Longtime Kiwanis member Reg Ware dies

Reg Ware, an Englishman who helped transform the Longboat Key Kiwanis Club's annual holiday-season bell-ringing campaign into a a model of organization and volunteerism, died on Feb. 13. 

He was 84. 

Ware, who once owned Sarasota's Tatum Ridge Golf Links, joined the club in the late 1990s after he was recruited by current member and then-president Woody Wolverton.

It wasn't long before he revamped the fund-raising effort, laying the groundwork for today's effort that attracts dozens of helpers in front of Publix on Bay Isles Parkway. He recruited volunteers and scheduled them into time blocks for about five years and was followed by Ed Krepela.

Typically, from late November into the prime shopping season, not a single shift is left open, staffed by club members, town staffers, members of other local social and service groups and residents. 

“The hardest job we have in Kiwanis, frankly, is coordinating all those people and keeping the slots full so that there's someone ringing the bell every day from Thanksgiving to Christmas,” Kiwanis member Bob Gault said. “It’s a tough job, but (Reg) did a great job.” 

Ware was active outside of the annual bell ringing, setting up the club’s website and dutifully sending out a newsletter with photos and a summary of the speaker of the week after every meeting. A longtime businessman, Ware applied the same kind of careful and devoted eye to his Kiwanis dealings as he did to his businesses. 

“Service organizations around the country are having trouble maintaining membership, and when he got that newsletter up, and the pictures and and the notes from the previous meeting, it really did help,” Gault said. “It helped keep the organization together and helped that sense of community within the Kiwanis Club, which is really important to maintaining membership.”

Gault said Ware often kept to himself, so most of his fellow Kiwanians knew him mainly through the club’s activities. 

“We had a lot of social gatherings and stuff and I worked with him on the Lawn Party … so we're really gonna miss Reg,” Gault said. “He was just a sweet gentleman.”

Even throughout 2020 as his health began failing, Ware was determined to get to as many meetings as he could.

He was living off Longboat Key in his later years, so Lazy Lobster owner and Kiwanis member Michael Garey would pick him up on his way onto the island on meeting days, and member Jim Larson would drive Ware back into town after the meeting. The pair even organized for Ware to have a shift ringing the bell in front of Publix during the 2020 season. 

In early 2021, the club recognized Ware, along with Krepela and 2020 organizer Chris Sachs, for their work on bell ringing over the years.

Each man was presented with a gold bell with a promise to have his name engraved on it. Ware’s was never engraved before his death, but Larson plans to have it engraved soon regardless. 

“We’ll be ringing that bell to start our meetings and we’ll ring that bell at Christmas, so he will still be ringing the bell for us,” Larson said. “That bell will be ringing long after he’s gone.”