I agree on people underestimating Region Steward. Not only does it give you a great claim if your lord disappears but if he doesn't and a lordship opens up it can make getting that lordship easy if you were a good steward. That and if it's a rural region you can make extra gold off it.
As well, if you were active as steward, I totally count that. If it was just a title from your lord but you weren't allowed to do anything or chose not too, I would consider the lordship your first active role, but I have a feeling you were in fact active as steward.
Yes, indeed I am pretty active as Region Steward. Grentzen is a Woodsland region and it produces food a lot at that time, enough to feed the capital city. I learnt a lot from the game and the people, now it is time I give back whenever I can. I mentored a few players by being Mentor class myself, some of the players I mentored even being called "My Minions" from the "Despicable Me" movie. One of my students had a funny religion calling hugging the tree and pray to the tree, he refused to join the main realm religion, sadly he was no more playing here. It was good times