It was not the best of news to hear. One of the Blue Earth Lions Club members told me they had voted at their June meeting to dissolve, and that meeting was going to be their last one.

As the story on the front page this week relates, the Blue Earth Lions Club has been around for 65 years.

That would be 65 years of service to the community of Blue Earth. They have raised a lot of money over those 65 years and supported a whole lot of local groups and organizations.

But, they were having some issues that certainly were not just happening to them, but to service clubs all over.

Declining membership and not enough active members.

Lions is an international organization with millions of members in over 200 countries around the world.

Yes, you read that right. Over 200 countries around the globe have Lions Clubs.

Lions International’s main focus is service to their communities. Their slogan is “We Serve.” Internationally they raise funds for sight, hearing, speech impairment, pediatric cancer and hunger.

Most clubs mainly support issues in their own communities but they also do raise money for other places.

I became a Lion back in around 1977, when I joined the Waterville Lions Club. I had already been a Jaycee Club member in North Dakota.

I mainly joined the Lions Club in Waterville because my one-time co-worker, one-time boss, and one-time employee, Jack Webster, asked me to join. Ask is a relative word, as he was rather insistent.

I did like being a Lion. They were pretty active and I liked that.

Jack was a great Lion, and was their club secretary for years and years. He also was always promoting that the club do more and more activities and fundraisers. Like a complete turkey dinner, a bowling tournament and food and game stands at Waterville’s Bullhead Days.

That includes voluntarily cleaning a few thousand bullheads; not an easy job.

Jack was so dedicated he did an annual bike ride to raise funds for the Lions Hearing and Ear, Nose and Throat Clinic in Minneapolis. He rode 50 or more miles every day for five days with other Lions members sometimes joining him and sometimes he was just alone.

Should I mention Jack was not a spring chicken and was not an avid bicyclist? Which made it all the more impressive.

My father-in-law was also a big Lions Club member. He had a lot of Lions’ pins to wear on his Lions’ vest.

I continued in Lions when I moved to Tyler, Minnesota in 1985. There I also joined Kiwanis.

The Tyler Lions Club was also very active, doing all sorts of community projects and fundraisers. Their most famous (and zaniest) fundraiser was to put on a crazy comedic play every April that had members of the Lions Club playing all the characters in the play – male and female.

I was an active member and president of it two or three times.

When I moved to Blue Earth in 2007, I had decided to devote my time and energy to one service club, not two or three. Being an editor is a pretty full-time job, after all.

It was Dr. John Sawyer who first approached me about Kiwanis, and transferring my Kiwanis membership to the Blue Earth Club, which I did.

Although, later, several Lions Club members also tried to get me to join, including my next door neighbor, Don Beckendorf, a very dedicated Lions Club member.

I have first hand witnessed how much Lions Clubs have done over the years. So, it is painful to see the Blue Earth one have to dissolve and cease being a club.

It is a pretty good sized blow to the community, but it is also certainly not something that is just happening here.

Many, many service clubs have been suffering from low membership numbers, lack of finding leaders and officers, and thus an inability to do as many things as they have in the past.

The Blue Earth Kiwanis Club and the Sertoma Club also have those same issues and are starting to work together on their projects.

There are many reasons that are mentioned as to why some service clubs are in decline.

People say they are too busy these days to volunteer their time. And maybe we all are a bit busier than ever before.

There are fewer people and fewer businesses in our small towns and counties. That means fewer people to find who are willing to give of their time and effort.

The COVID Pandemic of a few years back is blamed a lot. People had to stay home, wear a mask and not socialize much. While that is true, I am not sure it is the biggest reason.

I don’t have a real answer. I just think many people just don’t want to join a service club. It is a time, money and effort commitment. Not every one these days wants to bother with that. And some folks are not all that civic minded.

And that is a shame.