Our Beginning

In the spring of 1926, the Secretary of the Long Beach Lions Club, Charles Lewis, approached Alexander Hume Ford, the Director of the Pan-Pacific Union to form the first "overseas" Lions Club.  "Pop" Ford envisioned uniting all people and countries of the Pacific Basin through the Pan-Pacific Union club, which had been founded a decade earlier to promote scientific and cultural exchange.  On May 11, 1926, "Pop" Ford introduced Lions Charles M Lewis and Royal S Milligan from the Long Beach Lions Club to a meeting of 100 businessmen representing the ethnicities of the Islands.  "Pop" Ford voiced the belief that there is room in Honolulu for another service club to promote sympathetic understanding and form an affiliation with a mainland association to network the Hawaii and the Pacific with clubs in most cities of the United States.

"Pop" Ford's dream was to expand the Pacific Union to the mainland United States.  However, a big obstacle was the limitation in the constitution of Lions International stating that only "white males" were eligible for membership in the Association.  The attendees at this May meeting proposed the elimination of this restriction.  To this end, Lion Charles M Lewis helped draft a provisional Charter to be presented at the upcoming Lions International Convention in July.

For two months thereafter, Colbert Kurokawa, the Educational Director of the Pan Pacific Union and newly-elected Secretary of the provisional Pan-Pacific Lions Club, visited 21 clubs on the West Coast, including Vancouver, BC, lobbying for elimination of this limitation.  On July 26, 1926, the Lions International Constitution was amended to remove the race restriction from the qualification for membership — without a dissenting vote.  Since then, the basis for acceptance into the Lions organization is a woman's or man's character and strength of commitment to serving the community — not their nationality.  This landmark change was due to the persistence and persuasiveness of Lions Colbert Kurokawa.

The first Charter Night Banquet was held in the Blue Room of the Alexander Young Hotel (formerly on Bishop Street).  Lions donned their new Lions vests and Companions in Service dressed in their evening finery and celebrated a dinner costing 50 cents a plate.  50 men, drawn from the Pan-Pacific Union, were the original members of the Lions Club of Honolulu charted on October 11, 1926.  The Lions Club of Honolulu was originally known as the Pan-Pacific Lions Club.