The brethren of Gainesville Lodge No. 41, in Gainesville, Florida got some decent coverage in the local paper today.

Have a look at Masons offer a look inside by Patrick Annesty.

The average age of members at the downtown Gainesville lodge 20 years ago was 70, said [WM Ray M.Davis Jr]. Today, it's around 50.

"A lot of University of Florida students are joining," said Tony Spitaleri, the presiding officer of the Waldo Masonic lodge, who is also a member of Lodge No. 41.

He estimates that more than 10 UF students are now members. "They go to other communities and transfer to other lodges, but they join and are raised here," Spitaleri said.

[snip]

"You take a person coming in, and they are real rough, like a quarry stone," Davis said. "You chip, polish, scrape, and pretty soon it becomes a beautiful piece of stone for a building. But we work on the building within (oneself)."

These are principles of historic stonemasons that shape the modern Mason outlook, or "speculative masonry," Davis said.

"We don't use brick and mortar to build, but we use the principles of them because that's what makes a strong house," Davis said. These same principles are used to build a strong community, he said.

As far as the secretive nature of the organization, there's an explanation for that, too.

Spitaleri said that like college fraternities, secrets are used to ensure the authenticity of those who claim to be members.

"Secrets are one way to make sure people are not lying to you," he said. "There's ways of asking people questions that if they can't answer them properly, you know they are not a member."

Davis said the origins of Masonry trace to King Solomon's Temple in about 600 B.C., though the sect was not officially recognized until 1717, when the Catholic church ended its persecution of Masons.

The Gainesville lodge was chartered in 1857, and the cornerstone for the current building was laid in 1908. Local Masons also laid the cornerstone for the University Auditorium in 1922. During World War II, the lodge opened its doors to house servicemen.

(AP Photo)

Dallas Lodge No. 128 in Mena, Arkansas, was destroyed yesterday after a tornado struck the building at about 8PM. One person was killed at the lodge, and at least two others in the mountain town. Thirty others were injured in the area. Homes were flattened, and the Mena courthouse was destroyed. Thousands remain without power today, and the national Guard is going door to door to check on residents.

According to KTHV-11 in Little Rock,

The Mena tornado's destruction hit Line Street the hardest. At the Dallas Masonic Lodge, the Order of the Eastern Star was having a meeting Thursday night when the storm came through. The 19 people inside only heard the tornado siren sound and say they had no time to take cover when the storm hit.

Thurman Allen, 79, of Mena said a woman at the meeting was killed when the roof of the building fell in. He said rescuers had to cut the roof away to recover her body.

Authorities have not released names of the dead.

Allen said that as the tornado hit the lodge, debris hit him in the head and knocked him to the ground. His wife, sitting nearby in a chair, was thrown to the floor.

The storm knocked over the lodge's cinder block wall, bringing down wooden roof joists, insulation and shingles over the people gathered for the meeting.

Fred Key, 37, of Mena said several people were injured as the winds blew through the hall. He said the winds took the shoes of some of the members. Key says rescuers arrived as quickly as they could but were blocked by pine trees that fell across roads in the area.

No word yet today on the name of the OES member who was killed.

Dallas Lodge in Mena was the mother lodge of Norris Goff and Chester Lauck—long forgotten today, but better known in the 1930s as the comedy team of "Lum and Abner," one of the most popular radio shows on the air between 1932 and 1954.


UPDATE

According to the 40/29 TV website, the three people killed in Mena were:

• Anna True Cress, 84, killed at the town's Masonic Lodge, where she was attending a meeting of the Order of the Eastern Star.
• Judy Lobner, 47, who died in her daughter's home. Myhand said Lobner's daughter was outside the home when the tornado hit, but survived.
• Albert Shaw, 61, who died when his two-story home was hit by the storm and collapsed.

The twice-monthly meeting of the Mena's chapter of the Order of the Eastern Star had been going on uninterrupted, the 19 people inside only faintly hearing the sirens through the building's cinderblock walls.
Attendee Thurman Allen said they were ready to get out of the building when the twister hit. The storm tore down the Masonic hall's walls, collapsing the roof on one woman, Anna True Cress, killing her.
The winds pulled the shoes off some women who were at the meeting.