Qualifications for Elk of the Year

To decide who in your Lodge has the work ethic, belief in fellowship, love of Lodge and fellow members is a task that falls once a year on a small group that has been honored to receive The Elk of the Year Award in past years.

It is an award that one good day, one good week or good month does not earn you. It is a labor of love to improve your Lodge and community, to help your fellow members over an entire year that brings you consideration for this award. It is not given lightly, and to those who receive it, much is owed by the members. It is a willingness to sacrifice and serve, a desire to help, a love of giving to others, a belief in the good that, what we do does make a difference.

Lodge Esquire! You will retire to the Kitchen and escort member Don Miller before the Altar. That is how Don was called to receive the highest honor this Lodge can bestow on a member. That is also where you will find Don on countless days throughout the year, making food, serving food, and helping other members less skilled in the kitchen do the same. He doesn’t stop there; he is Cochairman of the Maintenance Committee and jack of all trades. It seems that every repair or improvement that has been made in the Lodge in the last couple years has the initials DM stamped on them somewhere. Don doesn’t do the easy job; he takes on the hardest parts of projects and makes them his own. He’s the guy on the top of the ladder and underneath the bar floor getting the job done and giving the less spry volunteers a break from some of the more challenging portions of the work. Don does it with a smile and a twinkle in his eye. He genuinely enjoys it and makes other people feel good about what they are doing. It still doesn’t end, for Don believes that as Elks we should be held to a higher standard, that the words of the Obligation are not words, but a path to be followed, this is what Don does every day. He is a man of Honesty and Integrity, who leads by example. Don is most worthy to receive our Lodge’s Elk of the Year award for 2008/09.