ELGIN — The party was not of the secretly planned surprise variety, still it provided Jared Cole Rogers, of the Elgin Lions Club, with one of the biggest surprises of his life.

Rogers was attending a birthday party for Barbara Hawes, president of the Elgin Lions Club, when he received startling news. It was announced that Rogers had received the Helen Keller Award, one of the most prestigious honors a Lions Club can present to anyone.

“I was completely caught off-guard. Everyone did a great job of keeping it a secret,” Rogers said.

The announcement that Rogers had won the award left him with one immediate thought.

“I looked around and thought, ‘A lot of other people are very deserving,’” said Rogers, who is secretary of the Elgin Lions Club, one he helped found about 25 years ago.

Steve Oliver, a member of the Elgin Lions Club, said Rogers is deserving of the Helen Keller Award.

“He is the best club secretary in the state,” he said.

Club secretaries are responsible for recordkeeping, submitting reports to their district office and the Lions Clubs International office.

Oliver said Rogers’ leadership is a big reason why the Elgin Lions Club, which has about 50 members, is one of the biggest in the state.

And one of the most active.

The list of projects the Elgin Lions Club is involved in annually includes vision screenings for schools in Elgin and Imbler, providing glasses for those in need, putting on the annual Riverfest in Elgin, providing ushers at Elgin Opera House productions, removing litter from two 1-mile stretches of Highway 82 just outside of town, assisting a high school football camp, watering flower baskets in downtown Elgin, running bingo games from November to April, and running a high school basketball tournament at Elgin High School each December.

Elgin Lions Club members devote a number of hours to community service but relatively little time to meetings. Rogers said his club limits its meetings to one hour. Whenever meetings run over an hour, the individual in charge often must pay a $5 fine. Rules like this make it easier to recruit new members.

“We tell people joining that we keep our meetings short,” Rogers said.

The meetings are short on length but not levity.

“We try to laugh a lot at our meetings. It is all about having fun,” said Rogers, who helps lead the club with assistance from his wife, Debbie, who is also a charter member and involved in all of its activities.

This is the second straight year a member of the Elgin Lions Club has been presented with the Helen Keller Award. In 2022, Kathy Oliver, the wife of Steve Oliver, also won this honor.

Lions Clubs International has a 97-year connection to Keller, who although blind and deaf was a tireless advocate for those with disabilities. Keller spoke at the International Lions Clubs Convention in Ohio on June 30, 1925. She challenged the Lions to be “knights of the blind in the crusade against darkness.” The organization accepted the challenge and today has many internationally recognized programs aimed at preventing blindness and hearing loss.

Rogers said he is stirred emotionally to receive an award named in honor of someone who played such an important role in putting Lions Clubs International on its path to success.

“It is really humbling,” he said.