Club Hours and Meetings
The Board of Trustees and the Officers will have their regular April meeting on April 20th. The Board of Trustees will meet at 5:30 pm and the Officers will meet at 6:30. The initiation of the Officers will take place during the Officers meeting. For the second consecutive year, the Club has made a profit. This year’s profit was about $6,000, which is $2,000 more than last year. While this is not a large profit, it is better than losing $25,000 or more for 6 consecutive years.

Meals on Membership Nights
The meals, on a first come first serve basis every Thursday night from 6:00 – 8:00 pm, continue to do well. Once again, we need to thank all of those members and quests for using the club to eat, to play cards or to visit. Where in town can you get a full meal for $6.50 per person and free coffee? Bring a friend with you, especially one that might become a new member.

Here are the meals for the month of April:

Home Page and e-mail Addresses
The Lodge home page is www.brookingselks1490.org. This page always contains the most recent newsletter as well as other pertinent information concerning the Lodge and the Club. Our e-mail address is Elks1490@mchsi.com and this can be used to contact the Lodge Secretary or the Exalted Ruler.

Parties in the club area
On March 24th, thanks to Ron Deutsch, we had a fantastic retirement party for a 3M employee. During the month of April we will have a wedding reception on April 8th and another party on April 22nd. Try to get your friends to have their parties at the Elks club. It is a great way for the club to make more in profit. We can have parties when regularly open or on days and nights other than when we are scheduled to be open. The Bobcat Backers met at the Elks on Monday nights this year and will hopefully return next fall. A graduation party is scheduled for May 6th. Call if you or a friend is interested in having a party at the Club.

Renewal of Membership Dues
Currently, we have 404 members. Of these 404, there are 27 individuals that have still not paid their dues for the current year. These 27 individuals will be dropped from the roll on April 1st. To me, the sad thing is that 17 of these 27 individuals have been members for 25 or more years. Why would anyone with this many years of membership want to quit? Of the remaining 377 members, there are still 106 that have not paid their dues for the upcoming year. If you are one of these 106 individuals please renew your dues today by sending in your check. Your old card will not work after April 1st. Your dues helps pay for the scholarships, the hoop shoot, the DARE program, the veterans program, and all the other programs we support. We no longer use the dues to support the club since it is self-supporting. Let’s try to increase our membership this year. Everybody in the Lodge is responsible for membership in the Lodge. This is not just the responsibilities of the trustees and officers.

Scholarship , Essay Contest and Hoop Shoot
The applications of the top three girls and boys for the Most Valuable Student Scholarship have been sent to the state committee for further evaluation. The top two Technical Grant applications have also been sent to the state committee for evaluation. I had hoped to know how our students had done by early in March. However, no word has yet been received on how our students did.

The essays, of the six winners from the Brookings Lodge District, on “WHAT I FEEL WHEN I LOOK UP AT THE AMERICAN FLAG” are currently being judged at the state level. The names of the top 3 winners in grades 5 – 6 and the top three winners in grades 7-8 will be sent from the state level to national level for evaluation. Evaluation at the national level will be announced at the national convention in July. The top three winners in each group at the national level will respectively win $500, $300, and $200 in U.S. Savings Bonds.

Tanner Odegaard of Brookings participated in the Regional hoop shoot held in Rapid City on March 4th. Tanner took 2nd place in the 12-13 year old boys contest by shooting 23 out of 25. The winner shot 24 out of 25. We offer our congratulations to Tanner for doing a great job in representing the Brookings Lodge. Remind your kids and grandkids to start practicing early for next years hoop shoot.

An Interesting Article
Attached is an article from the March 16, 2006 USA TODAY. Read it for the shock of your life and then tell me that young people are not joining the Elks. Why is Brookings any different? What are we doing wrong? For the first time in my 33 years as a member, we are now more like what the Elks should be. All we are lacking is our own club and that will come in time with more members.

Jerry Bergum, ER