YOUNGSTOWN — The Kiwanis Club of Boardman-Youngstown and the YMCA of Youngstown Central Branch dedicated a peace pole in front of the YMCA’s main entrance downtown Friday to the memory of Chuck Whitman, a 48-year member of the Kiwanis Club who died in February at age 96. He had served as the organization’s president and lieutenant governor.

Phillip Pillin, vice president of the local Kiwanis Club, said the peace pole was an appropriate way to remember Whitman with funds that were donated to the Kiwanis Club in Whitman’s honor.

The organization stated that the peace pole fits with Whitman’s service to the Kiwanis Club because of his “lifelong loyalty and dedication to our country and community, along with his commitment to a world of service to others through peaceful values and actions.”

Whitman, of Boardman, worked with his parents in the family business, Whitman Food Market, until age 39 when he earned a bachelor’s degree in education and became a Boardman High School teacher.

He then worked in career services at Youngstown State University, where he became director of Career Planning and Placement, according to his obituary.

The first seeds for the peace pole movement were planted in1955 when the late Masahisa Goi of Japan “awakened to the need” to spread the message of peace on earth, according to the worldpeace.org website. Goi’s ideals gained support, and in 1976, the idea of placing the Peace Message and Prayer on poles began to gain popularity, leading to the beginnings of the Peace Pole Project.

“Peace poles serve as a silent but constant reminder of the global message of peace,” Pillin’s son, Phil Pillin, said during the YMCA ceremony.

“This peace pole that sits at the Central YMCA joins the more than 200,000 peace poles throughout the world as a constant reminder of peace in our world,” he said.

The four languages on the peace pole “reminds us of the global desire for an end to violence and conflict, hatred and injustice. Today we celebrate a tangible and permanent step towards a human longing for peace and freedom, peace and justice that all people will be raised up in hope.”

The YMCA was considered an appropriate place for the peace pole because “the Kiwanis has been meeting here for generations, and the YMCA here in downtown is a historic landmark in our city,” he said.

The YMCA and the Kiwanis Club “have been purveyors of peace in the community and of course spreading love to the rest of the community and the world, so I think the peace pole is a great reminder of our global hope for peace but also at a local level,” he said.

Whitman’s son, Don, said his father would be very proud of the dedication of the peace pole in his name.

“He wouldn’t want it to be any other place other than the YMCA,” he said. The Kiwanis met at the YMCA for many years. The Boardman-Youngstown Kiwanis Club was founded in 1916.