In 1964 the Powell High School swim team was a force, and with a new community pool, swimming was popular — so naturally, that year the Powell Swim Club was born.

Just over six decades later kids are still launching off the blocks and learning the sport.

The club was started by Jerry Stewart, a sixth grade teacher, sometimes life guard and neighbor of Powell High School swim coach Gene Dozah, recalled Powell Swim Club head coach Jerry Rodriguez.

Back then the club was known as the Powell Elks Swim Club, so named after their sponsor.

Stewart's first venture into youth sports was through a grade school program where kids could play sports like flag football or basketball, remembered Stewart's son Jon, who swam for the club and later collegiately. 

The club first began to take shape when Jon's dad caught wind of a meet in the area; he took his brother Glenn (one of the club’s first official members) and a handful of other boys.

“My dad didn't know a damn thing about swimming,” Jon said, but, he’s sure his dad got some pointers from their friend and neighbor Dozah, whose honorary swim meet draws in a crowd every year.

“Powell was getting noticed around that stuff, and then Powell was always known for its high school teams in Wyoming,” Jon said. “Gene Dozah had five or six state titles, probably, but he liked to golf in the summer, so he wasn’t too into training in the summer.”

The club competed in a couple Montana meets, with Jon remembering swimmers like Ray Tollman standing out.

But the Montana swimming association was strictly for teams with outdoor pools.

“The other towns assumed that we had, you know, we trained during the winter, which we did not, you know, we just goofed around,” Jon said.

The older Stewart fought a battle with the Montana association and was able to get Powell into a state meet where Jon remembers they did really well. 

The swim team was instrumental in Jon becoming a collegiate swimmer, he said. If not for the club he doesn't know if he would have competed in the sport. 

Making a splash

The club, sometimes referred to in news coverage as the finners, really began to pick up some steam in the mid to late 60s, Stewart remembered. They were beating other swimmers from teams like Sheridan and Billings. At the aforementioned state meet they even had a couple swimmers win high-point in their events.

Summer 1965 issues of the Tribune paint the picture of a competitive club out of Powell.

One story relays news of a strong performance at the Billings long course swimming and diving championships. Craig Guymon was the standout of that meet placing in both diving and the 400 relay. 

That same summer the club’s 200 meter relay team of Randy Funk, Dave Blevins, Ray Brakke (sometimes listed as a coach) and Layne Kopischka went on to place third in the national meet in Miles City, Montana, while Merlin Chenoweth secured a first place regional finish in long course swimming and diving. The meet could have been even more successful if a competing swimmer had not ventured into a Powell lane. That same meet Chenoweth was hospitalized for a diving injury, but still won the event due to a large lead and was also given an award for courage by the Montana Amateur Athletic Union.

Around this time Jerry Bope, a former Powell swimmer, took over the club. Under Bope’s coaching Mary Tester, the first girl to swim for the club, joined as well as several other girls including Karen Beemer of Cody.

Beemer does not remember exactly when she started, she said — she was probably about 11. Her dad was actually the president of the Powell Elks at that time. 

“We swam all the time, we’d go to swimming lessons, from nine to 12, and then we go swim at one to four, and then we'd swim from seven to nine at night,” Beemer said. “So it was just kind of a natural thing. The kids that swam so much started swimming on the team, and we literally swim all day long every day.”

The pool was open all the time, she said, and if you didn’t play baseball or softball in the summer there wasn't much to do.

A lot of the swimmers lived in the same area, Beemer said.

Younger kids like Beemer were also able to make connections with some of the older swimmers, who served as lifeguards.

“Lane Kopischka … he was one of those very good swimmers. He jumped off the diving board with me the first time,” Beemer said. “I just remember those kinds of things.”

For Rodriguez, who's been involved in swimming in some shape or form since his high school days, the influence of older swimmers also made a big impact.

When he was young Rodriguez would watch his uncle Jim Haworth, a state record holder and state champion, compete on the high school team.

Rodriguez was impressed, and as a smaller kid, he decided to try swimming in high school, hoping he’d share his uncle’s athletic genes.

“When I walked in on that first meeting, everybody was excited,” Rodriguez said. “They were excited to have another guy on the team, even though they knew I probably wasn't very good or anything.”

Rodriguez said while he did not inherit his uncle’s abilities, he wanted to get better so he joined the club.

“It's one of the things, the more you put into it, the better you get at it. It's like one of the few sports you can do, really, for the rest of your life,” Rodriguez said. “And so the kids that I'm coaching now, and have been coaching, one of my main goals is to try and get them to love the sports where they keep doing it for the rest of their lives.” 

Just keep swimming 

Today the club has 49 registered swimmers, some of them the children of past swimmers and instructors. Parent Susan Shumway began swimming with the club at age 7 and continued through high school, while also teaching swim lessons. Now her children are in Swim America, stroke school (the introductory group for swim club) and Powell Swim Club. For Shumway it’s about knowing her kids can be safe in the water, she doesn’t care if they choose to compete. But she enjoys the swim meets. 

“My parents come watch, because they miss watching us from when we were little, it’s fun,” Shumway said. 

They’re in a bit of a rebuilding phase at the moment, which happens every few years, Rodriguez said. Swim America, a national organization, helps kids learn to swim and potentially feeds into the club later on.

In Rodriguez’ 30 years of coaching and high school experience he has seen a number of swimmers and parent board members come through. The current board has a number of new members, "and they all seem to be really enthusiastic about getting things done,” he said.

The progression into club swimming was broken for a time due to Covid and the fact that families have been busy with multiple activities. But kids have been starting to filter in over the past several months with more than a dozen kids joining.

Swimming is not easy, and it demands a lot of athletes, Rodriguez said.

“We're doing things that humans aren't really meant to do, we’re in water, in a place where we don't move naturally, where you have to control your breathing, and your body's trying to tell you that you're drowning all the time, or you're totally exhausted,” Rodriguez said.  “You get done with practice, and after a while, you feel pretty good, come back the next day and do it again.”