Lions International
"Lions International has grown because of what it has put into men” Melvin Jones
Lions International originated in 1914 when Melvin Jones, a leader in a group of associated business clubs in Chicago, saw an opportunity to perhaps federate all the unaffiliated business clubs in America into a national and possibly into an international union. He sent out invitations to all the unaffiliated business-luncheon clubs in the country and suggested they unite as Lions clubs. The first club under that new name was organized at San Antonio, Texas in 1915 and shortly thereafter clubs were formed in most of the cities of Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas and other mid-western states. Oklahoma City and Tulsa were the first in Oklahoma (1916). Stratton D. Brooks, President of the University of Oklahoma, was made an honorary member of the Oklahoma City chapter November 27,1917.
In June, 1917 representatives from many clubs met in Chicago and under the leadership of Jones twenty-seven of them formed the International Association and issued a call for the first international convention which was held in Dallas in October of that year. By 1924 il consisted of 787 clubs with 39,000 members and by 1930 it had 2,170 chapters with a membership of 78,000. Today the International Association has over 890,000 members in 24,000 clubs in 145 countries.
The Lion, official monthly magazine of the organization, was authorized at Dallas in 1917 and has been published ever since.
Lions clubs around the world do not have a set pattern of service to the community, the state and the nation but they do fall into a pattern, for the needs of community, state and nation are much the same everywhere. Cross-fertilization from International above and from Lions clubs on every side produce activities to meet every exigency. Moreover many projects are cosponsored with Rotarians, Kiwanians and others. All work for the common good.
When Helen Keller, the living spirit of courage and determination, electrified the delegates at the Ninth International
Convention in 1925 at Cedar Point, Ohio, she ignited a fire which has burned brightly in Lionism ever since. Eye examinations and glasses for indigent adults and children, glaucoma clinics for the public, braille materials for the blind, forty eye-banks for corneal transplants and the signing of donor cards by persons willing to give their eyes at death to an eye bank mark one of the most satisfying projects of Lionism. With 15,000 persons in the United States arid perhaps fifty million in the world needing corneal transplants this special need is great, the opportunity large. White canes, leader dogs and braille are good but medication, surgery and transplants are better.
Norman Lions Club
The motto of every service club must be “WE SERVE."
Under the encouragement of District Governor Russell Brown of Ardmore, Rotarians H. L. Muldrow and Ralph Downing of Norman, Judge Edgar S. Vaught, president of the Oklahoma City Lions club, and others, a group of local business men met in mid-December, 1919 and organized a Lions club for Norman. A tentative slate of officers was selected with Robert W. Hutto as President, Robert Muldrow as Secretary-Treasurer, and as directors; J. H. Felgar, First Vice President, S. K. McCall, Second Vice President, W. C. Weir, Dt'. J. L. Day and C. M. Bessent. This group petitioned Lions International for a charter and G. M. Cunningham, District 0rganizer and Secretary of the Houston club, issued the authority in Norman on January 16, 1920. Norman was the 25th club in Oklahoma.
Other charter members were J. W. Foster, James L. Corbet, R. D. Lindsay, R. E. Clement, Ray Fisher, Louis P. Burns, C. W. Vaughin, B. F. Williams, J. D. Maguire, W. J.Hess, Major P. Kidd. John E. Luttrell, Ben G. Owen, Edwin DeBarr, R. F. Whitwell, James S. Buchanan, W. M. Langford, G. J. Rousseau, Graham B. Johnson, William R. Synnott, John W. Barbour, E. K. Himes, L. Carl Giles and Roy Gittinger.
The first luncheon was held on Tuesday, January 20 at the Teepee House. At this meeting the officers were installed and charter members enrolled. Subsequent meetings during the first year were held in the Sooner Confectionary, the Presbyterian church, the Christian church and the Methodist church.
Joseph H. Benton (not yet Guiseppi Bentonelli) made his debut as Club soloist on August 77,1920.
The expected election of Warren Gamaliel Harding as President did not keep George B. Parker of Oklahoma City from addressing the Club October 20, 1920 on "What Ails the World."
From at least July 1926 to October 1929 the Lions were fed bi the ladies of the Presbyterian church at ?5 cents a plate. The Club moved to the new Student Union cafeteria in October, 1929 and later to one or another of the private dining rooms therein, including the Woodruff room. From 1956 to 1965 it met in the Lockett hotel but moved back to the Union in September of the Iatter year.
By the third anniversary of the Club, January, 1923 it had grown to forty-seven members.
The membership declined during the late twenties, perhaps due to the depression, and in 1930 consisted of thirty active and three honorary members: University of Oklahoma President William B. Bizzell, Congressman F. B. Swank and Rotarian H. L. Muldrow.
By December 1943 the active membership reached sixty-two and in subsequent Decembers, 1948 one hundred four; 1953 ninety one; and in 1957 active members passed the one hundred fifty mark for the first time; December 1968 the Club numbered two hundred-eleven.
From 1920 to 1960 the average attendance ran between seventy-five and eighty per cent; since 1960 it has averaged between eighty and eighty-five per cent. The addition of two new officers in 1923-Tail Twister and Lion Tamer, may have been designed to bring about better attendance.
In the early Club special committees carried on the varied work, but by 1925 eight standing committees had emerged and by 1928 twelve were recognized, though the last two were seasonal:
Welfare Civic
Ways and Means Finance
Publicity Local Editor
Constitution and Bylaws Music
Education Teachers Night
Fellowship Old Clothes Drive
By 1948 there were eighteen standing committees, each with a chairman and including all ninety-six members of the Club, exclusive of the ten constituting the Board of Directors.
In 1954 committees became "Administrative" (10), "Activities" (13), and "Special" (3). By 1968 there were seventeen "Administrative" committees and sixteen "Activities" committees; these were grouped into eight "Divisions" each with a "Division Supervisor." Every member of the Club served on at least one committee. In September, 1969 some reshuffling for efficiency led to a regrouping with six Administrative committees and twenty-nine Activities committees.
The first effort at a weekly bulletin was made by Secretary Guy Spottswood in 1922-23 when he edited some twenty issues of The Sooner, a four-page 8 1/2 by 4 1/2 program. Fifteen years later Secretary Leslie Rice brought out a monthly, the Lion-O-Type, but it died after one issue. The Lions Tale was born September 29, 1953, Carroll V. Glines as editor (he had been chairman of the Lions Information committee) ; Glines called himself "mother" and President Earl Sneed "father" of this very successful bulletin. Its name was changed to Lively Lion in September, 1961. The publication hit its sartorial peak between 1956 - 1960 under editors Bob Peterson, Ted Thompson and Grady Pennington; but especially under editor Guy Brown in 1961-62 when it appeared in tasteful colors with many photographs by Russell Smith and with a biographical sketch of the speaker of the day or of a distinguished member Lion. Harry Battenburg donated two-thirds of the cost of this lovely publication during these years and with his departure from the CIub the Lively Lion, shorn of most of its illustrations and all its color, lost some of its liveliness.
Projects
The heart of Lionism is the HEART IN LIONISM.
From its beginning the Norman Club, as a civic organization, participated in activities calculated to improve conditions in Norman and Cleveland county. In its first years it sponsored the Boy Scouts and financed a scout master, a YMCA drive, high school athletics and the Norman High band, an annual old clothes drive for the Red Cross, an annual reception and banquet for the public school teachers, the Cleveland county fair and health surveys of Cleveland county children; financed eye examinations and glasses for indigent students, provided adequate marking of Norman's streets and promoted the hard-road program (U.S.77). The Community Fund program was adopted in 1924,In 1925 President Guy Spottswood and V. V. Harris wrote the ordinance for the establishment of a zoning commission charged with the orderly and uniform development of the city. The same year saw the first Lions Club Park with the creation of an irrigated flower garden on the triangle at the junction of Classen and Miller.
In 1928 the Club's Welfare committee instituted a program of identifying all the crippled or severely handicapped children in the county. As a result in the following two years 300 patients were discovered and, 228 were treated in Norman or Oklahoma City under the state's "Crippled Children's Law". The Norman Transcript for June 10, 1930 celebrated the tenth anniversary of the Club's founding by a long article itemizing and picturing some of the most serious cases which had been corrected by surgery, and Lion Fred Tarman editorialized this service as the finest work yet done by the Club. It is interesting to note that of the twelve standing committees in 1930 "'Welfare (Crippled Children Work)" was number one. O. E. Lindquist, Dr. Gayfree Ellison, Dr. George Wiley and G. H. Smith were the committee.
But sight-conservation gradually emerged as the major continuing interest of the Club. In January, 1946 a "Sight Conservation" committee was established and has since functioned in caring for the blind. In 1963 a clinic for a screening program that would detect glaucoma and other eye defects was financed and has been continued since. The Sight Conservation committee was successful the same year in pledging ninety per cent of the membership to donate their eyes on demise to the Oklahoma Lions Eye Bank at the University Hospital, a branch of the Lion's Sight Conservation Foundation which they had help establish in 1958, and which has restored the sight of over 700 Oklahomans in eleven years. The Club's initial contribution to the Foundation in 1958 was $735.
In 1961 the Club sold 7,330 packages of Betty Crocker cake mix to earn $376.50 for the Lions' Eye Bank, which by 1969 had on hand 1,411 eyes for corneal transplants and 40,401 donor cards.
In recent years glaucoma clinics have been sponsored in association with the Cleveland county health service and numerous cases of actual or incipient glaucoma detected.
In 1957 the Club donated a $750 electronic resuscitator to the State Cerebral Palsy Institute in Norman; in 1962 it purchased an "intoximeter" for use by the Norman police.
One of the best means found for raising funds for worthy projects is the spring carnival which has been held since 1963. This annual event has netted from $3,200 to $7,500 and continues to be an exciting three days for the children and parents of Norman. Thus it is possible to continue the Club's tree and lawn clinics which it has sponsored since 1962 as a part of the Norman beautification program. In 1966 the Club appropriated $1,000 for tree-planting in cooperation with the Norman Civic Improvement Council. The Club has had three representatives on this Council since 1962.
Lions Memorial Park is one of the lasting monuments to the Club. The 675 by 300-foot plot on South Flood was turned over to the Club by the city council in the late twenties for beautification and was named Pledger Park after Fletcher Odell Pledger, the first Norman boy to be killed in World War I. It is now dedicated to the hero-dead of Cleveland county in all wars.
Over the years the park has been fenced, trees and shrubs planted, baseball diamonds laid out, tennis courts built and equipped, a wading pool and shelter constructed, twelve picnic tables erected, ten pieces of playground equipment secured. Much of the financing of the Park's facilities came from the Square-dance festivals which were staged by the Club from 1948 to 1952. These attracted as many as 560 dancers and 3,000 spectators.
For many years the Club has supported the Central State Hospital carnival which provides gifts for the patients. At least one sales booth is maintained every year by the Club. Lion Ralph Stevenson managed the carnival in June 1962 and it was a "big one".
The Club's interest in Boy Scouts has continued since 1920 andt has long been the sponsor of Troop 220. In 1955 it became sponsor and secured the charter for Cub Pack 220 and a little later for Explorer Post 220.
Since 1945 the Club has been interested in CARE projects, but this concern was heightened in 1957 when Lions International became a participating agency. It was advantageously situated for this work since its Lion agents shipped the goods and Lions received and distributed them at destination. Whole shiploads began to go and included everything from food and medicine to tractors and pipe.
Norman Lions have long financed at least one boy to Oklahoma Boys State, and make an annual appropriation to the Individual Opportunity for Advancement ranch (IOA) near Edmond. Reports indicate that eighty-eight per cent of these boys who have run afoul of the law are helped by a sojourn at IOA.
The Club has supported free kindergartens and when they became "tuition" has financed at least one needy child each year. When the "New Kindergarten Association" was formed in Norman, September, 1969 the Lions appropriated $300 for it. The same budget included $250 to support the new "Chamber of Commerce Information Center". In fact it is and always has been the purpose of the CIub to serve as many worthy causes as possible.
The Club prides itself in getting its members out to vote on election day; to show up for the Club luncheon without the slip off the top of your ballot means a fine. The Lions' officers cannot openly tell members how to vote on bond issues but Club sentiment for schools, streets, sewers, lights, parks, hospitals and other worthy causes is subtly powerful. The Community Fund has no more loyal coadjutors.
Education and intelligence have always been highly prized by the Club. Hence another enjoyable project since 1961 has been that of recognizing the high school Student of the Month. This honor student is a guest of the Club for four weekly luncheons, and then awarded a Lions Club plaque and a check for $100. This feature was extended in 1962 to include a Foreign Student of the Month from the University of Oklahoma. This is only one of the many ways in which the Education committee seeks to recognize and promote excellence in scholarship and achievement.
Since birth the Club membership has been business-professional and half faculty. Its relationship with the University of Oklahoma has been very close. Some of its faculty members, notably the ROTC officers, have been superb in their Club leadership and service; Presidents James S. Buchanan and George L. Cross have been members, and David Ross Boyd and William Bennett Bizzell were honorary members.
It is not surprising that the Club won the District Governors Award as the best club in our area for fourteen straight years (1955-68). This award was based largely on growth, attendance and worthy performance. The CIub won the "International Annual Award for Club Membership Growth" in 1968.
Not the least enjoyable event of the Club is the semi-annual "Ladies Night". The first was engineered .by Roy Gittinger on November 30, 1920, and has been continued ever since. They are occasions especially enjoyable for the younger members for after dinner festivities usually mean a dance, but since the Lively Lions - old and young, are the "Youngest Men in Town" the older members are conspicuous by their presence.
Mention deserves to be made of the Club's activities in sponsoring other clubs. The Moore club was chartered by President Earl Sneed and District Governor M. L. Wardell on April 29,1954; the Lexington club had charter night May 27, 1955 with International Counsellor Wardell presiding; Noble, May 25, 1961; the Sooner Lions club of Norman, chartered on May 25, 1963. The Norman Lions have been joint-sponsor of other clubs including Idabel, Purcell and Stratford (1966).
A Look Backward
A look Backward to the Good old Days with Dave McKown,
Club Secretary 1925-1926
"Norman was intensely proud of Bep Hutto - and the club felt he was good timber for District Governor. So, in a throng, we attended the District Convention and put on a power drive which put him in the governor's chair. It was he who delegated to me the chore of installing the club at Idabel.
"Florence and I had been married a little more than two years, and none of our five children had yet shown up. The bank and I jointly owned a Model-T Ford of 1921 vintage - the first car I ever had. So when Bep asked me to be his representative at the Idabel ceremony, I jumped at the chance. We started for Idabel about noon of the day before I was due in the metropolis of McCurtain County for a six-thirty dinner meeting.
"This, be it understood, was in the days before space dramatics. It even antedated the jet age by some decades. In fact, there were no paved roads between Norman and Idabel. Yet, I had implicit, if misguided, confidence in that old Model-T. What I neglected to take into account was the bottomless mud holes, of which there were beaucoup, in what we now affectionately call Little Dixie.
"Well, we reached Sulphur in time for supper and put up for the night - reflecting that we had a good third of our distance accounted for. That is, we had a third of the miles behind us - but in point of time, we had just gotten a fair start. That next day will live in memory as the one most damnably filled with frustration, apprehension and just plain drudgery f ever experienced. I had to be pulled out of mud holes four or five times. I had to get out and push while my faithful wife steered the old Ford.
"Somehow, we drove or crept into Hugo about five o'clock - still forty miles from Idabel. Florence was weary, I was worse…. I tried to call our Idabel friends but couldn't get a connection. By now, I was ready to give up and let them initiate themselves. Since I couldn't get a call through, it appeared I had no alternative than to try to make it. Make it I did - about seven-thirty - rubber chicken and cold potatoes.
"Of course, the program was wholly my speech. I had rehearsed it dozens of times on my muddy drive. I was cocked and primed-and nobody seemed to notice how muddy and disheveled I was. I gave them the usual civic pride stuff-opportunity for service - and then added a liberal mix of philosophy and government. f remember - how could I forget it - a story I told of a county commissioner who was knocking it down but good, and how contemptible such a crook was. After the meeting and after the dutiful compliments I received from some of my hosts, a burly old cross between a boar and a post oak tree came up and introduced himself as a county commissioner of McCurtain County. Inwardly, I uttered an "Oh, Oh." He didn't commit mayhem physically - but I got the idea I hadn't gone over too well with him. Anyway I delivered the Charter.
" , . . . you may be interested to know that while I was secretary-treasurer, I literally hated. "dunning" rnembers for their dues. As I recall it, dues were then $4.00 per month - including meals which were served by the wonderful cooks of the Presbyterian Church on the corner of Main and Webster. Collecting dues became the bane of my tenure. So, I conceived and sold the idea of permitting me to draw against each member's bank account for the $4.00. All but one or two agreed to rny scheme - and they didn't dare to be delinquent. Thereafter the ciub never had a slow-pay member. We had funds."
PAST PRESIDENTS OF THE NORMAN LIONS CLUB
1920 - 1921 R. W. Hutto 1921 0 1922 J. H. Felgar 1922 - 1923 J. L. Day 1923 - 1924 S. K. McCall 1924 - 1925 S. W. Reavei 1925 - 1926 Guy Spottswood 1926 - 1927 J. F. Brooks 1927 - 1928 John Latrell 1928 - 1929 E. R. Kraettli 1929 - 1930 A. B. Walker 1930 - 1931 E. P. Parker 1931 - 1932 I. M. Jackson 1932 - 1933 M. L. Wardell 1933 - 1934 O. E. Lindquist 1934 - 1935 E. D. Meacham 1935 - 1936 J. W. Foster 1936 - 1936 Frank Cleckler 1936 - 1937 M. J. Lindloff 1937 - 1938 Ray Groves 1938 - 1939 J. H. Marshburn 1939 - 1940 Paul Updegraff 1940 - 1941 Loyd Harris 1941 - 1942 J. R. Landsaw 1942 - 1943 George Cross 1943 - L944 J. L. Sayre 1944 - 1945 Frank G. Tappan 1945 - 1946 B. J. Drace 1946 - 1947 G. Y. Williams 1947 - 1948 George Nolan 1948 - 1949 Leslie Rice 1949 - 1950 John L. Morrison 1950 - 1951 R. C. Dragoo 1951 - 1952 O. W Davision 1952 - 1953 D. H. Grisso 1953 - 1954 Earl Sneed Jr. 1954 - 1955 Harold Cooksey 1955 - 1956 John M. Luttrell 1956 - 1957 Ralph Bienfang 1957 - 1958 Lloyd Hoover 1958 - 1959 Carl Riggs 1959 - 1960 B. E. Massey 1960 - 1961 Sam McCall 1961 - 1962 Ansley Aynesworth 1962 - 1963 Jack Black 1963 - 1964 Harry Hoy 1964 - 1965 Elvin J. Brown 1965 - 1966 Jim Artman 1966 - 1967 Robert Pendarvis 1967 - 1968 Guy Brown 1968 - 1969 GeorgeHuffman 1969 - 1970 John Ford 1970-71 Lester Reed 1971-72 Anthony Lis 1972-73 John Miles 1973-74 Bob L. Harris 1974-75 Richard Rogers Jr. 1975-76 Gary Rawlinson 1976-77 Hugh Wilson 1977-78 Woodrow Grimm 1978-79 Alan P. Marchand 1979-80 Robert Talley 1980-81 Irvin L. Wagner 1981-82 Alex Kondonassis 1982-83 James L. Wainner 1983-84 James D. Riley 1984-85 Joseph C. Ray 1985-86 Robert Landsaw / Danny Lovett 1986-87 Danny Lovett 1987-88 Lee Symcox 1988-89 Raymond Daniels 1989-90 David Etheridge 1990-91 Michael Pullin 1991-92 James Gasaway 1992-93 William Logan 1993-94 Thomas M. Miller 1994-95 Brad Hawkins 1995-96 Bill Lockett 1996-97 Kamran Sadeghi 1997-98 Bill Walker 1998-99 Jorge Mendoza 1999-00 Kenneth Muncy 2000-01 Debi Loeffelholz 2001-02 Fred Gipson 2002-03 Bill Purcell 2003-04 Patrick Cross 2004-05 Mike Lambert 2005-06 Charles Gilbert 2006-07 Claude Duchon 2007-08 B. Don Steveson 2008-09 Debi Loeffelholz 2009-10 Bill Lockett 2010-11 Ben Odom 2011-12 Mona Nelson 2012-13 Jon Bredeson 2013-14 Sam Friedman 2014-15 Jim Maisano 2015-16 Wendy Welcher 2016-17 Duane Winegardner 2017-18 Al Cummings PAST SECRETARIES OF THE NORMAN LIONS CLUB 1920 - 1921 Muldrow, Bob 1921 - 1922 Foster, J. W. 1922 - 1923 Campbell, Bill 1923 - 1924 Spotswood, Guy 1924 - 1925 Brooks, J. F. 1925 - 1926 McKown, Dave 1926 - 1928 Wadsack, George 1928 - 1929 Newton, W. K. 1929 - 1930 Harris, Loyd 1930 - 1931 Sayre, J. L 1931 - 1932 Johnson, G. B. 1932 - 1942 Smith, Russell 1942 - 1943 Rice, Leslie H. 1943 - 1945 Green, Charles 1945 - 1946 Rice, Leslie H. 1946 - 1953 Allphin, Herbert G. 1953 - Cosgrove, A. L.
CHARTER MEMBERS WHO ARE STILL ON THE ROLL
Hutto, R.W. Foster, Jack W.
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