Our total active membership fees in force increased approximately 2.0% during the last year and continue our trend of increasing our membership fees. Membership persistency rate (defined as the number of memberships in force at the end of a 12 month period as a percentage of the total of memberships in force at the beginning of such period, plus new memberships sold during such period) was 73.3% for the 12 month period ended June 30, 2008 an increase from the 72.7% for the 12 month period ended June 30, 2007.
Our second quarter 2008 corporate finance focus has again been on share repurchases. During the 2nd quarter, we returned $14.9 million to shareholders through the repurchase of 343,409 shares of common stock, at an average per share price of $43.33. Since April 1999, we have returned $390.2 million to shareholders through the purchase of 13.3 million shares, average price of $29.30 per share, and $17.1 million in dividends for a combined total of $407.3 million representing more than 115 percent of our net earnings during the same timeframe.