EXALTED RULER’S MESSAGE

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Hi all! First and foremost I hope all of you are still doing well and staying safe.  

Hopefully by the time you receive this Bugle things will be back to a “somewhat” sense of “normalcy”. We are hopefully opening the Lodge on Thursday, 28 May. This opening will be probably quite different from where we were at when we had to close. There will be guidelines in place in order to do our best to provide a safe and happy environment for our members.  

I earnestly charge all of our Wonderful Members to please abide by the guidelines that we are required to adhere to in order to open. Please respect your fellow members and Elks Family, this way we can get together again and stay safe at the same time. Thank you.  

A few new notes and some “catch-ups”.  We have three AEA State Officers from our Lodge who were recently installed at our Lodge! ( out in the parking lot, in full dress, in full sun and 95 degrees.). No whining allowed from our Lodge Officers. Haha!  Our own Al Skorupski, PSP performed the honor of installing; Jack Baillargeon, PDDGER as State Vice-President, South District; Alane Asp, Esteemed Leading Knight as State Treasurer; Gloria Cisneros, PER as State Tiler. Big hand for all!  Although our Lodge has been closed for 2 1/2 months our own Elks have been able to continue the the credo of Elkdom. CHARITY.  Our Lodge has been able to provide assistance to our “adopted” school for their children, assistance to Impact to assist the elderly with food, Scholarships coming for our deserving youth. This goes on even though our Lodge has been closed.  This is what Elks do. This is who we are!! 

I can’t close without recognizing all of the staff who have continued to work so diligently to keep things together and to be prepared to continue as great as we are. In no particular order: All Lodge Officers, Secretary, Treasurer, Board of Directors Chairman, House Committee Chairman, PERA President, Bugle Editor, Website Coordinator, and especially the “Covid” cleaning crew who came in and cleaned and disinfected our Lodge.  Many thanks and kudos to all!!! Be well, stay safe and never forget who we are Monty Derting Exalted Ruler  

Bless you all,  Monty  

It has been over two months since the lodge has been open. I miss my Elk family very much and am incredibly happy to know that most of us have escaped getting the virus. The lodge will be opening soon and Paul Slater, house committee chair, will have good procedures in place to keep us healthy when we open. Do not miss his article.  

Typically, in May, many of us head to Tempe for the Arizona Elks Association Annual Meeting. Unfortunately, the meeting was canceled. The lodge will need to wait until the October meeting to learn about awards earned by Gloria and her team. My favorite part of every convention is the portion dedicated to the annual meeting of the Arizona Elks Major Projects which includes the Exalted Ruler March and presentations about our state’s two major projects.  

The Exalted Rulers March did not happen, but the lodge did send our member donations and other funds raised to AEMP. You can be proud that our lodge contributed about $4,000 to the cause. What would have happened, was each Exalted Ruler presents a check to the Arizona Elks Major Projects in front of all in attendance, and the amount of contribution is announced. Be proud of our donation. Typically, at each convention, the president of our Arizona Elks Major Projects presents a check to the Steele Children’s Research Center and it usually is more than $100,000. The team from the research center are always moving speakers and extremely grateful for our support.  

What are Arizona Elks Major Projects? Since 1992 Arizona Elks have been supporting research at the University of Arizona’s Steele Children’s Center with over $6.8 million in donations. Arizona Elks have funded remodeling and modernization of the Arizona Elks Pediatric Clinic (did you notice, the clinic is named for us?) and has provided funds for endowed chairs in Statewide Pediatric Research and Faculty Research for technology and innovation. Our other major project is the Elks Youth Camp located in the Sierra Ancha Mountains in Northeast Arizona; the camp is open and available to all bonafide youth groups throughout the state at no charge.  

Earlier in the year, several of us from the lodge toured the Steele Children’s Research Center. We were warmly welcomed and saw how our donations help the Center. Currently, more than 75 different research projects are underway, and our funding helps keep this going. We also saw microscope funded by the Elks which cost around $250,000 and is the only one in the state. Sounds impressive, but it was about like a 2’ square cube! All staff we met, were excited to explain how they use it and how vital it is to their research. I did not understand much of what I heard but felt proud to have helped support their endeavors in a small way.  

When Steve was Exalted Ruler, we made a visit to the Jack P Warter, Jr. Youth Camp during the spring cleanup. The camp is located on 8 acres high in the mountains where cell service does not exist. It is a fantastic place for youth to experience nature. The camp is free for any qualified youth organization. This camp was built in 2012 by our Elks with our own hands. Each year more improvements are made by our fellow Elks. Unfortunately, the virus has also delayed the opening this year. While our lodge has been closed, we have continued to support Arizona Elks Major Projects. Please be proud of our projects and support them if possible 

Alane  

By the time you all read this the Lodge should be re-opened, welcome back to all. I have been still working during all of this and the Lodge has been very quiet. It is nice to know it is going to liven back up again. 

There are 105 members who have not paid their dues for this Lodge Year, I am hoping that goes down considerably when the Lodge re-opens. If you are one of these members, I encourage you to pay these dues and stay in good standing. Please remember whether you pay these dues or not the Lodge is still responsible to pay the assessment fees ($19.00 for Grand Lodge and $2.50 for State Assoc.) for every member on our rolls. So please consider paying these dues to allow the Lodge to re-coop some of this money. We also need all of us to pull together and keep our Lodge “The best little and most mighty Lodge” in the District and in the State. 

Lodge Stats: 

Membership 540 

Delinquents 105 

Average age 70.83 

Note: due to the fact this is the first part of the Lodge year, there are no other stats to report at this time.  

With social distancing, the PERA held their first meeting since February. Officer elections were held with the following being voted in – Sig Danielson as Queen of Hearts Chairman, Robin Danielson as Treasure, Doug Harpold as Secretary, Neal Patronsky as Vice President and myself as President. Thank you to everyone taking an Officer position and I am sure we will have another strong PERA year. 

As we begin to get back to some normalcy in our everyday lives, so too shall we at the Lodge. We have had work being done on the interior and exterior of the Lodge and so it will be in tip top shape for our opening. The PERA would like to thank all those that volunteered their time to make these things happen. Even though the Lodge is open, we will not be having the Queen of Hearts until further notice as we will be adhering to the social distancing guidelines. Please be patient with us all as we do our very best to make our members feel safe in this new way of doing things. We look forward to being with our fellow members again and hope to see you soon.  

Gloria Cisneros, PERA President