Sunrise Detachment Marince Corps League 1956

Today members of the Sunrise Detachment have the pleasure of enjoying a beautiful Clubhouse that is only one of two Marine Corps League Clubhouses on Long Island. Unfortunately, many members don’t remember, or never really thought about how this came to be. When the Sunrise Detachment first began members gathered at the old Wantagh Hotel, located where the McDonald’s is now on Wantagh Avenue. Apparently, as the membership grew, a larger place was needed. Meetings then were held in the Seaford Civic Hall on Riverside Drive, south of Merrick Road. Bingo was first started in the early sixties by Bill Schmoll and others as a fundraising technique that was quite successful for many organizations. Property in Seaford was purchased and a small building was planned. Due to unknown circumstances, this property was not built on and remained vacant for several years. We lost the Seaford Civic Center with the building of the Seaford Oyster Bay Expressway, and found a storefront on Hempstead Turnpike. Membership started to decline. Due to a lack of willing workers, Bingo was abandoned after a few years.

The next move for the Sunrise Detachment was to a small storefront on Wantagh Avenue. After a few years there, due to declining participation, the Sunrise Detachment almost had to surrender it’s charter and cease to exist, but fortunately, around 1964/65 ten members came forward, paid their dues and the charter was saved.

The next move brought us to the Massapequa VFW Hall. There the membership increased and the Detachment got its life back. Members were once again actively participating in Detachment affairs and we became a major player in the League on Long Island.

After a year or two of this sustained growth Myles Clark revived the Bingo Program. The success of the Bingo Program built up the Sunrise treasury to a point that now we could look for our own Clubhouse. The Seaford property, affectionately known as the ‘white elephant’, was sold and that money was restored to the treasury. The search for our Clubhouse had begun.

One of the potential properties was located on Hicksville Road, about ¾ of a mile south of the Southern State Parkway, on the east side. It now houses a church. The other property available was the old Massapequa Funeral Home on New York Avenue. The Michelak family that owned the Funeral home was planning to build a new, state of the art home in Massapequa Park and would not need the old home anymore.

Myles Clark was the Commandant when we bought the Club House in 1969. He went out on the limb to get the mortgage needed and he worked out a terrific deal for the club to get house at a great price by letting the Funeral Home to stay there for a year and pay us rent.

He continued on as the Bingo Chairman for ten years and allowing us pay off almost half of the mortgage. He was there every Tuesday night for 5 hours and also one Saturday night a month when we had Bingo. Sometimes two Saturdays when Myles made deals with the other clubs that had religious holiday conflicts.

Myles Clark retired to Florida after contributing so much to this Detachment. His contributions not only saved the Sunrise Detachment from extinction, but his leadership is undoubtedly the main reason that we have one of the greatest clubhouse of any Marine Corps Leagues, for that matter of any organization in the area. He certainly did not do all of this by himself, he had the support and help of other Marines, but it took a good leader who knew how to set goals and how to delegate authority to accomplish this feat.

I am sure that I speak for many fellow Marines that enjoy our Clubhouse at the Sunrise Detachment when I say ‘Thank You’ to Myles Clark and all of the other Marines that have contributed to make the Sunrise Detachment the great place it is today.

A lesson to be learned from this little bit of history; lack of participation by the membership can and will kill any organization. Do your part, come to meetings whenever possible, attend social functions, parades, details that are sponsored by the Detachment, step up to the front when help is needed, then the future of the Sunrise will be assured.

The history above is culled from many sources. I have been given written information from unknown sources, stories heard in the Bar on Friday nights, after meetings, and from conversations with senior members. If any of the above is incorrect or incomplete, please let me know and I will publish the amendments/corrections in a future issue.

Thanks for a lot of the info above to Past Commandant Joe Cope, not exactly a slacker in the sweat and labor department himself.

Next year will be celebrating the Detachment's 50 anniversary. More to come on that in the future.