Lions Club welcomes Jerry Moran

GODDARD right time brought Kansas Sen. Jerry Moran to a Goddard Lions Club meeting Jan. 6. Moran, who became a Lion in his early 20s, enjoys visiting local Lions clubs when there is an opportunity. There were no votes in the Senate last week and his flight plans changed due to weather, so that created an impromptu opportunity to attend a local club meeting, he said. He maintains his Lions’ membership with the Hays Lions Club. right place at told nearly two dozen club members and guests gathered on a cold night at the Goddard Pizza Hut. “I miss the connection to my hometown.”

Moran likes to share his Lions’ journey when he is with fellow Lions. He recounted joining the local club in his hometown of Plainville, which he described as a town where one “usually knows everyone in town.”

“I’m making up for an absence from Hays,” he

After living in Hays for 30 years, he has made his home in Manhattan for the past nine years. That move was precipitated by his daughter going to Kansas State University’s school of

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some college expense.

That daughter now has a veterinary practice there, and also has a child of her own.

The senator shared what got him interested in politics. He spent a summer as an intern in Washington, D.C. That summer happened to be the summer of Watergate. That and the subsequent impeachment of then President Richard Nixon fascinated Moran, he said.

He returned to Kansas and began his political career when he was elected to the Kansas State Senate. He later ran for the U.S. House of Representatives and served

Senate seats. He said everything started with first getting involved in the community. He said his concerns today remain about how to keep Kansas communities, especially those in western Kansas, viable.

“Mostly I want to keep our homes around for longer,” he said, noting that key elements to achieve that goal include things such as agriculture, healthcare and technology, among others.

“Economic development can be about whether there is a grocery store in town,” he said. “People in Washington don’t understand that.”