Leading the Rapp pride: Mary Graham becomes second ever female Lions Club president

For only the second time in its 66-year history, the Rappahannock County Lions Club will have a woman at its helm. 

Mary Graham, club member for five years and Rappahannock’s Commissioner of the Revenue, will be sworn in to the role of Lions Club president on July 25, breaking a 35-year streak of male leadership.

Graham says she doesn’t see her appointment as all that different from any other. 

“I have different perspectives about certain things, but I don’t know how much to attribute that to being a woman and how much to attribute to being Mary Graham,” she said in a recent interview.

“I really, truly don’t see gender in stuff I do,” she said. “I’m there with a bunch of Rappahannock people. I don’t think, ‘I’m there with a bunch of men.’ They’re all friends. They’re all neighbors. They’re all there for a common purpose. And to me, that’s the important thing.”

Graham and her husband, Dennis Kelly, moved to Rappahannock County from Arlington when their two daughters went off to college. Graham, 66, said they had “had enough of Arlington for one lifetime,” and bought their secluded Amissville home in 2006. Kelly’s family used to weekend in Old Hollow in the 1970s, and the couple had their first date as teenagers in the county after meeting in a high school commercial design class in Arlington. 

Both commuted from Amissville to Northern Virginia for many years, with Graham working as an award-winning newspaper page designer at the Loudoun Times-Mirror. When the commute became too much, Graham started searching for career options a bit closer to home, and found her way into public service, running for and subsequently being elected Commissioner of the Revenue in 2019.

Graham first got involved with the Lions Club that same year, when a good friend, Dave Shiff, former Lions president, invited her to join. Kelly had joined the year prior, and Graham said she thought “why not” and accepted the invitation. 

Graham became an active member of the club. She was put to work quickly, and in 2020 was asked to join the board, another invitation she accepted. Eventually she was promoted to vice president, a role she did not realize would land her in the top spot. 

“I didn’t at the time realize that meant I was going to be president,” Graham said. “I thought ‘sure, I can probably manage.’”

Graham said the presidency will push her out of her comfort zone, but she is happy to take on the job. 

“I normally like behind-the-scenes kinds of stuff,” Graham said. “Being president is just helping everybody who’s [in the club] – who are great – get their work done … and I’m happy to facilitate that.”

Graham said she has always seen herself as an introvert, but that has not stopped her from giving back to her community. She said when her children were young, she always volunteered at their schools and the community pool.

When she moved to Rappahannock, she looked for new ways to give back, like a job in public service. Graham said that while her career and involvement with the Lions Club don’t have much physical overlap, she feels work as a public servant will help to guide her as president. 

“The motto of the Lions is ‘to serve.’ And that’s how I feel when it comes to my job. Every day I’m serving my constituents, I’m serving all the citizens,” Graham said. “It’s two different worlds, but the same threads.”

Ce’s legacy

The Rappahannock Lions Club’s only other female president – Cecelia Pike – was elected in 1989. 

Pike, known in the club as “Ce,” came to meetings to help Lion Jim Vaughn, who was blind, and lived with Ce and her husband, Ray. 

Joel Daczewitz, long-time Lion and one of the longest tenured members in the club, remembers them well. According to an article in the Aug. 24, 1989 issue of the Rappahannock News, before the club was integrated with women, Ce would sit with the wives of other members in a segregated area each week for six years while meetings went on in the room next door. Daczewitzs said eventually, Ce was asked to officially join.

“Back then … the Lions Club was pretty much strictly for men,” Daczewitz said.

Pike’s appointment as president was ahead of its time not only in Rappahannock, but on the national scale. The Lions Club and Lioness Club – its female equivalent – integrated in 1987, just one month before Pike became an official member of the club.

She was one of the few female presidents in the country and one of the first to lead a club in Virginia, Daczewitz said. According to the 1989 article, male members said they had no issue with Ce taking charge.

“Mrs. Pike is the first woman to assume the leadership role of the Rappahannock pride. She is also the only female member of the club,” wrote Joe McCullough in his article. “None of this means a hill of beans to the gender-blind club members.” 

Around the world, more women are joining. They are the fastest-growing segment of Lions Club membership internationally, with more than 425,000 women serving their communities as Lions today, according to Lions International. In 2019, the first female international Lions president, Gudrun Yngvadottir, was elected.

‘Not just a boy’s club’

The Rappahannock club has not seen much growth in female membership since Pike was president. It has roughly 50 members, only three of whom are women. Graham said she hopes her election as president will demonstrate to women in the community that the Lions Club is not a men’s only institution as it is often perceived. 

Shiff said Graham is a good neighbor and friend, and it was an easy decision to invite her to join the club. Overall, the male members have no issue with a woman taking on the presidency, according to Shiff. 

“I think everybody really loves and respects Mary,” Shiff said. “She’s a very capable person, and she won’t have any problems with [the presidency].”

Kelly said he has full confidence in Graham’s ability to lead the club with grace, and her “distinctive way of seeing the world and looking at how things can be made better” will offer a fresh perspective to the organization. 

“I’m not sure how much room for improvement there is in Lions … but just having a woman at the head of the club will make women in the county realize that this is not just a boy’s club, never has been, never was meant to be,” Kelly said. “I’m really looking forward to, during Mary’s term, seeing Lions’ membership grow and represent the county, and be able to continue our mission of serving.”

Graham officially will be sworn in as president at the Lions’ upcoming annual officer induction picnic and will serve a one-year term. Graham said she’s going into her new role with an open mind and a take-it-as-it-comes attitude, focusing on her favorite aspect of the Lions – community and camaraderie. 

“We’re all in the same community. I mean, if we don’t take care of each other, there’s something really wrong. For me, it’s as simple as that,” Graham said. “It’s a wonderful [group of people] that have the community at heart. And it’s really wonderful to be part of the group.”