Official Organ Of The Sla vonic Benevolent Order Of The State Of Texas, Founded 1897. BENEVOLENCE
VOLUME 53 — NO. 38
HUMANITY
BROTHERHOOD
Postmaster: Please Send Form 3579 with Undeliverable Copies to: SUPREME LODGE, SPJST, P. 0. Box 100, TEMPLE, TEXAS
SEPTEMBER 22, 1965
FROM THE EDITOR'S DESK SOME FACTS AND FIGURES ON OUR SUPREME LODGE BUILDING Since the matter of possibly constructing a new Supreme Lodge office building was raised at the last convention, and since the subject will be considered by the new Operations and Analysis Committee, your editor decided to journey to Temple and gather some pertinent figures and statistics relating to the present headquarters building so that the membership can more fully understand all the factors involved. As in any similar situation, it is not enough to simply state that we need a new headquarters building just because we'd like a new building. Why do we need one, or, why do we not need one? Some figures have to be collected to substantiate one position or the other. During about a two-hour visit with Supreme Lodge Financial Secretary Bro. Ben Zabcik, and pouring over files, records, reports, and statistics, your editor wishes to present here the results of our research. We wish to thank Bro. Zabcik for his excellent cooperation and taking time off to go into the matter with us. It would not be feasible or practical for every member of the SPJST to conduct a similar inquiry. Hence our report.
DEVALUATION A farmer and a college professor were traveling together on a train. They got tired of talking and reading, so the professor suggested they play riddles. "Every time you miss a riddle, you give me a dollar, and every time I miss a riddle, I'll give you a dollar," said the professor. "You're better educated than I am," the farmer pointed out. "I'll give you fifty cents." The professor agreed, and the farmer made up the first riddle. "What has three legs walking and two legs flying?" he asked. The professor didn't know so he gave the farmer a dollar. The farmer didn't know either, so he gave the professor fifty cents. At the 16th General Convention of the SPJST, held in Houston in 1952, a seven-member committee was selected for the purpose of selecting and buying the site of a new headquarters building for the Supreme Lodge, SP,TST. Up to that time, offices were located in a building in Fayetteville. It was generally felt that the SPJST had outgrown its facilities and that a move to more spacious quarters was imperative. The present site in Temple was chosen,
a six-story office building (with basement) located at the corner of East Central Avenue and South 2nd Street. • • The building, formerly the Temple Professional Building, cost the SPJST $150,000. An earnest payment of $15,000 was made on February 14th, 1953. On March 30, 1953 the balance of $135,000 was paid. During 1954, a total of $13,025 was spent on installation of the present air-conditioning system. That same year, $21,958 was spent on installation of an, automatics elevator system, making a total of $34,983 spent in 1954. Since that time, we have had the usual, much smaller expenditures on and in the building.
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Certainly in determining the "worth" of any building, one has to figure what the building originally cost, what the cost of maintenance and repair has been, against what the building has actually earned in rental fees. It is our judgment that the following listed figures tell more of the story than any other single factor influencing the sale or retention of the present building. We went back to 1954, and dug up the following pertinent information: the first figure given is the total income from office rental for that year. The next figure is the total cost of main-
CZECH-AMERICAN FESTIVAL AT THE STATE FAIR DALLAS, OCT. 10th