Masonic Lodge #8 installs new officers

MT. PLEASANT - Mt. Pleasant's Masonic Lodge #8 carried on a tradition that goes as far back as 1845 for its chapter, and installed their new officers for the upcoming year. Last Saturday, nine of 11 officers officially entered their new positions with the freemasonry group, with two more to be installed at a later meeting.

Kenny Huffaker, a fourth generation member of the Masonic Lodge and the master of the lodge for the year 2020, explained that the fraternal organization that exists to support the community. This year, the group opted to have an open and public installment, during which members of the community and family of the members were encouraged to attend.

'It's not very often we go for the whole ceremony of installing, so I thought it would be good to do it. We haven't done it for quite a while and we have a lot of new members this year,” Huffaker said. Currently, the group has about 65 members on their roster, 15 of whom are active.

The new master of the lodge explained that the group uses symbols from the fourteenth century when guilds existed as a moral guides.

'We use the Masons or the physical trowels as symbols to use from a moral standpoint. We use the compass as a way to keep oneself in due bounds, meaning that they will behave as an upright man in the world,” Huffaker explained.

'The cornerstone is one of the main building blocks of our organization. If that cornerstone isn't laid true and square everything built from there is going to be out-of-square or isn't right. We lay that into our members by saying if the cornerstone of your life isn't secure and square, your morals will be off … it's something we use pretty strongly throughout our organization,” the master of the lodge continued.

The ceremony, which included a processional and presenting of the new officers, saw each member receive the 'jewels of their office,” which included a cloth with the masonic symbol as well as individual pendants representative of each member's position. Member Ted Wiley presided over the ceremony as Jason Delzell, a member of Des Moines Masonic Lodge #1, located in Burlington, helped present the officers for installment.

During the ceremony, Dave Loving was installed as the secretary, Mark Kimzey was installed as the chaplain, John Klopfenstein was installed as the junior warden, Sid Smidt and Mike Borders were installed as junior deacons, Jason Loving was installed as a senior steward, Aaron Kimsey was installed as the lodge's musician and Wyatt Marlett was installed as the tiler of the lodge.

As the new master of the lodge, Huffaker hopes to involve the group in as many fundraisers and donations possible. His goal for the next year is to have the lodge be as involved with helping the community as it can be and to test the limits of its reach.

'We're really hoping to get more involved. We hear the E-3 center doesn't have their Halloween event anymore so we're hoping to step up and take that over. We're going to do that at the lodge this year. We just like to be that underlying pillar of the community, if there's any place that we can help. We've helped the Fellowship Cup buy food, just involved and support where we can,” Huffaker remarked, giving examples of how he hopes to lead the lodge.