Flapjack flipping hits 35 years

3/7/2013

By DAWNE LEIKER

dleiker@dailynews.net

Tuesday will mark the 35th year the Hays Lions Club has been raising money for local organizations by serving up pancakes. Members know the drill and are ready to pitch in to make the event a success.

"Anybody that's able will be there helping one way or the other," said Dee Bodine, who has overseen the annual fundraiser for the last six years. "Anybody that's a Lion that's able is there ... whether it's at the ticket table or flipping pancakes or filling syrup containers."

The pancake feed, which includes sausage and beverages, will be from 7 a.m. to 1 p.m. and 4:30 to 7 p.m. Tuesday at the Hays National Guard Armory, 200 Main.

Tickets are $6.50 for adults and $4.75 for children 10 and younger.

Serving 1,300 folks last year, the event helped raise some of the $12,000 the club distributed to 36 local organizations.

Next year will mark Hays Lions Club's 90th anniversary as a club, and pride in the organization is apparent when visiting with some of its seasoned members. In late February, Arris Johnson, club member for 65 years, discussed the first pancake feeds hosted by the club.

"We did all the frying ourselves," he said. "After the first year, we decided it would be a smart idea to put cardboard on the floor so we didn't have to mop the whole darn floor (of the armory).

"We had fryers plugged in and every once in a while, they'd blow the fuse. We had a lot of fun with it."

Johnson laughed, recalling how the club came to surrender the task of frying their own pancakes after three years to a professional, Jim Kuper, "The Pancake Man," of Council Bluffs, Iowa.

Jim Huenergarde, Hays Lions Club president, described Kuper's ability to prepare up to 96 pancakes at one time.

"It's been a great deal for us," he said of the partnership with Kuper. "We all just help."