Sunrise Rotary pancake breakfast has a long tradition in Marshall community
This year’s event to honor Lamprecht
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MARSHALL -- Bruce Lamprecht was known as "The Pancake Man" by his fellow Marshall Sunrise Rotary Club members.
Lamprecht, according to Eric Luther, enjoyed making pancakes during the club's Pancake Breakfast fundraiser during which goes back 21 years and is now part of the Sounds of Summer.
The former business services director for Marshall Public Schools died Jan. 16.
On Saturday morning, Sunrise Rotary members will dedicate the pancake breakfast inside the Marshall Fire Hall during Sounds of Summer to Lamprecht for his service "above self" to the event and to the community.
"Bruce always looked forward to helping. And he probably helped three four hours at a time," Luther said. "So we kind of made a little storyboard and kind of, you know, in honor or memorandum of Bruce and his volunteerism, putting service above self with being involved with this stuff."
Luther is a charter member of the club and one of the main organizers of the pancake breakfast as a fundraiser, which as a deep history in Marshall.
"I've kind of organized it probably for all the years I remember since even at the airport hangar, and so we've been a few places before we final resting spot as the fire hall," he said. "Our club started in 2003, and so we chartered in that, and I think that was in probably February or March. At the time, we didn't really have any fundraising projects. And the Rotary roses was probably one of our first projects. But I think in 2004 we started to do the pancake breakfast as the Sunrise Rotary Club. So we kind of got on the same lines as our morning meeting time (early morning), the pancake breakfast was kind of a good idea. So back in 2004, I think, we started our first pancake breakfast, and that was called a fly-in pancake breakfast that was held at the airport. We invited area and regional pilots in through a, I think, a trade publication that kind of catered to those kind of pilots . We were out at the Schwab's hangar back when things were kind of more presence with the museum out there."
Luther said the breakfast was held at the airport for six years before changes at the airport led to club looking for another location. According to Luther, the breakfast moved to the YMCA before eventually ending up at the Fire Hall.
"Sometimes we had North Memorial Helicopter come in," he said. "So we had kind of area on the grounds where we could host different things that were kind of family friendly. We had MMU come with the bucket truck and did bucket up and down. We had Shades of the Past come and display some of their cars in the morning. They came in and they ate breakfast and then they kind of hung around and that. So as we kind of migrated from the fly-in breakfast to now we're at the fire hall, and that's our 21st year of it. So we took a couple years off because of COVID."
Luther said club members prepare the whole breakfast.
"Sometimes we have the city trailer there to help with the pancakes. They've got a griddle. They've got a fryer in there. They cook the sausages, but most of that is done right in the fire hall, and so it's a great facility. We appreciate the firemen in the city of Marshall doing what they can to kind of have a space for that. And so that's how we kind of migrated from the airport to Sounds of Summer."
Luther estimates about 500 people go through the line to eat breakfast during the Sounds of Summer morning event.
"We go through quite a few sausages, quite a bit of pancakes," he said.
Luther said the Sunrise club is heavily involved in several community projects.
"The one that we just got finished with was the pool. We leverage our club funds that we do these fundraisers with, with our district grant matching funds.And then this year we were going to look at the new bandshell or the structure, whatever that's going to be."
Club members have been selling tickets for the event. Tickets can also be bought at HyVee and at the breakfast. The breakfast will be held 8 a.m. to noon.