The Prince George Elks Elastic Band was formed in 1987 by Jim Perry. Laurie Meier said the band originally started out in the early 1970's and was known as Jock Strap and His Elastic Band. The Jock Strap Band was started by Bill Sparrow: The seven members of the band were Bill Sparrow, Frank Poruchany, Dave Seymour, Ean Sutherlund, Floyd Whyte, Irwin Hoppe and Brett Johnson.
Bill Sparrow introduced the song The Cat Came Back and it became a very popular song for a long time back then.
Pete Peters recalls the days when Bill Sparrow's little girl Colleen (now the publisher at The Citizen) used to come along to the practices. He said, "She always sang along with the group and played her guitar. We had loads of fun back in those early days. I remember the year the Elks built a big May Day float. We built a replica of a tall ship. Bill Sparrow was Captain Cook and the band was known as 'the crew'."
The Elks Elastic Band started out with 11 members and was named for its ability to stretch and shrink. The 11 original members were Laurie Meier, Frank Poruchany, Dave Seymour, Ean Sutherlund, John Metz, Bob Cleland, Jim Perry, Gavin Mohns, Jim Parasini, Ron Bellamy and Kelly Thiesen.
The band has been very active over these past 25 years entertaining at the senior citizens homes, the Elks functions and many other activities around town. Along with their other bookings the band can be found volunteering and entertaining around the city on the average of at least once per week. Laurie says, "We were all proud to be the goodwill ambassadors for the Elks."
The band continued to stretch and they added Alice Friend, Carlos Green, Jack McKinley, Jim Dow, Ron Kushniruk and Terry Receveur,
Still the band continued to expand until a second band called the Mud River Band was formed. The Mud River Band members are Gerry DeBoer, Blaine Powel, Gord Dorish, Garth Laferdy and Marlene Bernier.
In September of 2012, CBC Radio Prince George did a special on the "Fruit Project" that this group takes on each year. It goes something like this: It all started about eight years ago. Fruit is donated to the project from orchards in Osoyoos and the Elks Lodge members make sure it all gets picked up and delivered to non-profit groups here in Prince George. The donations started with Ken and Melhina Thibault who moved from Prince George to Osoyoos and purchased a small orchard. Each year the donations have increased as the Thibaults invite their neighbors to become involved with donations from their orchards to be sent to their good friends Bernie and Jack Gould to be used for the St Vincent De Paul Society.
The fruit project in 2012 was a hefty 14,000 pounds of boxed up fruit. Due to this large amount of fruit the Elks Lodges in the north paid a freight company to pick it up and deliver it to Prince George for distribution.
For more information about the fruit project phone Laurie Meier at 250-564-6336.
