Nickell cites Calvert City Lions Club for 75 years of service

Jun 02, 2023

CALVERT CITY — "Where there is a need, there is a Lion," said Kentucky Supreme Court Justice Shea Nickell. He uttered those words in a brief address to the Calvert City Lions Club on Saturday, June 3 during the club's celebration of its 75th anniversary at Lakeland Events Center.

"And in this case, where there is a need there's a Lions Club, and it's called Calvert City Lions Club," the justice added. "You all have been doing such a great service for these 75 years. … Your service is a testimony unto your dedication to our association and its motto of ‘We serve.’ "

Nickell said as he looked across the room he could see the "quality of leadership" Calvert City Lions have developed. "At the passing of Lions founder Melvin Jones, Finis Davis wrote ‘Once in a generation or era, a man appears and in his fleeting hour upon this stage, he leaves an indelible imprint upon the lives of his fellow man and upon generations yet to come.’ "

Nickell suggested that every member of the Calvert City Lions Club is such a person — "such a man or woman who has left an indelible imprint on not only this community, but has created ripples that will reach out from this community into the world and will change it for the better. For that, I congratulate you."

Davis was Kentucky's only president of Lions Clubs International serving in 1960-61. And in 1967-68, Davis was president of the Kentucky Lions Eye Foundation.

Nickell continued likening club members to prominent citizens in history who served a greater cause than themselves.

"It also struck me that you were founded in 1948," he said. "We all know that Missourian (who) got himself elected president, along with a kid from Graves County by the name of Alben Barkley. We remember that dear old Alben was giving a speech over in Virginia, and no sooner had he expressed the words ‘I would rather be a servant in the House of the Lord than to sit in the seat of the mighty,’ he fell over with a heart attack and died. I think those words express the character and vision of so many of us, not just here in western Kentucky, but throughout our commonwealth. Truman also said that ‘It is amazing what you can accomplish when you really don't care who gets the credit.’ So, I think they (Truman and Barkley) were very well paired in 1948 as they led us." Barkley was Truman's vice president.

Past International Director Tom Matney also spoke briefly and presented the International President's Certificate of Appreciation to Calvert Lions Courtney Bishop, Jim Conn and Larry Munson. He also presented a plaque for 75 years of service to the Kentucky Eye Foundation to Calvert Lions Vice President Blair Travis. Travis is marketing director for the city of Calvert City.

Vicki Madison, the first woman member of the Calvert Club, showed videos and recounted the club's past and ongoing service project. Those projects include organizing the city's volunteer fire department on Jan. 18, 1951 and raising money to buy its first fire truck, which cost $7,000. The city refurbished that truck two years ago, and it was on display in front of Lakeland Events Center for the celebration. In their early years, the Lions made recommendations to the city council regarding street names and established a grid for house numbers; organized the Calvert United Fund in 1953, helped organize a local Jaycees chapter; with the Calvert Woman's Club established the public library; helped organize the North Marshall High School band and the football program and raised funds to support both.

The club's ongoing activities include the Calvert Christmas Parade, the first of which was held in 1960 and is the longest running Christmas parade in Kentucky. At the time, there was no nearby parade in which North Marshall's band could march. So, the late Lion Bob Arnold presented the idea and the club reacted favorably. Arnold's daughter, Mary Ann, was a band member.

Madison showed a well preserved video of that first parade, which featured the same float used throughout the years. In those years, the parade ended with Elmer Stokes in his mule-drawn wagon bearing a large cedar tree with a sign on the side that read: "It's the spirit that counts."

Other ongoing service projects include keeping local highways cleaned; donating canned good to Marcella's Kitchen and the Kentucky Sheriff's Boys and Girls Ranch; placing a handicapped swing at the elementary school playground; annual donations to the Marshall County Children's Art Center that allow underprivileged children to attend programs at the center; donating to the Miracle League sports complex at Mike Miller Park in Draffenville; Red Cross blood drives; and a charity golf tournament.

The North Marshall Middle School Leos Club, the Lions’ youth arm, has also collected 8,000 bottle caps, which will be used to obtain benches made in memory of every person who died in the Dec. 10, 2021 tornado that struck neighboring Mayfield, parts of Marshall County and other areas in Kentucky.

In closing the program, Nickell and long-serving Lion Bennie Deaton performed a rousing rendition of "God Bless America."

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