The Tomball Lions Club members teamed up with the Texas Railroading Heritage Museum - Tomball to assist in crowd control during the public display of Union Pacific's UP-4014 "Big Boy" at the Amtrak Station in downtown Houston on Thursday, November 7, 2019. Shown next to Big Boy (l/r) are: Lions Ken Neal, David Cochran and President Mike Halbach. Not shown: Lion Erin Stapleton.
Lion David Cochran took a photo of Leslie Linton. While David was sitting at his volunteer station for the Big Boy event he noticed she kept looking right at him. Every time he looked she was still looking right at him. After a brief amount of time she walked over and just kissed him on the cheek! She then proceeded to take her glasses off and lift her eyelids showing him her eyes. All of a sudden while tearing up, she told him that she was completely blind until she was 5 years old. She said a local Lions club in Chicago where she lived paid for her to have surgery on both of her eyes and changed her life forever! She informed David that she went on to get her dream job at NASA. She is 62 years old now and told him that the Lions could never know just how much it meant to someone like her that our Lions International Clubs had helped. She said she’s forever grateful. David told her that she should join a lions club in her area.
Comments from Mike Baxter – Marketing Director of the City of Tomball. “Twice the history at Tomball today”. The Union Pacific "Big Boy" steam locomotive passed through with the UP 4141 diesel in-tow. The "Big Boy" is a massive steam locomotive making a farewell tour of America's southwest. UP 4141 (the engine that led the Bush funeral train last December) came along for the ride and will be dropped off at the George Bush Presidential Library and Museum in College Station. It will soon be on public display. It was 20-seconds of history in the Tomball Community.
Other photos from the event can be seen below:
.jpg)
