GROUP THAT DATES BACK TO 1940 CALLS IT QUITS
For more than eight decades, dozens of businessmen participated in a club that directed life in Platte City. They were at the center of every community event, whether high school football games, or county fairs and were even long-term sponsors of a local Boy Scout troop.
In the end, the few remaining members decided to disband the club, a decision that relegated the group to the past.
The Platte City Lions Club, which began in 1940, had dwindled to fewer than a dozen men when they voted last month to close the chapter. Those men gifted a framed copy of the Lions Club charter and a photo of some of the early club members to the Platte County Historical Society at the Ben Ferrel Museum, said Olin Miller, a longtime Lion.
The club got its start after an Excelsior Springs club sponsored the Platte City group, stating such an organization would promote the community, said former Lion John Higgins, also a former member of the Platte City Board of Aldermen. When Higgins joined Lions in 1987, the club averaged about 40 members at each meeting, the 71-year-old said. During its peak, the club consisted of more than 50 members.
Early meetings were held in a restaurant until they made their headquarters at a building by the Platte City Cemetery, which the club purchased from the school district. An outdoor sign on the building’s north side names it the Lions Club Building, which today is used by a VFW group.
Throughout their history, members were constantly engaged in fundraising to pay for the many activities and causes they sponsored, including the scout troop, sports tournaments, holiday celebrations and school events.
A long-term fundraising event was selling and serving hot dogs and chili during fall high school football games. Members also placed American flags outside Platte City businesses for a small fee during several holiday weekends each year, Miller said. Proceeds from that endeavor were used to help Platte City school children get eyeglasses (for which Lions Clubs are known nationally,) That community service is being handed over to the school district so those in need will continue to get eye glasses, Miller said.
The club was so involved in helping the scout troop that they even searched for and assigned scoutmasters. Members conducted background checks (which, in those days, consisted of interviewing people who knew the candidates.)
Both Miller and Higgins credited longtime Lion Arvid Edwards with the club maintaining its momentum. Edwards also was deeply involved in the scout troop, serving as scoutmaster for many years. “I doubt it (the club) would have lasted this long without his leadership,” Higgins said.
Despite having hands in many activities, the club’s main goal was supporting the community and providing opportunities for the community to socialize, Miller said. For instance, members were dedicated to bringing the community together to enjoy each other’s company in events such as musical concerts and holiday celebrations. The club even helped establish the city’s only medical clinic shortly after the conclusion of World War II, the lifelong Platte City resident said.
During the 1950s, Lions paid for construction of a concrete block building, known as the Youth Building, located behind what is today the baseball fields near Hwy. 92 and Fourth Street. The Youth Building was built to supplement the city’s existing school, which was running short on classroom space. The building housed sixth grade during the day, girl and boy scouts and other youth events during the evening, the 72-year-old said. Today, the building is used as a city storage facility.
In the beginning, the club was exclusively for men who owned Platte City businesses.
“It was a male bastion,” Miller said, adding that the group often socialized by playing cards and drinking alcohol.
Members were prominent in the community and their establishments along Main Street easily provided all necessary goods for daily living—grocery, hardware, pharmacy and dry cleaners (which also sold clothes), Miller said.
“All people doing business (owners) were in the Lions Club,” Miller said and added, “if you didn’t, there was something wrong.”
As times changed, so did the club. A Lioness Club for women was started but a few decades later, when membership began to wane in the Lions Club, the women’s group disbanded and joined the men in the Lions Club.
During the club’s peak years, when Miller was growing up, Platte City was a tight-knit community.
“You knew everybody, and you knew everybody’s dog and cat, you knew who was sick and who got a new car,” he said.
Miller said a highlight of the club’s existence was a 50th anniversary celebration in 1990 with a dinner and guest speaker, Andrew Jackson Higgins, who was a Missouri Supreme Court justice.
The Platte City Lions Club is not alone in its struggle to survive—other service clubs from Jaycees to Rotary and Kiwanis are slowly disappearing. Today, Platte City is a “bedroom community” where residents live but travel out of town to work and do other activities.
“It doesn’t appeal to today’s youth,” said former Lions member and former Mayor Frank Offutt. “Society has changed,” he said and added that today’s form of communication and fundraising look very different. He said, “They can make a video, establish a Go Fund Me.”
