Freemasons For Dummies: Shriners: Six Hospitals May Close

Wednesday, April 01, 2009

Shriners: Six Hospitals May Close

The Shreveport Times in Shreveport, Louisiana is reporting that the Shriners Hospital there may close. It is one of a total of six that the Shriners trustees have identified for possible closure this year.

The 89 year old Shreveport hospital was the first Shriners children's center opened, in response to a polio epidemic that swept across the US in the early 1920s.

The article quoted national trustees chairman Ralph Semb as saying the board faces a major income shortfall this year, due partially to a drop in donations, but largely because of the plummeting stock market. The trustees were directed three years ago to try to increase the $8.5 billion hospital endowment to $14 billion. When the stock market fell, however, the investments plunged to less than $5 billion by this month.

Along with Shreveport, the other hospitals potentially on the chopping block are Galveston, TX; Greenville, SC; Spokane, WA.; Erie, PA.; and Springfield, MA.

The closings will have to be approved by a 2/3 majority vote at the Imperial Session in San Antonio, July 5-9.

1 comment:

Shane HaleSat Apr 04, 09:31:00 PM 2009
I have posted a link to a fundraiser we are doing on Facebook to try and save Greenville Sc.

http://esotericseeker.blogspot.com/2009/04/shriners-in-greenville-sc-may-close.html

I like your articles in the Templar Magazine keep on writing!!

SK Shane Hale
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Legendary brotherhood
With a mythic past
And a visionary future.

Freemasonry is the largest, oldest and best-known gentleman's fraternity in the world. Historically, it is based on the Medieval stonemason guilds who built the great castles and cathedrals of Europe. Mythologically it is founded upon the building of Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem, as told in the Old Testament of the Bible.

Modern Freemasons likewise use the tools, traditions and terminology of those Biblical stonemasons as allegories for building Temples in the hearts of men, using Solomon as our ideal example of wisdom, justice and faith.

At its core, Freemasonry is simply an attempt to make the world a better place, one man at a time. For each man, it can become as simple or as complicated as he himself desires.

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Christopher L. Hodapp is the author of Freemasons For Dummies, the international, best-selling introduction to the Masonic fraternity; and Solomon's Builders: Freemasons, Founding Fathers and the Secrets of Washington D.C..

Prior to joining the Masons and becoming an author, Chris spent 23 years as a commercial filmmaker with Dean Crow Productions in Indianapolis.

Since 2009 he has been on the Board of the Masonic Library & Museum of Indiana, and currently serves as its President and Co-Director.

As a Freemason, Chris is a Past Master of Broad Ripple Lodge No. 643 and of Lodge Vitruvian No. 767 under the Grand Lodge F&AM of Indiana; he is a member of Indiana's Schofield Lodge 1818 U.D.; and of Internet Lodge No. 9659 in the Province of East Lancashire of the United Grand Lodge of England. Most recently, he served as the Worshipful Master of the Dwight L. Smith Lodge of Research U.D. in Indiana for 2019-21.

In 2018 he was awarded the Caleb B. Smith Medal of Honor by the Grand Lodge F&AM of Indiana for his "distinguished service to Freemasonry in Indiana and worldwide."

Chris is a 33° Mason in the Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite (NMJ), Indianapolis Valley. He is a Past Sovereign Master of Imhotep Council No. 434 of the Allied Masonic Degrees. He is a founding member of Levant Preceptory, a medieval Knights Templar period recreation degree team in the York Rite, and he is an officer of the Indiana College of the Societas Rosicruciana in Civitatibus Foederatis. He belongs to numerous other Masonic appendant organizations.

Chris is a Fellow of the Philalethes Society. As a Masonic author, in 2012 he was named as Friar No. 101 in the Society of Blue Friars. Chris was also a Founding Fellow of The Masonic Society, and was the founding Editor in Chief of The Journal of The Masonic Society. He was the editor and a contributor in 2004-5 to "Laudable Pursuit: A 21st Century Response to Dwight Smith" by the Knights of the North, a Masonic leadership think-tank focusing on modern lodge solutions. He has written for Indianapolis Monthly, Heredom, Masonic Magazine, Templar History, the Scottish Rite Journal, the Knight Templar Magazine, the Indiana Freemason , the Phylaxis, and numerous other publications.

His most recent Masonic book, Heritage Endures, was published in January 2018 as part of the 200th anniversary of Indiana's Grand Lodge.

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