Braden Lodge # 168 AF and AM Masters Address, Spring 2006. Fraternal greetings and salutations my brothers. It is my great honor and pleasure to be elected your Master for the year 2006. Thank you. Our year started off with an open installation, attended by over 160 people. My home Commandery, Damascus Commandery # 1 KT, sent 14 Knights, who acted as honor guard and presented the United States flag and tribute. Outgoing Master, WB Otto Christensen, was presented with a gavel engraved with the three years he served as worshipful Master. Morris dancers, martial arts, and an acapella Masonic song performed by our own Jr. Warden, Alex DeMarco, was followed by a huge banquet of ravioli, spaghetti, salad and many other culinary delights.

On November 3, 1885 a group of twenty-five Master Masons, all members of regularly constituted Lodges, met at Odd Fellows Hall on the corner of Third Street and bates Avenue in St. Paul to discuss their common desire to organize a new lodge to be located in their neighborhood of Dayton's Bluff.

The Ceremony and Ritual of Knighthood
By S.K. Ray Hayward
Ever since I was a boy I've been fascinated with Knights and swords. I have read many books, and conducted many hours of my own research into the history of Knights and their way of life. When I joined the fraternity of Freemasonry I was pleasantly surprised to find my fascination with Knights would have an outlet. After the most recent conferral of the order of the Temple I was impressed by the seriousness of the Knights conferring the order, of the candidates receiving the order and the solemnity and impressive manner of this order of knighthood. Studying for my parts, I realized that the three orders ( and one degree) in the commandery followed exactly the prescribed manner and ritual of the making of a knight. I decided to gather all the various material, which I've collected over the years concerning the ritual of knighthood, in the form of an article. This is by no means an exhaustive study, but merely an introduction.