Club Hours. Meetings, Dues and Membership Cards
The Club will continue to be open every Wednesday, Thursday and Friday from 4:00-9:00 pm. The Board of Trustees and the Officers will have their regular monthly meeting on May 18th. The Board of Trustees will meet at 5:30 pm and the Officers will meet at 6:30. As of the writing of this newsletter, there are still 49 delinquent members. For those that have not yet paid their dues, I ask you not to give up on the Club and Lodge, especially since we are now in the process of making a comeback. Sit down and send in your dues check today. Some people say they don’t want to renew their dues because they don’t use the Club. The Club is now self-supporting while your dues is used to save money for a new building and to help support the charitable work that we do. We need you as a member. Cards have also been mailed to spouses of members that asked for them and to spouses of deceased members if the spouse asked for one. If you didn’t get your card just let the office know.

Meals on Membership Nights
We will continue to have meals every Thursday night from 6:00 – 8:00 pm on a first come first serve basis. Once again, we need to thank all of those members and their guests 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 have free coffee? Bring a friend with you, especially one that might become a new member.

Here are the meals for the month of May:

Home Page and e-mail Addresses
Check out the Lodge home page at 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.

Awards
Because of all that he has done for the Lodge and Club, the National Office gave the Brookings Elks Lodge #1490 Elk of the Year Award to Ron Deutsch. Thanks Ron, we appreciate all that you have done to help out the Lodge and the Club by bartending, opening the club, getting parties, cooking food and just being there to help. The National Office also gave the Officer of the year Award to Jerry Bergum for the work he has done to keep the Lodge going. Ron and Jerry want to thank the Trustees and Officers that did the work needed to get the awards.

Scholarship Dinner
The winners of the six Lodge College Scholarships are Jennifer Flint, Heidi Quail, Alyssa Ringgenberg, Joseph Darrington, Ross Elenkiwich and Robert Wendland. The Technical awards were given to Chad Bjerke and Mitchell Nelson. A banquet for the winners, their parents, the members of the scholarship committee, the Officers of the Lodge and the members of the Board of Trustees will be on the May 12th with dinner starting at about 6:45. Dinner will be Chicken, Ham, potatoes, vegetables, salad and dessert. If you are interested in attending please call Jerry or Shirley at 692-4640 before May 8th. This is an opportunity for the Officers, the Trustees and the Members of the Scholarship Committee to meet the winners.

Special Thanks to Special People
A special thank you goes out to Roger Mellendorf, Charles Kuechenmeister and Ron Deutsch for braving the weather to cook steaks and brats when needed on several Thursday nights. We also need to thank Ron and Dorothy Zuiderhof for the help they give by opening the Club when Jerry cannot be there, for bartending when the regular bartender gets sick or can’t be there, and for helping to clean up. We also want to thank Linda Husk, Dorothy Zuiderhof and all the others for the snacks, deserts and other food that we share on Wednesday nights for the small gatherings we have as we celebrate birthdays and anniversaries. Finally, I would like to thank Brian Hildebrant, Keith Kinner and Michael Peterson for letting their employees run off, fold and place mailing labels on several newsletters sent out during the past year. This is what the Elks are all about: helping each other.

More Interesting Articles
Last month, I sent out an article that appeared in the March 16, 2006 USA TODAY. This article mentioned how clubs throughout the U.S.A. were bringing in young professionals, men and women that are teachers, lawyers, doctors, salesmen, pharmacists and scientists, as members. Some of the Lodges were in Denver, Ferndale, Michigan, Hoboken, New Jersey, Austin, Texas and San Francisco. Recently, I received another article found in the April 13, 2006 OREGONIAN. This article was sent to me by Betty Finnie in Milwaukie, Oregon and concerns the Elks Lodge in Bend, Oregon, which is initiating around 18 new members per month that are in their 30s and 40s. Who says that the Elks cannot attract young people? All we need to do is ask these people to join by telling them what we do for Veterans, Kids and those that can’t help themselves, while having a great time visiting with others and not needing to shout over the noise.

Jerry Bergum, ER