Truth be told, there are forces within the Minnesota Lions organization who would like to see the Lyle Lions merge with the Lyle Lioness club.

The theory, apparently, is that the organizations would find greater strength in combining their limited numbers.

The facts are this: Membership in the Lyle Lions club is 16 men and 13 women in the Lyle Lioness organization.

The Lions club is 50 years old. The Lioness organization, 30.

Within Minnesota- Iowa Lions District No. 5M1, only two or three — no one is for sure how many there are — Lioness organizations remain operating independently today.

Meanwhile, there are 13 Lions clubs functioning in the southeast Minnesota district.

But try telling Sylvia Ginder, Dolores Frank, Marilyn Nelson, Lois Kaput, current president, or any of the other Lioness members they are … well … unnecessary.

They will hear nothing of such talk.

“That’s why we’re here,” said Marilyn Nelson of the need for a Lioness club in Lyle. “We’re here to serve.”

And that’s what the Lyle Lioness club continues to do despite operating with diminishing numbers and the aging of its members.

Nothing stops the Lioness club from pursuing its mission to serve others.

They are so comfortable in their role they allow a man to take credit for their birth as a community service organization.

“We celebrated our 50th anniversary last October 2008,” Delos Frank said.

He was speaking of the Lyle Lions club’s origination.

“There really weren’t any Lioness organizations when we were chartered. They came later,” he said.

“Today, the Lions organization wants the two organizations to integrate themselves, but our Lioness organization wants to stay by themselves,” he said.

“We were the second or third Lioness club to be chartered in our district,” said Dolores Frank, Delos’ wife. “Before that, there was an auxiliary, but you had to have a spouse in the Lions organization to be a member of the auxiliary.

“We were chartered with a lot of single women and widows who wanted their own organization,” she said.

It took a man, who helped the Adams Lions club organize after the Lyle club was chartered, to create the women’s-only Lyle Lioness club.

Delos Frank is credited with helping the Lyle Lioness club get started, and he did it the old-fashioned way: Called women who might be interested in a new community service club to further the lions International’s goals.

“I called a meeting in the Lyle school in the cafeteria and invited a group of women and a year later they were chartered,” he said.

Three decades ago, the original Lyle Lioness club had 21 members.

“We had one walk-in that night, when a woman showed up with her husband,” recalled Dolores Frank, a charter member. “Diane Lenz was our first president.”

The women originally met at Queen of Peace Catholic Church for dinner meetings, where church women prepared a supper meal for the members.

Today, the organization’s members meet at the Lyle Community Center the third Monday of each month at 7 p.m.

Dolores Frank remembers the club’s first fund-raising project. “We sold owl key chains,” she said. “The key chains had the club’s motto on them: ‘We serve, too’.”

“If you sold five owl key chains, you got a patch to wear,” she said. “We wore them to our meetings.”

All ages of women belonged: Youth school teachers to senior citizen status.

Sylvia Ginder, a charter member, said the reason she joined the Lioness organization was, in part, a result of the “empty nest syndrome” in her household.

“Our family was a 4-H family and when all five of our kids were grown and our youngest daughter graduated, I heard about the Lyle Lioness club being organized.”

“I thought it would be a good opportunity for me after being involved in the community and knowing that I would be helping others attracted me,” Ginder said.

“Throughout these 30 years, we have served by being involved in many projects that have benefited the community,” she added.

The list of community service projects is lengthy.

The local club has financially supported the Lions International organization.

Members have regularly served lunch at the annual Lyle Area Cancer Telethon auction.

They have sponsored blood donor days, Community Day at Younkers in Austin, HyVee Food Store’s Feed a Family and a fashion show with help from Fantle’s women’s store in Austin a long time ago.

The latter is still talked about by Lioness members with as much excitement as teen girls recalling their high school prom.

“We used to serve bars and coffee at home basketball games at the high school to keep our presence out there,” interjected Dolores Frank.

The club’s members hold a bake sale each January at the Austin Lions Pancake Day fundraiser.

“The first big fundraiser we did was a quilt raffle,” Dolores Frank said. “We gave $500 to the macular degeneration research cause.”

The club’s members also used to sell lunches at farm and other auctions as a means to raise funds to support their community service work.

“We’ve supported so many community and Lions International projects over the years,” Ginder said.

The club also sponsors annual scholarships in honor of deceased members to Lyle High School graduates.

Memories of the past Lyle Old-fashioned Fourth of July celebrations, when the horse-less Lioness club members pulled a buggy in the annual Independence Day parade bring laughter from all.

“It wasn’t hard to pull. We lugged it down the road and threw out candy,” chuckled Dolores Frank.

The club used to sponsor the annual Little Miss Lyle Pageant at the annual Independence Day holiday celebration.

The oldest member was Bertha Slindee, who joined when she was 90 and continued until her late 90s and declining health forced her to retire.

Darlene Johnson is the newest member of the organization, whose membership ranges in age from the 50s to the 80s.

Presidents of the organization can’t succeed themselves, according to Lioness bylaws, so that means with so few a number of members, every member gets to be president if they remain a part of the organization long enough.

“It works out; they all step forward and do it,” Dolores Frank said.

The club plans to celebrate its 30th anniversary of existence and community service June 15 with a banquet at Lyle American Legion Post No. 105.

In the meantime, they plan to go about doing what they do best: Serving the greater Lyle community.

Dolores Frank said she joined, because of her husband, Delos’ work in the Lyle Lions club.

“I joined because of all the things he was doing for the Lions club,” she said. “My family was all grown then, and I always enjoyed volunteering so I decided I would try something new.”

Sylvia Ginder said being a Lioness has “given me a feeling of fulfillment.”

“I’ve enjoyed going to meetings and working on projects and I feel privileged to be a part of the Lyle Lioness organization,” she said. “Our motto is ‘We serve’ and that is definitely what the Lioness club is all about.”

Marilyn Nelson meticulously keeps scrapbooks of the Lions club to which her husband, Shirill, belongs, and the Lioness organization.

“I remember when I retired, the Lyle Study Club was after you to join, and the Lioness club was after you, too,” she said.

“I decided to join the Lioness club, because I wanted to be a part of a club that actually did something for the community,” she said.

In a small town, there are less human resources to depend upon to get things down.

Though small in number and smaller than the Lyle Lions Club, the Lioness organization enjoys remarkable loyalty and dedication from its members.

Attendance at the monthly meetings is nearly always perfect: All show up.

Ginder, Frank and Nelson say one of the attractions are the programs presented at each meeting.

The Mower County chapter of the American Red Cross and Mower County Historical Society have sent representatives.

Lyle Police Chief Forest Miller has been a frequent guest.

And, hard to believe, perhaps, there have also been such diverse programs as aprons, hospice care, massage therapy and gun safety.

“We’ve really had a variety of programs,” said Nelson in an understatement.