If anyone ever said that the Conway Noon Lions Club wasn’t a “swingin’ bunch,” they must not know about our annual golf tournament.

In 1997, when Lion Harold Moore retired from the First National Bank (Regions) in our community, we never dreamed it would result in the largest fund raiser in the history of our club. Lion Harold has always been an avid golfer. For many years he organized, planned and hosted an annual golf tournament for the bank’s patrons and friends. Soon after his retirement, he suggested that our club hold a golf tournament as a fund raiser.

In short, Lion Harold brought his ability, organizational skills, personal contacts and passion for the game to our club as a means to raise funds to help the blind and visually impaired. This is how the event known as the Conway Noon Lions Club Annual “Swingin Spring” Golf Classic was started. Since its inception, this event has provided thousands of dollars to help fund our various sight-related projects. For this, we are indeed grateful to Lion Harold Moore, and for our players and hole sponsors.

We have many golfers in our club who participate, along with a host of others with varying skills. One of the most rewarding things about the tournament is the help and support we receive from non-golf-playing Lions who just enjoy the fellowship and sense of purpose in being a part of this fun-filled event. Over the past eight years we have had several venues for the tournament but in recent years it has been held at Centennial Valley Country Club, the premier course in our area. Our next tournament is scheduled for May 21, 2007 and will be our 9th annual. If you are a golfer and would like to support our work to help the blind, we invite you to play with us. If you aren’t a golfer, but would still like to support our efforts to raise money for the blind and visually impaired, there are other ways to help. Contact Chairman Marty Faggetti at 327-4620, or any member of the Conway Noon Lions Club, for more information.

You can “wet your whistle and help the blind” could well be the theme of the Conway Noon Lions Club “Coke Stand” at the Annual Faulkner County Fair. This event, held each fall prior to the State Fair in Little Rock, provides and opportunity for our club to raise between $3,000 and $4,000 to support organizations such as Lions World Services For The Blind, Leader Dogs For The Blind, Diabetes Awareness Support Center and Mid-South Eye Surgery. To a large degree the weather determines our success. The years when it’s hot and dry, whistles need to be wet more often.

Like everything else, our operation has changed over the years. We have gone from the days when cups had to be filled with ice and various soft drink flavors were drawn from pressurized canisters to the more modern 20 Oz. plastic bottles that simply have to be iced down. When a patron appears and says, “Give me a Coke, Sprite, Dr. Pepper, or the diet version” we just dip our hands into the freezing water and hoist one or more out, wipe them off with a towel and take their money.

This fund raising project is valuable for two basic reasons. First, and foremost, the funds we raise enable us to help the blind and visually impaired. Next, this project provides and opportunity for our members, especially newer members, to really get to know each other. When we work side by side for four hours as a team of Lions, a spirit of camaraderie develops and this serves to make our weekly meetings much more fun and rewarding.

“Toad Suck Daze” tends to raise eyebrows across the country by the name alone, but for the Conway Noon Lions Club, it raises money.

To understand the festival, which is the first weekend in May each year, it helps to know the legend of “Toad Suck.” The story goes that when tug boats ploughed the nearby Arkansas River, before the days of locks and dams, and the water level was too low to navigate upstream, the tug boat captains would tie their vessel up at the shore. The crew members would then visit a local tavern and suck on mash whiskey until they “swelled up like toads,” as the locals would say.

The “Toad Suck Daze” festival started over 25 years ago in Conway, Arkansas. This event has grown from a few hundred festival goers in the early years to now over 150,000 visitors. The Conway Noon Lions has been a part of the festival from the start, or at least near the beginning, with one of the club’s most successful fund-raising projects - selling “Sausage-On-The-Stick” from a booth during the festival. The club purchases around 3,000 polish sausages from the area’s premier meat packing company, insert a small wooden dowel, and cook them on two gas grills and, along with a piece of French Bread, sell them to waiting patrons. This mouth-watering treat tantalizes the taste buds and is very popular among festival goers. Quite often during peak hours, you will see many people in line waiting to get from one to ten Sausages-On-A-Stick. It’s not unusual to hear someone say, “The only reason I come to Toad Suck Daze is to get a Sausage-On-A-Stick.”

The Conway Noon Lions Club supports many national and international projects to help the blind and visually impaired but a good portion of funds stay right here in the local community. Each year around 75 pairs of eye-glasses are purchased for children in need whose parents cannot afford them. The club also provides three $1,000 scholarships to students from each area high schools. The Conway Noon Lions Club members and officers are all volunteers and receive tremendous satisfaction from helping those individuals who are truly in need.