Montana Elks To Vote On Staying Men-Only Local Lodges Must Decide Whether To Accept Women

Montana’s 28 Elks lodges meet in Miles City next week, forced to answer the question that has plagued the national organization for years: Should women be allowed full membership?

The Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks is the largest men-only organization remaining in the United States.

However, after a seven-year legal battle and with discrimination lawsuits pending in various courts, delegates to the national convention in New Orleans last week voted overwhelmingly to strike the word “male” from membership requirements.

State and local leaders applauded, but the resolution still requires ratification from two-thirds of the nation’s 2,250 Elks lodges.

The change is overdue, said Frank Snyder, incoming president of the Montana State Elks Association.

“We have spent an excessive amount of money trying to fight this thing at the national level,” he said. “I think actually they should have done this some time ago, but that’s just my opinion.”

“There’s no sense fighting it,” said Joe Summers, a 30-year member of the Great Falls Elks lodge. “You might as well admit that women are entitled to the same privileges as men and play it that way.”

It would be a first for the 127-year-old organization that prides itself on community service and patriotism, said Keith Wallin, the exalted ruler of Lodge 214 in Great Falls.

But what will that mean for Elks? It’s far too soon to say, said Wallin about 12 hours after returning from the national convention. He voted for the change.

“It’s one of those iffy situations,” he said. “Each of the lodges is going to have to decide.”

Wallin pointed out that the Elks’ wives have their own organization, the Drove of Does, that allows them access to the lodges their husbands belong to. The change says nothing about that group, which is exclusively female.

Wallin said he doesn’t ever remember a woman applying for admission to the local Elks lodge, which has 1,400 members.

“I think that the ones that are members now (in the Does) and the future members will still want to be involved in the organization.”