biological safety, including, in the ’80s, after the research that discovered that AIDS was viral, he worked for a compay that developed test kits. He later co-founded a consulting firm that helped small and medium businesses deal with chemical safety, and that firm continued until just two years ago.
So Denis has even more time to devote to volunteer work, though he was already in prtty deep over the years – including working with Scout troops, the AARP tax-assistance program, efforts to remedy health challenges such as iodine deficiency in Vietnam, student Key Clubs, the West Seattle Food Bank, fundraising for nonprofits such as Northwest Hope and Healing and WestSide Baby. They offer scholarships to students. And their work can be seemingly simple, person to person – for example, if you’re a West Seattle Farmers Market visitor, you’ve probably seen the Kiwanis booth at the south end in the cooler months, with activities from hot coffee to kids’ art to involvement in The Junction’s holiday-season coat drive. He is also proud of advocating for Kiwanis to stop limiting full membership to men.
If you talk with him about any or all of this, you’l hear the passion in his voice. One good place to find him – besides the Grand Parade route on Saturday – is the monthly Kiwanis Club of West Seattle meeting, first Wednesday of each month. (They’re looking for a new location, now that the Great American Diner haas closed. You can contact the club here.
PAST ORVILLE RUMMEL TROPHY WINNERS: Denis’s predecessors:
1984: Charles and Ann Gage
1985: RB Chris Crisler Jr.
1986: Morgan and Carol McBride
1987: Margaret Miaullis
1988: Charles Jung
1989: Aurlo Bonney
1990: Katie Thorburn
1991: Dorothy Poplawski
1992: Dan Wiseman
1993: Virgil Sheppard
1994: Dorene Smith
1995: Doris Richards
1996: John Kelly
1997: Dick Kennedy
1998: Jim Edwards and Barbara Edwards
1999: Lt. David E. Cass
2000: Husky Deli/Miller Family
2001: Stephanie Haskins
2002: Forest Lawn
2003: Sue Lindblom
2004: Edgar and Ann Phipps
2005: Karen Sisson
2006: Walt DeLong
2007: David and Doreen Vague
2008: Tim St. Clair
2009: Morey Skaret
2010: West Seattle Blog
2011: Cindi Barker
2012: Shirley Vradenburgh
2013: Judy Pickens
2014: Earl Cruzen
2015: Donn Weaver
2016: Clay Eals
2017: Keith Hughes
2018: Velko Vitalich
2019: Adah Cruzen
2022: Deb Barker
2023: Erik Bell
2024: Bianca Thomka and Neil Duncan
2025: Dan and Joanie Jacobs