Elks mark golden anniversary with 50 years of good works

The Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks No. 2452 is reaching its golden anniversary this year.

To commemorate its 50 years in Poplar Bluff, the lodge is hosting a celebration Saturday night, beginning at 6 p.m. with a cocktail hour.

The steak and shrimp scampi dinner at 7 p.m. is open to the public at a cost of $35 per couple, and the event will include entertainment, a dance and a program recognizing the lodge’s history and honoring its remaining charter members and past exalted rulers.

The entertainment will include Greg Yates, who will be doing a “little, mini concert,” said Exalted Ruler Donnie Trout. “If no one has ever heard him, it’s worth the trip along just to hear him sing.”

The lodge will operate at half capacity, about 200 people, Saturday night due to the COVID-19 pandemic, with social distancing also being required.

“The original lodge was established in 1912, and it disbanded after the tornado in ‘27,” explained Leading Knight Jim McIver. “Then, we started the Elks lodge back up in August of 1970.”

McIver said there were 60 original charter members, with only eight “still with us” — Marion Parks, Danny Whiteley, Ray Bryan, James Dillie, Myron Christian, Jirden Dunivan, Omer Petty and Thomas Pruitt — all of whom have been invited to Saturday’s celebration, said Trout.

“I remember specifically when I was initiated into membership to the Poplar Bluff Elks Lodge,” said Whiteley. “In fact, it was done right across the street” from the Daily American Republic. The lodge remained there until 1979 when it moved to its current location off of Highway 67 North.

Whiteley said he believes it was the late Brent Tinnin, who asked him to join.

“I had always heard about the Elks and the good work they do in the communities across the United States,” Whiteley explained.

Back in Whiteley’s “rodeo days,” he said, there were professional rodeo events sponsored nationwide by Elks lodge.

“That was how I was most familiar with them,” Whiteley said.

Whiteley described his fellow charter members as a “great group of guys that were active in the community. I felt it was an honor to become a member of a great organization.”

Whiteley remains a member, albeit “not a terribly active one because I’m getting older.”

As a charter member, “I certainly want to commend and congratulate the Poplar Bluff Elks for their milestone in history and their ongoing commitment to be involved in many worthwhile causes,” Whiteley said.

The lodge’s membership now stands at 312, up from 280 last year, McIver said. Members come from Butler, Wayne, Carter and Ripley counties.

As a benevolent society, “our goal is to make money, so we can give it away,” McIver explained.

Last year, through grants from the Elks National Foundation, “we put almost $12,000 back in the community through different programs,” Trout said. “That’s just the grants. That’s not what the lodge itself does.”

The lodge, McIver said, also is “very involved” with the veterans in Poplar Bluff.

On the first Friday of every month, McIver said, the lodge hosts a dinner for the veterans from the John J. Pershing VA Medical Center.

“We feed the veterans who live on the fourth floor of the VA; they come out and we cater to them, (fixing) whatever they want to eat that night,” said Trout.

McIver said lodge members also have provided coffee and donuts at the VA, and in cooperation with the Dexter Elks Lodge, held a couple of barbecues at the hospital.

The Elks, according to McIver, was started in 1885 by a group of actors in New York City as a benevolent society. There are now more than 3,000 lodges in the country.

“We are the largest scholarship provider in the country,” said McIver.

The state’s benevolent project, he said, is two dental vans, which provide free dental care to handicapped and mentally challenged individuals.

The lodge also backs law enforcement in its service area and hosts a law and order appreciation night annually.

It was those annual law and order nights that led Trout to joining the lodge.

“I had went to the law and order nights for years,” said Trout. “The lodge does all of that,” providing meals to the officers and their guests and plaques for those being honored.

“I just wanted to be a part of something that does something like that,” said Trout, now a seven-year member.

The law and order night remains “one of the great events” Whiteley looks forward to attending each year.

Although many of its events are for members only, Saturday’s celebration is open to the public to “come out and enjoy and find out what the Elks are about,” McIver said.

For advance tickets, contact McIver at 573-718-3782 or Trout at 573-718-0468. Tickets also will be available at the door.