This year, I am serving as the Noble Grand of the Mountain View Odd Fellows Lodge #244 in our 150th year as a lodge. It’s like being the Chair or President of a community group but one that makes a lifetime commitment to support each other and the principles of Friendship, Truth, and Love. My daughter Jessica was Noble Grand of our lodge in 2019 and my son Paul has been a member almost as long. I only joined in 2024.
This week will be our big 150th anniversary celebration and I am super-busy coordinating a multitude of minutia. As a lodge fellowship, we have so-far produced an event logo, banner, 3 window panels honoring Friendship, Truth, and Love, and a selection of merchandise featuring anniversary images. (Special thanks to Sinead Toolis and Tatiana Kuvaldina for their inspired designs, and to Michael Greenzeiger for the merch!) John and I put together a 12-minute video of lodge history from 1876 to 2026 to be shown at the celebration. The video features portraits and candid photos, and pictures of architecture and artifacts from disparate sources – many of which were discovered or suggested by other lodge members.
Here is what I wrote in our Silicon Valley Odd Fellows newsletter (3 February 2026) about being a first-time Noble Grand for the Mountain View Odd Fellows,
“I am very new to Odd Fellowship, having only applied in 2023, and am honored to have been elected to be incoming Noble Grand of Mountain View, Lodge #244. Both of my adult children have been Odd Fellows for many years and I supported them at their lodge events long before joining. What inspired me to join was the great heartedness of this group and their generous, selfless, long-term dedication not only to each other but to the larger community. Since serving as Vice Grand, Trustee, and head of the Fellowship Committee last year, I have many times needed to ask people to support me with tasks that are not only time consuming but potentially tedious. Many lodge members have made time and given me good advice on how to make things work better in Odd Fellows.”
“In this, Mountain View’s 150th year as a lodge, I think our incoming leaders represent Odd Fellows very well. My Vice Grand, Conductor, and Outside Guardian are even younger to Odd Fellowship than I am. We range in age from late teens to late eighties and cherish a range that includes new members through those who have been Odd Fellows for over 50 years. We welcome folks who are LGBTPIA+ and straight, physically-challenged and currently-wellbodied, neurodiverse and cognitive normals. We are artists, teachers, students, technical professionals, historians, retired folks, and even a jail chaplain (me!). I think our lodge’s superpowers are our diversity and big hearts. This year will be fun, inspiring, and an opportunity to learn about and do more for my community.”
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