The Lions Club of Rocklin was chartered in 1955, when Rocklin was still a small granite-quarry town learning to organize itself as a city. California records list the nonprofit as incorporated on August 2, 1955. Almost at once the new club took on work that a growing community needed, and it soon became the sponsor of Troop 29 of the Boy Scouts of America.
Roy Ruhkala, a founding member, was already woven into that story. He had served as Scoutmaster of Troop 29 beginning in 1952 (local histories place his service at about 1950–1954). With other early Lions he helped put up Rocklin’s first street signs, name city streets, and establish a post office numbering system. He later served on the school board and, in 1960, was elected to the City Council, where he served a term as mayor. The Ruhkala family remains prominent in Rocklin; the city’s Ruhkala Community Service Awards honor Roy and Peggy Ruhkala.
Troop 29 itself is older than the club. It was first chartered in 1924 in the Alta, Dutch Flat, and Gold Run area, went inactive during World War II, and was rechartered in Rocklin in 1949 by the PTA. In the 1950s the Lions Club of Rocklin became the troop’s charter organization and has remained its benefactor. The club also charters Pack 29 and Crew 29.
Several Lions have served as Scoutmaster of Troop 29. Among them were Lion Ken Weger and Lion Stu Hardy, who led the troop for many years. Hardy’s devotion to Scouting is remembered in the Stu Hardy Trail at Johnson-Springview Park. The current Scoutmaster of Troop 29 is Lion Sean Collins.
In February 2019 the club extended that partnership. On February 1—the first day young women were eligible to join the Scouts BSA program—the Lions Club of Rocklin chartered Troop 219, one of the first all-young-women troops in the region and the first all-female Scouts BSA troop in the Golden Empire Council’s Discovery District. The number 219 marks February 2019 and the 19th Amendment. Troop 29 is its brother troop.
Sight conservation has been the club’s other long signature, in the Lions tradition that began when Helen Keller asked Lions to become “knights of the blind.” Locally that work has included White Cane Days, exams and glasses for people who need them, vision screening at community events, and a large used-eyeglasses drive. Beginning in the mid-2000s the club expanded collection far beyond Rocklin drop boxes. By early 2019 it had gathered more than 500,000 pairs, many processed through the Folsom Project and sent on to clinics and disaster relief.
The club has also recycled cell phones to buy calling cards for service members, supported local youth and races, and helped host Breakfast with Santa with Troop 29—a December pancake breakfast that draws hundreds of Rocklin families and helps fund the troop.
Today the Lions Club of Rocklin is still the charter organization for Pack 29, Troop 29, Troop 219, and Crew 29. Its history in the city is a long record of practical service: street signs and a numbering system in the 1950s, generations of Scouts, half a million pairs of glasses, and community events that residents still recognize as part of Rocklin.
