Fourth degree knights honoured

By RAMON GONZALEZ
WCR Staff Writer
Edmonton

Eight out of 20 assemblies in the district have won awards for the good works they did in 1998.

The awards come from the supreme headquarters of the Knights of Columbus in New Haven, Conn.

Topping the list is the Father Naphin Assembly in Calgary which received an international patriotic award for organizing the Canada-Day parade in that city last year and involving 17 ethnic groups in the celebration.

The Father Naphin Assembly is one of only three out of the 2,500 fourth degree assemblies in six countries that received the international patriotic award.

"I'm very excited and honoured," said Father Naphin's faithful navigator Ludo Hof. "I feel it's the members who really deserve it."

Hof, a knight for 40 years and a fourth degree knight for the past 15 years, doesn't know what the award consists of because nobody in Canada has ever won it before.

"It could be a plaque, it could be a trophy. I don't know." Whatever it is, he'll receive it April 24 in Calgary.

That day Hof will also receive a civic award which his assembly won for its outstanding implementation of patriotic programming in Calgary last year. The assembly has 109 members.

"I'm more than happy for these guys," said Bill Tymensen, master of the fourth degree Knights of Alberta and the Northwest Territories. "I'm extremely happy because these guys did an extremely good job."

Gordon Buzinsky, faithful navigator of the St. Joseph's Assembly in Edmonton, is also happy. His assembly won a civic award for the completion of various projects during the Columbian year - September 1997 to June 1998.

Their projects include:

. Presenting $2,000 to each Catholic high school in Edmonton for Christian art projects that remind students and visitors of the existence of God.

. Donating six chalices to missionary priests.

. Making a donation to the Girl Guides and covering the Dove of Peace in Gallagher Park with chain-link fencing at a cost of $21,000.

Last year the 244-member St. Joseph's Assembly also provided colour guards for Canada Day, Remembrance Day, the official opening of the Father Troy Invitational Basketball tournament and the Mass celebrating Archbishop Joseph MacNeil's 50th anniversary as a priest.

"I'm very happy," said Buzinsky. "This award is quite prestigious. It means somebody recognizes the work that we did."

Buzinsky said he will place the award, a certificate, in the assembly's office at St. Albert Trail and 111th Avenue.

He received the award March 13 from Sir Knight James Watson, vice-supreme master of the Simon Fraser Province.

The other fourth degree assemblies receiving civic awards for similar patriotic programming last year are the Father Charles Keenan Assembly in Edmonton; the Bishop Grandin Assembly in St. Paul; the Dean Harrington Assembly in Camrose; the Father George Gunnip Assembly in Edson; the Bishop Lussier Assembly in Bonnyville; and the Father Lacombe Assembly in Lethbridge.

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