Famous Shriners

CY Young

Brother Young, according to records at the Grand Lodge of Ohio, received his Entered Apprentice Degree on February 1, 1904; his Fellowcraft Degree on February 15, 1904; and his Master Mason Degree on February 29, 1904, all in Mystic Tie Lodge, #194, in Dennison, Ohio.

Rex David “Dave” Thomas

Rex David “Dave” Thomas (July 2, 1932 – January 8, 2002) was an American businessperson and philanthropist. Thomas was the founder and chief executive officer of Wendy’s, a fast-food restaurant chain specializing in hamburgers. He is also known for appearing in more than 800 commercial advertisements for the chain from 1989 to 2002, more than any other company founder in television history.

Dave Thomas was born on July 2, 1932 in Atlantic City, New Jersey to a young unmarried woman he never knew. He was adopted at six weeks by Rex and Auleva Thomas, and as an adult became a well-known advocate for adoption, founding the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption. After his adoptive mother’s death when he was 5, his father moved around the country seeking work. Thomas spent some of his early childhood near Kalamazoo, Michigan with his grandmother, Minnie Sinclair, who he credited with teaching him the importance of service and treating others well and with respect, lessons that helped him in his future business life.

At 12, Thomas had his first job at Regas Restaurant, a fine dining restaurant in downtown Knoxville, Tennessee, then lost it in a dispute with his boss; decades later, Regas Restaurant installed a large autographed poster-photo of Thomas just inside their entrance until the business closed down December 31, 2010. He vowed never to lose another job. Moving with his father, by 15 he was working in Fort Wayne, Indiana at the Hobby House Restaurant owned by the Clauss family. When his father prepared to move again, Dave decided to stay in Fort Wayne, dropping out of high school to work full-time at the restaurant. Thomas, who considered ending his schooling the greatest mistake of his life, did not graduate from high school until 1993, when he obtained a GED.

In the mid-1950s, Kentucky Fried Chicken founder Col. Harland Sanders came to Fort Wayne to find restaurateurs with established businesses in order to try to sell KFC franchises to them. At first, Thomas, who was the head cook at a restaurant, and the Clausses declined Sanders’ offer, but the Colonel persisted and the Clauss family franchised their restaurant with KFC and later also owned many other KFC franchises in the Midwest. During this time, Thomas worked with Sanders on many projects to make KFC more profitable and to give it brand recognition. Among other things Thomas suggested to Sanders, that were implemented, was that KFC reduce the number of items on the menu and focus on a signature dish. Thomas also suggested Sanders make commercials that he appear in himself. Thomas was sent by the Clauss family in the mid-1960s to help turn around four failing KFC stores they owned in Columbus, Ohio.

By 1968 Thomas had increased sales in the four fried chicken restaurants so much that he sold his share in them back to Sanders for more than $1.5 million. This experience would prove invaluable to Thomas when he began Wendy’s about a year later.

After serving as a regional director for Kentucky Fried Chicken, Thomas became part of the investor group which founded Arthur Treacher’s. His involvement with the new restaurant lasted less than a year before he went on to found Wendy’s.

Thomas opened his first Wendy’s in Columbus, Ohio, November 15, 1969. (This original restaurant remained operational until March 2, 2007, when it was closed due to lagging sales.)[10] Thomas named the restaurant after his eight-year-old daughter Melinda Lou, whose nickname was “Wendy”, stemming from the child’s inability to say her own name at a young age. According to Bio TV, Dave claims himself that people nicknamed his daughter “Wenda. Not Wendy, but Wenda. ‘I’m going to call it Wendy’s Old Fashioned Hamburgers’.”

In 1982, Thomas resigned from his day-to-day operations at Wendy’s. However, by 1985, several company business decisions, including an awkward new breakfast menu and loss in brand awareness due to fizzled marketing efforts, caused the company’s new president to urge Thomas back into a more active role with Wendy’s. Thomas began to visit franchises and espouse his hardworking, so-called “mop-bucket attitude.” In 1989, he took on a significant role as the TV spokesperson in a series of commercials for the brand. Thomas was not a natural actor, and initially, his performances were criticized as stiff and ineffective by advertising critics.

By 1990, after efforts by Wendy’s agency, Backer Spielvolgel Bates, to get humor into the campaign, a decision was made to portray Thomas in a more self-deprecating and folksy manner, which proved much more popular with test audiences.[13] Consumer brand awareness of Wendy’s eventually regained levels it had not achieved since octogenarian Clara Peller’s wildly popular “Where’s the beef?” campaign of 1984.

With his natural self-effacing style and his relaxed manner, Thomas quickly became a household name. A company survey during the 1990s, a decade during which Thomas starred in every Wendy’s commercial that aired, found that 90% of Americans knew who Thomas was. After more than 800 commercials, it was clear that Thomas played a major role in Wendy’s status as the country’s third most popular burger restaurant.

Dave Thomas was raised a Master Mason in Sol. D. Bayless Lodge No. 359 of Fort Wayne, Indiana, and became a 32° Mason, N.M.J., on November 16, 1961, in the Scottish Rite Bodies of Fort Wayne. He affiliated with the Miami, Florida, Scottish Rite Bodies on December 18, 1991; was invested with the Rank and Decoration of Knight Commander Court of Honour on November 13, 1993, in Jacksonville, Florida; and was coroneted an Inspector General Honorary, S.J., on November 25, 1995, in Atlanta, Georgia, and unanimously elected to the Scottish Rite’s highest honor, the Grand Cross, by The Supreme Council, 33°, in Executive Session on October 3, 1997, in Washington, D.C.

Col. Harland Sanders

Col. Harland Sanders, founder of Kentucky Fried Chicken Restaurants. He began selling fried chicken from his roadside restaurant in Corbin, Kentucky, during the Great Depression. Sanders identified the potential of the restaurant franchising concept, and the first Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) franchise opened in Utah in 1952. The company’s rapid expansion across the United States and overseas saw it overwhelm the ageing Sanders, and in 1964 he sold the company to a group of investors.

He was initiated in Henryville (Indiana) Lodge No. 651 in 1917, and affiliated with Hugh Harris Lodge No. 938 in Corbin, Ky, in 1953. He was also a 33º Mason and a noble of Oleika Shrine, Lexington, Ky.

William Frederick Cody aka “Buffalo Bill”

1846-1917

Platte Valley Lodge No. 32, North Platte, Nebraska
Entered Apprentice: March 5, 1870
Fellowcraft: April 2 1870
Master Mason: January 10, 1871

1887 member of Euphrates Chapter No. 15, Royal Arch Masons, of North Platt, Nebraska

1889 member of Palestine Commandery No. 13. North Platt, Nebraska

1892 Tangier Temple of the Ancient Arabic Order Nobles of the Mystic Shrine of Omaha, Nebraska.

1894 He became a member of the Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry for the Northern Jurisdiction of the United States of America in the Valley of New York City.

In the American Civil War (1861–65), he worked for the U.S. Army as a civilian scout.
In 1867–68 he hunted buffalo to feed construction crews on the Union Pacific Railroad.

Cody acquired a reputation not only for accurate marksmanship but also for total recall of the vast terrain he had traversed, knowledge of Indian ways, courage, and endurance. He was in demand as a scout and guide.

He was awarded the Medal of Honor in 1872, but the award was revoked in 1916 on the ground that he was not an officer or an enlisted man in the army (scouts were classified as civilians). The U.S. Army restored the Medal of Honor to Cody posthumously in 1989.

In 1883 Cody organized his first Wild West exhibition—a spectacular featuring fancy shooting, a buffalo hunt, capture of the Deadwood (S.D.) stagecoach, a Pony Express ride, hard-riding cowboys, and yelling Indians. His stars included Annie Oakley, the famous rifle shot, and, in 1885, Chief Sitting Bull.

His Wild West show so popular that by 1883 it appeared at the Chicago World’s Fair and four years later was presented to Queen Victoria during her Golden Jubilee.

Harold C. Lloyd Star

Harold C. Lloyd Star of silent films and movie producer. born April 20, 1894 in Burchard, Nebr. Attended high school in Denver, Colo. and San Diego, Calif.

He began his motion picture career as an extra at the age of 19 with the Edison Co. at San Diego, and was later with Universal and other Hollywood film companies. In 1914 he joined Hal E. Roach. In his comedies, he won world fame as a symbol of American youth—hornedrimmed glasses (no lenses in the frames) and a straw hat. He appeared in more than 250 comedies, a record that few stars can approach. Among his pictures were a one-reel series known as Lonesome Lukes, Sailor Made Man, Grandma’s Boy, Dr. Jack, Safety Last, Why Worry, and others.

In 1923 he organized the Harold Lloyd Corp. and produced Girl Shy, Hot Water, The Freshman, For Heaven’s Sake, The Kid Brother and Speedy. His first talking picture was Welcome Danger. He produced Professor Beware, and for R.K.O., A Girl, a Guy and a Gob.

James Cash Penney

Founder of the J. C. Penney Co., Inc., the world’s largest department store chain, with more than 1700 stores in all 48 states, doing an annual sales of over one billion dollars. Born Sept. 16, 1875 in Hamilton, Mo.

A graduate of Hamilton (Mo.) High School, he attended in 1949 the Masonic cornerstone laying of a new high school building at Hamilton, for which he and his sister gave more than half of the $250,000 cost. He holds honorary doctorates from eleven colleges and universities. He founded the J. C. Penney Co. in 1902, and is now honorary chairman of the board. Known as “the Golden Rule merchant,” he quit using the word “employee,” and called each of his 90,000 workers an “associate,” giving each a share in the profits in addition to a salary.

After the 1929 stock market crash, Penney lost his fortune, and wound up beaten and despondent, at 56, in a sanitarium, but proved that his method was sound by borrowing money and staging a comeback in which he recouped his fortune. Penney has influenced great numbers of young people through his business operations, Christian youth movements, and by talks, articles, and letters. His own comeback from the depths of financial and mental depression was made possible by a sudden and dramatic rekindling of Christian faith within him.

He received his degrees in Wasatch Lodge No. 1, Salt Lake City, Utah, April 28, May 19, and June 2, 1911. In 1955 he became a dual member of United Services Lodge No. 1118, New York City. He is a member of Utah Chapter No. 1, R.A.M., Utah Council No. 1, R. & S.M., and Utah Commandery No. 1, K.T., all of Salt Lake City. He has contributed generously to the Masonic temple of that city. He received the 32° AASR (SJ) in Utah Consistory No. 1, April 23, 1936, KCCH, Oct. 24, 1941, and 33°, Oct. 16, 1945. He has addressed many Masonic groups. In April, 1958 he was presented the gold distinguished service award by the General Grand Chapter, Royal Arch Masons, at Kansas City, Missouri.