HASTINGS, Neb. (AP) - The Veterans of Foreign Wars Club chapter in Hastings has sold its building because of dwindling membership.
Friday night’s bingo game was the last public event at VFW Post 1346 in the south central Nebraska town, The Hastings Tribune (www.hastingstribune.com ) reported.
Membership has dropped from more than 700 people 15 years ago to about 360, quartermaster Keith Dreher said. Veterans of World War II and the Korean War are dying and younger veterans haven’t embraced the club, he said.
The post’s members starting looking at selling the club in downtown Hastings in September 2013 before “we went into a great amount of debt,” said Dreher, who’s been quartermaster for more than 15 years. He said that regulations for the building - such as a new range hood in the kitchen - would have been expensive.
“There’s a lot of regulations that come from the state and the city of Hastings that also put a damper on us trying to keep going,” Dreher said.
Shirley Murphy, 88, made sure to attend the final bingo night. She met her friend Janet Scheidemann, 80, playing bingo and going has become a tradition for the women.
“We’re both widows and it gives us something to do on Friday nights,” Murphy said.
She says it will be hard to see the club close because she has been attending events there for so long.
“It’s just going to be hard on a lot of people, especially me,” Murphy said. “I’m used to going, going, going.”
___
Information from: Hastings Tribune, https://www.hastingstribune.com
Please read our comment policy before commenting.