This is the web page of the Tolliver Lions Club. We are thirty-one men and women in a town of about 1,200 people, and for fifty-one years we have been doing what we can for our neighbors. If you drive into Tolliver from the east on the county blacktop, you will see our sign with the Lions emblem and our two-word motto on it. Those two words are the whole idea.

I am Lion Harlan Brown, club secretary. I taught vocational agriculture at the high school for thirty-four years and joined this club in 1961. Our public library put in two computers on the Internet last year, and Mrs. Janzen, the librarian, has been patiently teaching me how to make this page. I would be glad to hear from any Lion, anywhere, who happens across this page.

Fall Festival Pancake Feed
Saturday, October 2, 6:30 to 10:30 a.m., at the fire hall on Main Street. Pancakes, sausage, eggs, coffee and milk. Adults $4.00, children under 10 $2.00. Lion Wilbur Ahrens will again be at the griddle, as he has been since 1972. Proceeds go to our vision screening and scholarship funds.

Annual Broom and Mop Sale
The week of October 18. Lions will come door to door in town and out to the farms, and we will set up a table at the grain elevator on Saturday morning. The brooms are made by blind craftsmen, and they are the best brooms you will ever own. Mrs. Brown is still using one from 1985.

Christmas Lights in Lions Park
Lighting night is Saturday, November 27, at 6:00 p.m., with hot cider, Santa, and the high school choir. We will need help putting the lights up the Saturday before. Bring gloves.

Peace Poster Contest
Again this year we are sponsoring the Lions International Peace Poster Contest for students ages 11 to 13. Posters are due to Lion Doris Kellerman by November 1. Our winner goes on to the district judging.

• Vision screening. In April and again this month we screened 212 children, from preschool through sixth grade. Letters went home to 14 families recommending an eye doctor. For a few of them, the Lions will help with the glasses.
• Used eyeglasses. Our collection boxes at the bank, the post office and the grocery store brought in 438 pairs of glasses this year. They go to a Lions recycling center, where they are cleaned, sorted and sent overseas to people who need them.
• Scholarship. Our $500 scholarship went to a fine young woman from the Class of 1999 who is studying nursing.
• Lions Park. We re-roofed the picnic shelter in June. Nine Lions, two days, and not one fell off.
• Swimming pool. We gave $1,500 toward the new pool filter, which means the pool opened on Memorial Day weekend for the first time in three years.
• Lions Clubs International Foundation. Our share this year was sent in July.

Lions Clubs International was started in 1917 by Melvin Jones, a Chicago businessman who thought that men who had done well ought to do something for their communities. In 1925, at the Lions convention at Cedar Point, Ohio, Helen Keller asked the Lions to take up the cause of the blind, and Lions have been working for sight ever since. Today it is the largest service club organization in the world, with well over a million members.

Our own club was chartered in April of 1948 with twenty-two members, sponsored by the Lions of a larger town down the highway. Only one charter member is still living, Lion Arvid Nygaard, who is 93 and still comes to the pancake feed. Women were first welcomed into Lions in 1987, and our first two lady Lions, Doris Kellerman and Ruth Ann Pfannenstiel, joined in 1988. Doris was our first woman president in 1994. I am told she ran the tightest meetings in the club's history, and I will not argue.

We meet the first and third Tuesday of each month at 6:30 p.m. at the Community Building. The Methodist women serve the supper; the meal is $6.00. Visiting Lions are always welcome and we will gladly sign your attendance card. So are guests who are curious about joining. You will be fed, and you will not be pressured. Much.

On Tuesday, September 21, our District Governor made his official visit. He spoke about membership and about the good work Lions are doing around the world with sight. Our Tail Twister, Lion Merle Hoch, then fined him one dollar for arriving in a Nebraska jacket. He paid it cheerfully. We also fined Merle, for fining a District Governor.