President’s Message, Issue #34, The Journal of The Masonic Society

How good and how pleasant it is …
by Kenneth W. Davis, FMS

I’m recently back from one the most interesting and informative Masonic events of my life, the 2016 Annual Conference of The Masonic Society, which took place October 7-9, in beautiful Morgan Hill, California.

Honoring the conference theme, “Freemasonry on the Frontier,” speakers took participants on a fascinating historical tour of the expanding North American frontier, from the Atlantic to the Pacific.

Kicking off the conference Friday evening was Jefferson H. Jordan, Jr., immediate past grand master of Masons in New Mexico, speaking as Samuel Langhorne Clemens, “Mark Twain.” Clemens’s talk emphasized his Masonic experience and his travels on the Western frontier of the United States.

The first presentation Saturday was by William Miklos, who invited us to participate in “an Imaginary Conversation among the Thirteen Masons of the Continental Convention.” Bill is founding master of the Golden Compasses Research Lodge, past master of the Northern California Research Lodge, and a founding member of TMS.

Following Bill were Moises Gomez, past grand historian of the grand lodge of New Jersey, who spoke about the early traveling lodges of his home state, and Kyle Grafstrom, junior warden of Verity Lodge 59 in Kent, Washington, speaking on “Freemasonry in the Wild West.”

Saturday afternoon began with Adam Kendall, a founding fellow of TMS and editor of The Plumbline, the journal of The Scottish Rite Research Society, who presented “Pilgrimage and Procession: The 1883 Knights Templar Triennial Conclave and the Dream of the American West.”

He was followed by Wayne Sirmon, treasurer of Mobile Lodge 40 and past master of the Texas Lodge of Research, who spoke on “West by Southwest: The Expansion of Frontier Freemasonry from the Old Southwest”—by which he meant, to my surprise, not New Mexico and Arizona, but Alabama. (Who’d have thought?)

The “frontier-themed” presentations ended with a fascinating look at “Freemasonry and Nation-building on the Pacific Coast,” by John L. Cooper III, past grand master of the Masonic Grand Lodge of California. We were especially honored to have John present, as he is currently president of our sister organization, The Philalethes Society.

After Saturday dinner was a special bonus presentation by Moises Gomez, who in addition to his Masonic honors is a twenty-eight-year veteran of the Emergency Service Unit of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. As such, Moe was among the first responders at the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. He spoke on his experiences at “Ground Zero” and the Masonic values he saw embodied there, and he presented conference participants with a commemorative pin.

The single most important person in making the conference a success was TMS board member Gregg Hall, who coordinated all local arrangements and pitched in with preparing our gourmet meals.

The year 2017 will include two already-scheduled TMS events. The first will be our seventh annual dinner at Masonic Week, February 9-12, at the Hyatt Regency Crystal City in Arlington, Virginia. The dinner will take place Friday, February 10, at 6:30 pm, and will feature an after-dinner talk by Mike Poll, past president of TMS and editor of this journal. All Masons, ladies, and guests are welcome!

Our 2017 conference will be held September 7-10, at Embassy Suites in Lexington, Kentucky. The conference, tentatively titled “Celebrating 300 Years of Freemasonry,” is being coordinated by Masonic author and TMS board member John Bizzack and is being cosponsored with Lexington Lodge 1 (chartered in 1788), The Rubicon Masonic Society, The Grand Lodge of Kentucky Education Committee, William O. Ware Lodge of Research, and Ted Adams Lodge of Research.

Besides presentations by nationally known speakers, the conference will include tours of the Kentucky Horse Park and Ashland Estate, the home of famed nineteenth-century Mason Henry Clay, as well as a formal festive board at historic Spindletop Hall.

As a former faculty member at the University of Kentucky, a thirteen-year resident of Lexington, and an official, governor-proclaimed Kentucky Colonel, I know first-hand the beauty of the Bluegrass State and the hospitality of its people. Just as my wife, Bette, and I took advantage of the location of our 2016 conference to make a spectacular trip down the California coast, I hope many of you will take advantage of the equally beautiful and historical setting of the 2017 event.

(An aside: when I lived in Lexington, I was not yet a Mason and did not know John Bizzack. Only recently did we discover that I served on the very grand jury that indicted the criminals whom John and his fellow police offers rounded up in a sting operation. The Masonic world is a small one.)

I look forward to seeing many of you at Masonic Week in Virginia in February and at the TMS Conference in Kentucky in September. Each of them will be a must-go event in this Masonic anniversary year. Be there, and on the square!

Fraternally,

Kenneth W. Davis