Official Organ Of the Slavonic Benevolent Order Of M.
-- ,ce Of Texas, Fountla 1.597
HUMANITY
N ..VOLENCE
THE7HOOD
,h-raaster: Please Send Form 3579 to: SUPREME LODGE, SPJST, P.O. Box 100, Te 'pie, Texas 76501 JANUARY 26,1977 VOLUME 65, NUMBER 4
FROM THE EDITOR'S DESK 11,1.0 1e columns written last week were statements that we attended the Supreme Lodge meeting as much as possible and the the Publication Committee meeting Saturday, January 15th, It seems that the PC has a very sincere outlook for the future of our society in conducting the affairs of our liestnik. There were certain things that we were going to bring up in this editorial; however, as life goes on we have to change our words to you members. * In this last week, again, this writer of these lines must change what he wanted to write and write to all of you members that a very influential and sincere person of our SPJST has left our midst; he is none other than our beloved and well-known lodge brother, Brother George Kacir of Lodge Jaromir No. 54, West. I had the pleasure of meeting Brother George Kacir sometime in 1947 soon after I came out of the service of our country; and, especially in the 1948 convention, I became very well acquainted with him because he was voted in as the chairman of this convention, and served as chairman of our SPJST Convention in the years of 1948 (Ft. Worth), 1952 (Houston), 1956 (Temple) and 1960 (San Antonio). In the 1952 convention in Houston, I was honored to serve as the vice chairman of the convention
GIVING WINGS TO SONG by Frank Ankenbrand, Jr. The soul Is but a captive Bird within a cage of flesh. It has the freedom Of my being But cannot try its wings Beyond his mesh. She is a wanton Soul, I know And makes Of my heart a nest And lays her songs, That singing spring From me and will not rest. A captive bird, though captive, Taught itself to sing, From dusk to dawn Found freedom By giving song a wing. with him. I will never forget his compassionate and sincere approach to what he considered every delegate's privilege and that was to state their opinion in an open forum such as our conventions are supposed to be. Brother George, as I like to refer to him, was never reluctant to state his opinion and he would always state his opinion •and accept the decision of the majority of the delegates when he was questioned about anything. He would say: I will let the majority rule. He was the type of, person that I could
never lose respect for and, now at the beginning of 1977, hd has left us. He was instrumental in many deeds done in our Society's history to furthur its advance. For instance, he served on the By-Law Committee for a numbed of years and, under his guidance, our bylaws were very democratically formed and adopted. I recall the 1952 SPJST Convention when we served together in guiding the convention. He requested that the chairman and vice chairman have 1 1/2 hours to form the agenda of the convention. That was granted and, while the delegates went to eat, we discussed the proceedings and committee appointments. There ,had been and was a definite move to block any formation of districts in our Society, especialty by some of our Supreme Lodge officers at that time, We discussed this and Brother Kacir stated that he felt we should support this move to formthe 7 districts as proposed and explain it to the delegates. Some Supreme Lodge officers, at that time, felt that the formation of districts would take away the power of the Supreme Lodge. We brought the matter to the floor and the districts were formed. His wisdom in doing so has spoken for itself as has been proven by what advantages our districts and -their meetings have done for our Society. Frankly, they have taken