First of all, I was a member for many years. While Like all fraternal orders or clubs, there are good people and bad people but here, the bad outweighs the good tenfold!
When I first joined this fraternal order, I was impressed by the utter kindness of some of its members, like Don Sauter and his wife, Linda, who are good practicing Christians, whom I hold the utmost respect for. However some things about this Lodge gave me a very uneasy feeling .
My first negative experience was an outdoor BBQ and fundraiser that we attended. They sold raffle tickets for all of the donated prizes. Since it was my wife's birthday, I bought one hundred dollar's worth of tickets for the drawings.
Well, as it turned out, we had good luck that day. My wife won two prizes, One was a gift certificate for a local restaurant, and she also won the main prize, a beautiful hand carved Elk by a famed local artist. My wife couldn't have been more happy. Unfortunately, this was very short lived. A tall man with glasses, whom I later discovered occupied a key position in the lodge, took me aside and demanded we refuse to accept it. He insisted we give it back. He stated, point blank, that we had not been members long enough, or high enough in the hierarchy, to warrant receiving such a prize. I learned later that this type of petty behavior is commonly practiced in this Lodge. I bluntly responded my wife won it fair and square, and I was not going to break her heart by returning it. I imagine this action didn't bode well for me. as I would not adhere to their petty demands and just knuckle under.
Most people have heard of cliques, groups of elitist people who feel entitled. Well there seems to be a lot of individuals within this Lodge who believe that this is their own privately run country club. You can try to steer around these arrogant windbags but you are still going to have to encounter them. No matter how much you try to shield yourself from them by surrounding yourself with the good people, they will wreak havoc and feel entitled to do so .
I don't like Dissing organizations but this Elks Lodge does not practice the higher Ideals it professes to hold. To make this lodge better, Members should strive to get rid of the outright corruption and inane pettiness of some of its members, like the one I mentioned above.
There is a very high turnover of new and old members leaving this lodge, as I did out of utter disgust by not renewing my membership. They are constantly trying to attract and entice new members by putting their best foot forward, while hiding the one with Gangrene, reeking of elitist stench.
This lodge has had severe financial issues for years and has raised their membership fees many times, rather than dealing with the real issues within. I guess they don't want to offend the Elitist hierarchy that consist mostly of pompous drunkards whose bar tabs financially keep the lodge afloat. Trying to change this is like Don Quixote tilting at windmills.
Personally, I think they owe my wife and I a formal apology, as well as all of the other former members of this Lodge who have had to deal with this type of childish, outlandish behavior. read more