Serving Whitman County since 1877
Serving Whitman County since 1877
In the 100th year of the Lions Club International, it marks 50 years in Palouse.
It began in 1967 when the Palouse Jaycees organization started to phase out. The Pullman Lions chapter sponsored a new charter in Palouse.
Home Economics students from Palouse High School provided dinners for the new chapter’s meetings, and the group got to work; cutting and selling firewood, putting in new bleachers at the school, replacing the football scoreboard, building Lions Club park, sponsoring the Boy Scout troop and later building a sleeping hut at Camp Grizzly. They even sold fruitcakes at one time.
For most of it, there was also a certain scent of hamburgers on the grill.
The well-known Palouse Lions Club hamburger trailer was modified from a former construction office trailer in a member’s farm shop. A grill was bought from WSU surplus.
In the late ‘70s, the club moved into the second-floor of the American Legion Hall above the Palouse library where they now hold meetings and gather for special occasions such as, most recently, to watch the Gonzaga-North Carolina NCAA men’s basketball final.
“Fifty years, it’s remarkable,” said Palouse Mayor Michael Echanove. “They’ve been doing good things for our community... you can see their work all around town.”
WORKS
Loren Estes has been serving as treasurer of the club since 1996. Estes’ son, Damon, is the president.
Now 75, Loren is the second oldest of the club’s 32 members. The youngest member is 20.
“We have one member that can’t drink in the club,” Loren Estes said.
Younger members often man the hamburger trailer window taking orders.
“Anytime we can get one of them interested, we let them do it,” Estes said. “We just let them have the job.”
The Lions Club now also runs the Palouse Show and Shine Car Show during Palouse Days in September. They serve breakfast and hamburgers from their block building across from Hayton Greene Park, as well as their burger trailer downtown.
The Lions Club was also instrumental in taking over the organization of Palouse Days in the ‘70s from the Jaycees.
This year they gave a $1,500 scholarship to one boy and one girl from Garfield/Palouse High School. The annual award is funded by the Lions’ community Christmas card board.
“It’s probably the largest we’ve ever done,” said Estes of the scholarship totals.
Estes joined in 1980 when the club had 40 members. It dipped to 25 at one point and has rebounded. The club added four new members this winter and spring.
“The active members are the ones that vary the most,” Estes said.
In February, the group held a 50-year celebration with a steak night at Palouse Community Center.
George Arland of Davenport was the speaker – a classmate of Estes in the Palouse High class of 1961 and one of the original founders of Palouse Lions.
A founder
Many names over the decades have been part of the Lions in Palouse: Cochran, Askins, Slocum, Fisher, Beeson, Blair, for a sampling.
Arland, the son of the man who once ran the old International Harvester dealership in Palouse, was the Palouse Lions’ first vice president. He is the only surviving member of the founding group.
Their first-year project was building the basketball court at Hayton Greene Park. The group had $300 in the treasury from selling lightbulbs. Concrete for the court cost $500.
The concrete man donated the last $200.
From there, the Lions later built the shelter in the park.
“No reason to sit around on your hands,” said Arland. “We didn’t have a lot of dollars in the outlay, but we had a lot of labor. That’s what it was all about.”
Also in the early years, at a meeting to establish the Palouse EMTs, a woman stopped breathing. She was stabilized, and the needed funds for the project were raised.
Other projects did not go forward.
One time the Lions were presented an opportunity to work with the Farmers Home Administration to build low-income apartments that the Lions would manage.
“We were real skeptical, but we put it to a vote by the group,” Arland said. “That’s one project that we probably should have gone ahead with.”
Hamburgers
The members call it the burger cart, and the inside was built over more than one winter in Jim Cochran’s farm shop – with gaps in time as equipment and materials were found.
“It got started and lost enthusiasm, got started again and lost a little enthusiasm, then started again and got to where it is now,” Arland said.
“That cart has made us an awful lot of money,” said Estes.
The grill was from an old dining hall at WSU’s Duncan-Dunn complex.
The menu has remained mostly the same – hamburgers and doubleburgers, with or without cheese.
The Lions tried hot dogs for a few events in the early ‘90s but dropped the menu variation.
“The place is set up to cook burgers and we’re pretty good at it, and there seemed to be a demand for it,” Estes said.
At the July 9 Palouse Ice Cream Social this year, in celebration of the Lions’ 50th anniversary, the club served over 700 hamburgers.
They charged 50 cents for single burgers and $1 doubles, complete with 50-cent pieces given for change.
The cart has served events all over the county, including many farm auctions up through the ‘90s. Two weeks ago it was on site at a farmhouse wedding. The Lions were asked to cater it. That was a first.
“The bride got the first double-cheeseburger,” Estes said.
All the while, the work continues. Lions member Dale Cook takes care of the flags on holidays in Palouse. The Lions put up the Christmas lights in town, as well.
“It’s really nice to see something you helped start and have it running strong,” Arland said.
Garth Meyer is a former Whitman County Gazette reporter.
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