Boy Scout Troop 603 prepares to post the colors.
Exalted Ruler Pat Martino conducts the memorial service.
Mission Viejo / Saddleback Valley Elks Lodge No. 2444 (“Elks Lodge”) conducted its annual memorial service for members that passed away during the past year.
Exalted Ruler, Pat Martino, presided over the memorial service which began with the posting of the colors by Boy Scout Troop 603. As Elks Lodge Secretary, Charlie Hart, called the name of each of the nine deceased members, Inner Guard, Derek Randles rang a chime of memory and Lodge Esquire, Tom Schreck, lit a candle for each. The foregoing remembrance was followed by a beautiful song performed by recording artist Bonita Chavis of the First Methodist Church of Orange. Remembrances were expressed by family and friends of the departed. The memorial ceremony closed with the playing of Taps by Elks Lodge Lecturing Knight, Ray Mallen.
The annual memorial ceremony is a moving and solemn tribute to departed members conducted during the first week of December in every Elks Lodge throughout the country. The memorial service program was organized by the Elks Lodge Chaplain, Michael Alarcon.
Elks Lodge Exalted Ruler Pat Martino said, “The Elks never forget departed members. The faults of our members we write upon the sand, their virtues upon the tablets of love and memory.”
The Mission Viejo / Saddleback Elks Lodge No. 2444, celebrating forty (40) years of service to the Saddleback Valley communities, is one of ten lodges in the Orange Coast District of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks (BPOE) whose headquarters is in Chicago, Illinois. The BPOE is a charitable organization with a 142 year history of giving, “Elks Care, Elks Share.”
