Horizon Convention Center Hosts 2018 Lions Club State Convention

By: Mike Rhodes—

Muncie, IN—The 2018 Lions Club State Convention was held at the Horizon Convention Center, April 27-29th in downtown Muncie. Approximately 320 members and friends from across the entire state attended the convention.

“One of the purposes of our state convention is to conduct the business of the Lions Club in an open manner, so club members can find out what is going on with Lions Clubs across the state,” said Sue Topf, State Administrative Secretary. “But secondly, the convention is a very social gathering, where Lions Club members can meet friends from across the state they may only see one or two times a year. Our convention is also a teaching event. We have seminars about our ongoing projects.”

Some of the Lion’s Club state projects include:

—VisionFirst, Indiana Lions Eye Bank
—Indiana Lions Speech and Hearing
—Indiana Lions Cancer Control
—Leader Dogs for the Blind and Indiana Lions for Leader Dog, Inc.
—Indiana School for the Blind and Visually Impaired

In 1925, Hellen Keller spoke at the Lions International Convention in Ohio. She challenged Lions members in attendance to become “Knights of the Blind.” Ever since, Lions primary focus has been centered on vision programs such as vision screening, eye banks, recycling prescription glasses and more.

On April 28th, within the downtown area, the Lions Club had their first ever “Diabetes Strides Walk.” Lions Clubs are really putting a new emphasis on diabetes awareness, prevention and education. Lions has created an educational diabetes website. The website indicates:

1 in 11 people in the US are living with diabetes.
1 in 3 US adults are living with pre-diabetes; 90% do not know it.
The Lions website consists of a variety of resources to assist in their educational effort.

Why Muncie and The Horizon Convention Center?

Doug Lozier is from Carmel, IN and is a board appointee. When asked why Lions decided to have their state convention in Muncie, he said, “We’ve had two conventions here before—the last being around 1999. When the Roberts Hotel was redeveloped into loft apartments, there was no longer a hotel downtown. With the addition of the Courtyard by Marriott, that opened up a door for us to return to Muncie.”

The Lions Club has a site review committee that makes recommendations for city selection. Sue said, “With the new hotel now being connected to the Horizon Convention Center we thought, ‘This is a place we’d like to go.'”