RWB Ronald E. Wood Truman Award Recipient

Ronald E. Wood, Jr. Chosen for Truman Medal

At the 199th Annual Communication of the Grand Lodge of Missouri, MWB Stanton T. Brown, II announced that RWB Ronald E. Wood, Jr. would receive the Truman Medal.

RWB Wood was born in Rolla, MO and grew up in Sweetwater, TN before returning to Missouri. He graduated from Flat River Junior College, then from Southeast Missouri State University with a degree in Secondary Education, then from Eden Theological Seminary with a Master of Divinity. He has served as a Minister the Methodist Church for over 50 years.

He has traveled extensively in Europe behind the Iron Curtain to Hungary and Yugoslavia and New Zealand and Australia. He visited Israel taking four courses from Dr. Jim Fleming, preeminent scholar of Biblical archeology, studying Israel from Matula in the north to Mt. Sinai and receiving graduate credit from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

RWB Wood married his wife, Marie, in 1951 and they had four children, nine grandchildren, twenty greatgrandchildren and one great-great-granddaughter. His wife passed in 2010 and he has since married his second wife, Betty. He has coached his boys and girls and several hundred others in AAU Track and Field.

He has received the Honorary Legion of Honor from DeMolay International in 1969 and has worked with Bethel 60 Job’s Daughters International in Jackson, MO and Clinton DeMolay Chapter. He served as President of the Rotary Club in Neosho, on the Board of Downtown Rotary 32 in St. Joseph, and the Clinton Rotary Club has made him a Paul Harris Fellow.

His Masonic career is extensive, being raised in Ionic Lodge 154 in Desloge, MO in 1956; been a WM of Mystic Tie 221, Clinton 548, Charity 331 and is currently a member of Charity-Zeredatha 189 in St. Joseph. He is a 33° Scottish Rite Mason in St. Louis where he was Master of Kadosh. His memberships include: Ararat Shrine; Harry S. Truman/Edwin C. Carpenter York Rite Colleges; Clinton 73/Cosby 145 Order of the Eastern Star Chapters; Liberty 3/ DeMolay 26, Chapter Royal Arch Mason Chapters; Liberty 50/Warrensburg 57, Cryptic Councils; Liberty 6/Mary 19, Commandries Knights Templar; Red Cross of Constantine, St. Joseph; Allied Masonic Degrees, Buckner ; Knight York Cross of Honor, Hannibal; Missouri Lodge of Research, Great Chief Council 0, Knight Masons and St. Joseph High 12 Club. In many of these organizations he has held the highest office locally and on the state level.