Clara Berry Elected Key Club’s District Governor

photo submitted by clara berry

St. Joseph High School Junior, Clara Berry, was elected Key Club District Governor in March. Clara has been a participating member and leader in Key Club throughout the past seven years. She began attending builders club in sixth grade, which is a key club meant for middle school students.

“The best part of Key Club is going to the events; we always host a senior prom for senior citizens. We have around 50 members go to the Whitcomb and help out. Everyone dresses up and we crown a senior prom king and queen,” Clara expressed. 

Holding leadership positions all throughout her seven years in the club, Clara has  always dreamed of becoming district governor. In the past 15 years, there have only been three other students from St. Joe who has been elected district governor; Clara will be the fourth. 

“Being given this position is a really big honor. Key Club International has been going on for 98 years, there are 33 districts. Being able to go to training with people from the Bahamas, Philippines, and Jamaica, it’s a great honor. 

Before becoming district governor, Clara was the lieutenant governor of division eight, which includes, St. Joe, Lakeshore, Bridgman, Loy Norrix, Paw Paw, Sturgis, South Haven, and Niles. 

“I was in charge of being the liaison of the state level to the club level,” she continues, “My proudest accomplishment as lieutenant governor was, when I was first elected there were only two clubs active, they were Lakeshore and St. Joe. I’ve quadrupled that number up to the eight active clubs we have now,” Clara said. 

Along with doubling the number of members and quadrupling the number of clubs in Southwest Michigan, Clara also won ‘outstanding lieutenant governor award’ at the SLC (State Leadership Conference) out of the 13 lieutenant governors in Michigan.

As district governor, Clara has a lot of ideas and goals she wishes to accomplish by the end of her term, which ends March 2024. 

“I want to increase membership like I did by bringing in more clubs to active status. There are currently 53 inactive clubs in the state of Michigan,'' she added. “We are still trying to restore the clubs because of the decline of membership due to the Covid lockdown. There were 200 members at our state leadership conference, next year I want to get that up to 300, which is what it used to be,” Clara said.

Clara plans to continue her Key Club career by attending a college which has ‘Circle K,’which is a Key Club, at a college level. 

“I aspire to be on the district board there as well,” Clara concluded.