{"id":147184,"date":"2026-08-17T10:59:28","date_gmt":"2026-08-17T10:59:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/147184\/"},"modified":"2026-08-17T10:59:28","modified_gmt":"2026-08-17T10:59:28","slug":"baker-youth-club-in-warsaw-celebrates-100-years-with-a-birthday-bash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/147184\/","title":{"rendered":"Baker Youth Club in Warsaw celebrates 100 Years with a birthday bash"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Mark Himes looks over the memorabilia Saturday at the Baker Boy\u2019s Club\/Baker Youth Club 100th Birthday BBQ Celebration. Photo by David Slone, Times-Union.
\nBy David Slone
Times-Union<\/p>\n

WARSAW \u2014 Memories were evoked and shared at Baker Boy\u2019s Club\/Baker Youth Club\u2019s 100th birthday celebration on Saturday.<\/p>\n

Activities during the six-hour event included a first responders cook-off, a professional barbecue competition, a bounce house; free ice cream, snow cones, cookies and T-shirts; a giant digital board, live music and a display of photos, trophies and other memorabilia.<\/p>\n

BYC Executive Director Tracy Furnivall began going to the club as a youth. He recalled, \u201cI don\u2019t know exactly why or how I remember it, other than the fun that we had. I remember eating dinner, and if I didn\u2019t finish my plate, I couldn\u2019t walk over the hill at the old Madison School down to where Retired Tigers is, the old high school, and that\u2019s where we would go. My brother, Eric Sebo and Michelle would even come sometimes, we would walk over the hill, but I couldn\u2019t go if I didn\u2019t finish my meal. And I didn\u2019t like vegetables. So my parents would be out of the kitchen, and my brother, Troy, would eat my peas, because if I couldn\u2019t go, he couldn\u2019t go.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said he remembers walking over the hill, walking into the club and going upstairs to the gymnasium where some of the older guys were playing some of the best basketball of that time. Downstairs is where the little, scrawny kids went. Sock tag was played up and down the stairs, there was a labyrinth board where the marble would go through the trap and bumper pool. There was even marble football.<\/p>\n

\u201cScott Wiley still gives me the business about that because I threw that (marble football) away when we moved. He found it in the dumpster and dug it out. He\u2019s still got it today,\u201d Furnivall said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I think the memories were made starting then, but then going through our high school days of some of the best basketball, I think probably in the state of Indiana at that time, being played right here at the Boy\u2019s Club when we were growing up, with Aaron Rovenstine, Barry Kline, Moses McNees, Mike Claybaugh, Jeff Johnson, Rocky Goshert, Sebo, Brandenburg, Heisler, who\u2019s an Olympian. It\u2019s just so many memories of those kids. Scott Franklin. The Hartle boys. So just many of them. It\u2019s almost overwhelming, the memories and the people that came through the Club back then.\u201d<\/p>\n

Warsaw Mayor Jeff Grose, who also went to the club in his youth, said, \u201cFriends are there. Very good basketball. We love basketball and our friends are there. And then (Robert \u201cCoach\u201d Lichtenwalter) has the ability to provide guardrails, but not too tight. It was loose, it was fun, but it was the club. You had to behave, you had to be straight, you had to be a good boy, otherwise you\u2019re going to be in his office.\u201d<\/p>\n

Furnivall said no one wanted to go to the office.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was just a good culture, and then he offered many different things,\u201d Grose said. \u201cAnd now Furni is offering (many different things). We couldn\u2019t see it, what he\u2019s doing now, which is neat. The evolution of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Furnivall stated, \u201cIt\u2019s neat and it was tough because we grew up in that area, and I remember Rick Jackson, who is one of our judges today, Rick and Randy, and they would give me business when I took over about the changes we were making. I\u2019m like, \u2018Boys, nothing\u2019s what it was 50 years ago. We have to change.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

He said what he believes he and his board of directors did very well was listen to the community and what were the needs, and then worked toward filling those needs to the best of their capability.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s what we\u2019ve done over the years, and now we\u2019re in a 45,000-square-foot facility offering reading, STEM, art. Basketball gets played, but it\u2019s average, it\u2019s different, it\u2019s not the same basketball back in the day,\u201d Furnivall said.<\/p>\n

Grose stated all kids are a diverse population. Furnivall said there\u2019s boys, girls; low, middle and high income. \u201cWe\u2019re getting them all. We\u2019re here for anybody and everybody. The change has been neat to see, it\u2019s been hard, but, again, it\u2019s the need of our community and we try to fill that,\u201d Furnivall stated.<\/p>\n

Even with the changes, the kids at BYC are still making memories that will last them a lifetime.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese kids are going to remember it like we are. They don\u2019t have the sock tag memories. They have the Nine Square memories. Or they have the STEM memories. Or they have the memories in the art room. We didn\u2019t have that, we probably wouldn\u2019t have gone to the art room if we had it, but we\u2019re offering that,\u201d Furnivall said.<\/p>\n

BYC has three pillars: education, health and social skill development.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that social skill development is the number one thing we accomplish here every day all day long. Kids are interacting with other kids, interacting with high school staff, college staff and adult staff. So these kids are getting all levels of engagement, and now they\u2019re building that friendship and those relationships that they\u2019re going to remember for a lifetime,\u201d Furnivall stated.<\/p>\n

Mark Himes remembered first going to the Club when it used to be where the Retired Tigers is now. He was about 10 years old then. He kept attending until he was about a senior in high school, then he was a junior staff member when it moved over to the Pete Thorn Center.<\/p>\n

\u201cA friend of mine and I used to run intramurals on Saturdays at the Pete Thorn Center,\u201d Himes said.<\/p>\n

When he first started going to the Club, \u201cThe big thing at the old Retired Tigers was sock tag, and we played sock tag and you\u2019ll hear that a lot because a lot of kids played sock tag there.\u201d<\/p>\n

He recalled going upstairs to play basketball and watching the older guys play.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery once in a while, when they\u2019d get done, they\u2019d ask us to jump in and play with them and that was a big thing. It made you feel pretty good then to go in there and play with the older guys,\u201d Himes said.<\/p>\n

There have only been four BYC directors, and Wiley was one of them for 11 years.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy first memory of Baker Youth Club goes all the way back to 1966 and my brother, Bill, brought me there when it was at Retired Tigers,\u201d Wiley said. \u201cAnd I remember the gym was on the third floor, and back then you had to work your way up to play with the big guys down at the end of the court. But I was young, so I remember playing sock tag. They had this labyrinth game with a steel ball. They had this marble football game. I mean, things that technology today would blow away, but was so much fun.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said he loved it from the first minute he was there.<\/p>\n

Bill Smith served on the K21 Health Foundation Board and they donated money to help BYC redo the building.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a newcomer, and when I say newcomer I\u2019ve only been here 16 years, so I\u2019m aware of Pete Thorn and Coach and all of them because the people that have been here, they just kind of bring you into that community and say, \u2018These are the people that we treasure in this community,\u2019 and so that\u2019s kind of how I got involved in it, through the K21 donations, through other people, just knowing that this is what the Baker Youth Club does and really giving young students a place to go, a place to be, a place to expand their horizons,\u201d Smith said.<\/p>\n

Mitch Reinholt said growing up, probably through late elementary and middle school, he was able to attend and play a lot of basketball at BYC.<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember some great pick-up games. Playing with a lot of buddies. I have always just appreciated the resources that the community has. Loved getting to go after school, in the summers, hanging out with friends, making memories,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Saturday\u2019s event was a cool way to celebrate 100 years for BYC, Reinholt stated. \u201cI think this barbecue event is the first of many, hopefully. Raise some funds for the organization and have some fun while we\u2019re doing it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Reinholt was one of the people asked to be a judge for the barbecue.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo I got to taste the wings today, and I got to taste eight or nine different samplings, and they were all amazing. There\u2019s a lot of really good barbecue out there. I\u2019ve never judged a competition before, but I\u2019ve eaten a lot of barbecue over the years, so hopefully that qualifies my palette. But I\u2019ve really enjoyed it, really good food,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

BYC Development Director Tamara Drake said she loves the positive environment and working with her co-workers, as well as with the kids.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love to see them grow. It\u2019s so amazing when we get to see the success stories. They\u2019ll be kids that come back in. We even have some employees that used to come to the club as kids, and you get to see\u201d them grown up, she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mark Himes looks over the memorabilia Saturday at the Baker Boy\u2019s Club\/Baker Youth Club 100th Birthday BBQ Celebration.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":147185,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[95],"tags":[69982,69983,69984,69985,69986,182,69987,69988,181],"class_list":["post-147184","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-warsaw","tag-baker-youth-club","tag-birthday-bash","tag-byc-executive-director","tag-celebrates-100-years","tag-jeff-grose","tag-poland","tag-scott-wiley","tag-tracy-furnival","tag-warsaw"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@dk\/117110503147858952","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147184","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=147184"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147184\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/147185"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=147184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=147184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=147184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}