1st Vice District Governor Skip Zehnder
Skip joined the Highland Lions Club in 1985 in Louisville, Kentucky and served as Treasurer for several years and President twice. Even though he has only been a Lion for 35 years, he has been closely associated with Lions for 55 years. His father joined Lions Club when Skip was only 10 and he has been around Lions for the majority of his life. When Neil Armstrong stepped on the moon in June 1969, he was watching it on TV at the Lions Club cookout.
Even though he joined Lions in 1985, he became a Lion in his heart in 1996. In that year, he made a trip to the Ukraine to distribute used eyeglasses. He took 10,000 pair of eyeglasses from a Lions warehouse in Indiana which is similar to the Lions in Sight facility in Vallejo. The moment he became a Lien was when he fitted a pair of eyeglasses on a "babushka” (grandmother). She hugged him, crying and kept saying "God bless you, God bless you" she could now read the Bible to her granddaughters. There were many similar incidents like this during that week. In fact, he went back the next year.
He was presented with a Melvin Jones fellowship in 1996. He was on the first Board of Directors of Lions Camp Crescendo which is a youth camp for the visually impaired and hearing impaired in the state of Kentucky and served as its first Treasurer.
Each club in this district has projects that are dear to the heart of their members. Being in Rossmoor, elderly eye problems and living with low vision is important for his home club. But every club in this district has schools and school children that need our help. He believes the district mission should always include vision screening in schools for all our clubs.
