“There’s a real warm, special feeling about doing something for somebody else without expecting anything in return,” Bowman said.
For nearly three decades, he has chaired the club’s concession stand committee, organizing the club’s major fundraiser at Valley View soccer and football games. He spends more than 300 hours each year preparing and picking up the pop, water, hamburgers, hot dogs, cheese and other items to sell.
Credit: JIM NOELKER
Credit: JIM NOELKER
“It’s almost a full-time job in the fall,” he said.
All the money collected by the club is given back to the community or to Lions Club International programs, Bowman said. Causes include blindness prevention, vision improvement, diabetes research, pediatric cancer research, disaster relief and more. The club also donates thousands of dollars each year to area food pantries, he said.
Bowman also has been a member of the Historical Society of Germantown for more than 10 years and is currently serving as its president.
The community was founded in 1804, just a year after Ohio became a state, and Bowman said the society’s goal is to “collect, protect and preserve” Germantown’s history. For Bowman, that includes helping to organize the society’s annual Founders Day celebration each August.
Bowman is “Mr. Germantown,” according to Mark Heistand, who nominated him as a Dayton Daily News Community Gem.
“I admire his lifelong devotion to service, and I try to emulate the same thing. He’s a good inspiration to all of us in that regard,” said Heistand, who has worked closely with Bowman as a fellow member of both the Lions Club and the historical society.
Bowman should be honored for his dedication and passion for the Germantown community, Heistand said, and his volunteerism demonstrates the importance of giving back.
Bowman is a native of the Germantown area, growing up on a farm north of the city before moving to Germantown itself, where he lives with his wife, Lareen.
He also was a longtime teacher at Valley View Middle School, where he taught seventh grade science for 37 years before retiring in 2008. He coached middle school track for 24 of those years, basketball for a decade or so and was the athletic director there for 18 years.
His days in the classroom may have passed, but he still enjoys the youth activities sponsored by the Lions Club. That includes the annual Easter egg hunt, which is another club committee that he chairs. More than 2,000 candy-filled eggs are gathered by upwards of 200 area youth.
Many service organizations are finding it harder and harder to attract younger members, Bowman said. However, volunteering throughout the Germantown and Valley View community is “unsurpassed.”
“It’s just phenomenal how many people volunteer – in some cases literally hundreds of hours a year – to make it the community it is,” he said.
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