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Sunday, December 01, 2019

Cornerstone Stolen from Phoenix, Arizona Lodge


Have you seen this cornerstone? Because it's missing.

It seems that exterior displays of the square and compasses within reachable height are occasionally attractive to the destructive-minded miscreant. 

For reasons known only to himself, a thief bashed out and made off with the 1963 cornerstone of Paradise Valley Lodge No. 61 
in Phoenix, Arizona earlier this month. 


That temple is now the home of the combined Paradise Valley Silver Trowel No. 29


An unidentified white male with a hat was recorded on multiple cameras around the Masonic hall as he approached and subsequently busted out the stone. But police have been unable to find him so far.

You'd think stealing a lodge cornerstone was about as ungainly and labor intensive a bit of vandalism as you could dream up, but this isn't the first case of it in that state. 


Several years ago, Acacia Lodge 42 in Avondale, Arizona was hit with a hugely destructive episode of mindless vandalism, and one of the casualties of that attack was their lodge cornerstone. And unfortunately, numerous lodges these days no longer have the sort of budgets to replace the irreplaceable once something gets destroyed. Acacia's has never been replaced, but a 'new' cornerstone can never have the sentimental or historic significance of the original to the fraternity and its members. 

And yet, they are worthless to a thief.


3 comments:

  1. Should any of your readers wish to assist us with the costs of repairing the damage to our lodge, we have a PayPal account. PayPal@pvst29.org

    We will use any monies donated to help defray the costs involved in having the building professionally repaired (the section of wall - being on the corner - is load-bearing, so we are not about to try to repair it ourselves) and the cost of the replacement cornerstone plaque. At this point in time, we have not decided whether to mount it outside again or mount it in the lodge in the appropriate corner.

    Should there be more donations than the actual cost to make the repairs, we will use the extra funds to support our charitable activities. We have the Fred Stewart Bikes for Books Program (we award bikes to students in our sponsored elementary and junior high schools an award for reading and/or reading improvement), the George Washington Oratorical Contest (a contest for areas students - Kindergarten through 8th grade - for giving a 3 to 5 minute presentation/speech on a topic relating to "Our American Heritage" https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJqfSKax95f3n9QY3FD4cZA for examples), Leroy's Food Bank (provides food assistance to students at our sponsored schools), our Teacher's Cook-Outs (we feed the teachers and staff dinner when they have parent-teacher conferences), our scholarships, and providing assistance to the widows and orphans of our passed brethren.

    You can learn more about these programs on our lodge website (pvst29.org).


    Thank you,


    Richard Jensen, PM
    Secretary
    Paradise Valley Silver Trowel Lodge #29
    Phoenix, AZ
    secretary at pvst29 dot org

    ReplyDelete

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