|
George W. Lininger Lodge No. 268 has been active with
many projects over the last several years. For the
Omaha Home for Boys Annual Maintenance Campaign they
have produced the Pulitzer Prize-winning plays "Love
Letters" by A.R. Gurney in 2005 & "The Caine Mutiny
Court Martial" in 2007 based on the Pulitzer
Prize-winning novel by Herman Wouk. These productions
inspired the creation of a non-profit theatre company
called "3rd Degree Productions" whose mission is to
produce plays and to give all profits away to charity. Lininger
Masons are also active in their support of CHIP (Child
Identification Program) events and its members are
frequently seen as active members of York Rite, Scottish
Rite, National Sojourners & Tangier Shrine.
Additionally, for their 100th Anniversary, three main
events have been planned: 1) the 25th annual Table Lodge
was held on Tuesday, April 15th; 2) a June 8th
Centennial Celebration featuring two proclamations
issued by Governor Heineman and Mayor Fahey along with a
more detailed presentation featuring the Masonic life of
George W. Lininger; and 3) a July business meeting to be
held at the Plattsmouth Home (established by George W.
Lininger).
Our
Lodge is unique because of
where it
meets (downtown
Omaha),
when it
meets (the first Tuesday of every month at 5:30 pm
(instead of
7:00pm) and who it's named after.
George Lininger was a founding father of the city of
Omaha known for his entrepreneurial spirit for having
started the nations largest farm implement business,
passion for the arts which included acquiring the
collection which later became Joslyn Art Museum,
dedication to Omaha civics, which included being a state
Senator, and "unbendable" commitment to every principle
of Masonry, which included being a Past Grand Master & a
Past Grand Commander.
|
In April 2008, W.B. Curt Edic,
Chairman of the Grand Lodge Public Relations Committee
asked “How do we let people know what we do?”
He followed that question with what the committee
has been charged with by the Grand Master and what we
will be doing over the next few months as we look at
this important work for the Fraternity.
However, when you think of this venerable Fraternity,
the last thing that crosses your mind is public
relations. Those
who have been members for many years may remember when
the local paper highlighted and wrote stories about the
activities of the local Lodge.
I would be willing to say that the local
publisher of the newspaper was probably a member!
The Fraternity was so interwoven in the community
that getting the word out was easy as the civic and
business leaders of the village, town and city were also
Brothers. That
was public relations and boy was it easy.
Of course, there was a great change
in the fabric of America
starting in the 1960s and a decline of membership took
place across the Fraternity (it is unnecessary to
revisit this part of history as we have heard it over
and over again when asking “what happened” and “now
what”). We
went through a variety of “schemes” to get people to
join the Fraternity to get the numbers up.
Those met with various levels of success...
More...
|