Indeed the most ambitious project undertaken by the St. George Rotary Club is the Dixie Rotary Bowl—sanctioned in 1986 as the first post-season college bowl game in Utah.

As the original organizers of the bowl (Thomas D. McArthur, the Rotary Club of St. George President, Randy Wilkinson, the chairman of the Rotary Bowl Planning Committee, and Jerry Lewis, Chairman of Washington County Commission) set out to create one of the largest, annual, community service projects accomplished by the Rotary Club of St. George. They captured a moment in time that has been long cherished by the Washington County community.

In his President’s Welcome of 1986, Thomas McArthur, unveiled the thought behind the culmination of thousands of man hours that had gone into the preparation of the bowl, “With the proceeds from this Rotary Dixie Bowl, we will make hope more of a reality locally and even throughout the world to needy individuals”. Rotary Internationals 1986 theme was “Rotary brings hope” indeed McArthur, Wilkinson, and Lewis brought to pass one part of that theme by bringing this type of event to St. George.

Nearly $1 million dollars has been raised to benefit participation schools meeting head-to-head on this gridiron. “The Dixie Rotary Bowl was created to benefit the colleges who qualify to participate,” Wilkinson adds, “We wanted to bring a unique event to this community — an event that not only had the potential to benefit the college, but the community as well, because of the excitement it generates.”

The Bowl has been a December highlight every year for the citizens of St. George and has attracted tourists from all different sects by bringing in different team players and their families, stimulating our local economy and heightening tourism, that was traditionally slow during December.

For 20 years the Dixie Bowl set the standard of JUCO bowls. Before a switch to NCAA Division II the bowl was in the ranks of NJCAA and paved a reputation as the biggest junior college bowl game in the nation. Twice the bowl has hosted the NJCAA championship game (1999 and 2003) receiving official sanction by the NJCAA as the official national championship football game in 20003. Teams from across the nation traveled here experiencing the “Dixie Spirit” and a touch of red sand in their shoes and although the days of the Junior College and NJCAA have passed the bowl itself along with the “Dixie Spirit” continues onward into a new day.

To become the premier NCAA DII bowl game is a challenge that the planning committee and trustees are committed to achieve. After 22 years, The Rotary Bowl will still remain a community service project with the same philosophy, objectives and goals:

• To provide a sustaining project that will involve the majority of Rotary Club members, promoting fellowship and genuine feeling of community service;
• To provide services to the community that will benefit the St. George business community by attracting visitors from outside of the area;
• To provide a project that will be a recognizable event in the community and that will promote the Rotary Club of St. George, not only in St. George, but in the State of Utah and the rest of the country as well;
• To promote St. George as an ideal location to vacation and to live; and
• To provide a source of revenue to the Rotary Club of St. George that would assist performance of its other service projects.

The Rotary Bowl has proved to be an important character-builder for the young men who participate in it with help from the banquet speakers who have emphasized the importance of lifetime values.