Oak Cliff Lions Club Past President Steve Bayless to be Honored, Roasted, by Club Members Monday, January 25, 2016

The Oak Cliff Lions Club President for 2014-2015, Steve Bayless, will be honored –and roasted—Monday, January 25, 2015 in the Methodist Hospital's Hitt Auditorium. The fun begins at 6:30 p.m.

Master of Ceremonies for the event is none other than Rose-Mary Rumbley, who began her career in Oak Cliff as a PE teacher at Bishop Dunne Catholic School. She recently joined the Dunne class of ’65 at their 50^th Reunion at the school last fall. This month she’ll focus her humor on the Lions of Oak Cliff and in particular, it’s Past President, Lion Bayless, whom she has known for over six decades.

Not just a leader in the Oak Cliff Lions Club, Steve also leads the Steve Bayless Orchestra, which performed as the second act in the club’s annual Extravaganza last year on Thursday, May 21, 2015.

The Dallas Oak Cliff Lions Club was Organized and Chartered in April 1929.  For over 80 years, Oak Cliff Lions have supported a variety of local, state, national and international charities involving youth, vision, and other worthy causes and charities. It is estimated that the Club has contributed over $1.5 million to charitable causes through the dedicated efforts of Club members.    

Steve will be accompanied by his wife and Oak Cliff Lion Marna, whom he met in college in 1958 when she was a freshman and he a sophomore at The University of North Texas. They married in 1961.

Marna’s memory of their first meeting might be fodder for the roast: he asked her out for New Year’s Eve, but then never followed up.

“I didn’t know his name, didn’t have his phone number, so made a date with another guy,” she admits decades later. Steve called her an hour before he planned to pick her up and she had to tell him she’d made other plans.

Undaunted, eventually Steve asked her out again and they had a “Coke date” at Pender’s Drug Store across the street from the campus, and with music in common, began to see a lot of each other. They travelled together across the state with the college performing, and began to go steady after a trip to tiny Alice, Texas. That happened to be where Jack Rumbley was the high school band director and now, six decades later, his wife Rose-Mary will be the Emcee of Steve’s Roast. Rose-Mary and Steve both taught at Dallas Baptist University and became friends there.

An employee of many local DISD schools in their music programs, Steve also worked at Kimball High School, DBU, and at several banks including Town North National Bank, where bank president Fred Ferguson was known to love show business.

“It was a joke at the bank that he would hire tellers at the bank that could sing or dance,” Marna says. Steve’s official title was VP of Marketing, but he was also involved in the “Enter-trainment” of employees at annual training conventions.

President Ferguson introduced Steve to “The Voice of the Cowboys,” Bill Melton and entertainer Tom Young who were active in the Oak Cliff Lions Club. Steve was asked to join the Lions and for years the four men would produce the annual Oak Cliff Lions Club Variety Show at the Bronco Bowl, a night full of music, dancing, entertainment and skits that raised money for local charities.

Past President Steve Bayless says, “Since the late 40's, the Lions annual variety show - which is now called the Extravaganza - has been the primary source of fundraising to support the club’s charities. We've added to that with successful golf tournaments and a host of projects that a few of our members have taken on as personal endeavors, projects in which our club has become involved by supporting those efforts. And we want all of that to continue and flourish.”

Funds raised have made a huge difference in Dallas, from local Projects such as funding the Oak Cliff Eye Clinic facility in the 1950’s in cooperation with the City of Dallas, to a major contribution to the Dallas Zoo for the Bird and Reptile House in the 1960’s.  A gift of $20,000 funded the main hall of the new Oak Cliff YMCA Building on South Hampton Road in the 1970’s, a $10,000 contribution in the 1990's to help launch the tactile exhibit for the visually impaired at the Dallas Zoo - in cooperation with the Metroplex Mitsubishi Dealers - and in 2006, the Club contributed $20,000 to the Lions Sight and Tissue Foundation's Mobile Eyeglass Bus Project. 

Steve and Marna have lived in south Oak Cliff for over fifty years, raised four boys and after retiring from teaching music in local schools helped set up Presbyterian Children’s Home in Duncanville.

Dinner tickets for the Roast are $25 each. Contact any Oak Cliff Lion to buy one or call 214-943-9725 for more information or President Lion Carol Donovan: 214-213-4575.

 Checks can be mailed to:

Oak Cliff Lions Club
P.O. Box 4445
Dallas, Texas 75208
lion@oakclifflions.org

All profits from the event go to the Oak Cliff Lions Club’s College Scholarship Fund.

The Oak Cliff Lions meet every Wednesday at noon at Weiss Auditorium. Future speakers include:

January 20 – U.S. Congressman Marc Veasey, News from Hill

January 27 – Dallas Parks Department, Hike and Bike Trails Update

Other non-profit charitable organizations supported by the Oak Cliff Lions Club including: