I first became a Lion in 1973 when I was first hired as a job superintendent for Davenport School District, which is a town near Spokane WA. About the second day I was there in the evening time. I had to go buy the agriculture building and the doors were open and I couldn’t figure out what’s going on there was about 10 cars and inside there was a bunch of men drilling holes and doing other kinds of work to make a cross arms for the lights on a football field. And so they finished up there.
Anyway, the Lions decided they want to do the project to relight the School’s football field. The thing is interesting is that we had two shops for the for power companies one for the private company, it was Washington water power and one for the REA. So they kind of had a contest to see who could get their team to get the poles ready first. So this was a three or four week project. and you know, I saw what happened and who was it everybody in town that had any decision making was process. I’m going to stay with Lions because they can get all this stuff done that cause the school district something. I’m going to hang with them for a while.
So starting from 73. I have been in five different clubs as I moved around the state for various jobs, and now I retired I’ve been here for 20. So anyway, that’s our that’s how I got from there to here.
Awesome. So why did you stay?
Well early on I became friends with Ralph Harding, and he’s a longtime member of our group and he’s been instrumental in the Lions Sight Foundation of Clark County. And that’s a thing that up until a couple years ago, we were the only one in the world that had a co-op when all the 10 Cubs in Clark County, pool their money and it went to a board and then the board got applications from needy people and we had contracts with a different optometrist and eye doctors who helped us and that made a good for everybody because only few people had them mess with how to do the applications and their office is only had to deal with two people at the most on how to get the arrangement made and now we could we do about 25-30 glasses a year when the in a 2008 when the economic problems used to be but do about 80 a month and the lowest I remember was about 20 a month. So it’s a real way, and you have a lot of appreciative people who do that service.
Okay.
The other thing I’m involved in is the state Lions also have a hearing van and we drive this van around to the schools and we screen kindergarten through fourth graders for hearing loss and then we for their referred back to their school nurse and that if they need any follow up, and I’ve been part of that group for a long time. It’s really good to see the kids and their little anxious when he come and most of them give you high fives when they go out. So that’s keeping me going. I’ll keep going there, as long as I can keep going.
Awesome. So if there’s a new person coming into the Lions Club or considering becoming a Lion, is there one thing you would give them advice on?
Oh, if you can find some talkative old person, pick their brain a little bit. And so you know, what things might be a while before what you’re really interested comes up, but it could tell you if that’s coming up because we do a lot of those projects. Not quite like the Lions did over in Davenport, but we go we’ve done Habitat projects and all kinds of things going on. So ask a veteran what going on.
Awesome. Thank you for your time Bob.
You’re welcome.
