One of the Drumheller’s longest standing fraternities is celebrating 100 years in the valley.

 On July 23, the Symbol Lodge No. 93 will be marking its centennial. It has a full day planned including a banquet with a number of distinguished guests.

According to the Hills of Home, the Symbol Lodge’s early history was pieced together from Lodge records and the private papers of the late E.A. Toshach.  Early discussion of forming a lodge began in 1914, which led to a banquet at the Whitehouse hotel in April of 1914. As a result of the banquet, a committee was appointed to do the preparatory work of making a lodge possible in Drumheller. The efforts resulted in a dispensation for opening a new Masonic Lodge in Drumheller. On July 29, 1914, the Grand Master of Alberta appointed the first officers.

While this first dispensation was more than 100 years ago, in 1916, the Lodge and all regalia burned, including furniture and records. This made it necessary for a new dispensation. Some of the founding officers included well know local names including McMullen, Holden and Toshach.

By 1919, the Symbol Lodge had outgrown the room where it was meeting and it acquired the Brodigan Building, which it used until 1922. At the time, the former Post Office building was purchased.

By 1925, the membership of the lodge had grown to 221. In 1998, they completed the current Lodge on 3rd Avenue in Downtown Drumheller. Currently there are 42 members.

Doug Wade explains that the Lodge acts more as a fraternity than service club, although they are the second largest distributor of post secondary scholarships in Alberta. He has completed 41 of the 43 lectures in their ritual, ranging from 2 minutes to 25 minutes.

“These given word by word and there is lots of memorizing. I get a lot out of this and I get a lot out of the fellowship,” he said. “It is world wide and one of the nicest things that has happened to me is that I went to the Grand Lodge of England.”

On Saturday, July 23, there will be a rededication of the lodge, and attendees to the banquet will include 1975 Worship Master Don Farmer and wife Jean from Victoria, Past Master Rob Saunders of Ontario, Grand master James Ratchford Past Master Lorne Wilson and wife May and Past Grand Master Cal Shaver.

Wade also explains they will see the return of their travelling lantern. This artifact made of brass and ash, was sent out 25 years ago, and in that time has travelled all over Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and the US.

The Christ the Redeemer School Division is facing setbacks in developing a track and field expansion for St. Anthony’s School in Drumheller after concerns have been raised over the stability of the ground at the site.

The project, which had initially planned to create a provincial-class running track and soccer/football field, with bleachers, may be reduced to just the development of a field after technical analysis of a slope at the site suggested it may be too instable and risky for such an expensive development, says school division director of facilities David Lunn.

“A grass field is one thing, but you go to the sophistication of a running track and the work that goes into that is quite another story,” Lunn said.

He said the division is waiting on approval from the Drumheller’s Municipal Planning Commission, which will review the altered development plans as due process. The project including the track portion was previously approved by the commission.

Lunn said he’s confident the project will be approved and that sod will be in place for students when they return in September.

“The students haven’t had any grass for five or six years – it’s almost criminal,” said Lunn.

The field and track expansion was originally estimated to cost around $500,000, but the reduced scale of the project will likely bring a lower price tag for the project. Lunn said this may allow for more infrastructure and equipment, such as a scoreboard, to be purchased for the field once it’s completed.

Backhoes are currently on-site at the school, but are only cleaning up and leveling the site.