Moose bestow highest honor on Brainerd member
Donald Hardy, Brainerd, a member of Brainerd Lodge No. 1246, Loyal Order of Moose, was one of 146 members of the fraternity summoned to receive the highest honor that can be bestowed upon a member of the fraternity, the Pilgrim Degree of Merit. The ceremony was in May at the House of God at Mooseheart, Ill.
The degree, currently held by fewer than one-half percent of the approximately 800,000 men of the Loyal Order of Moose throughout the United States, Canada, Great Britain and Bermuda, is the fraternity's ultimate award for exceptional devotion to the principles and ideals of caring for the children and seniors, and is generally earned only by members who have given years of "above-the-call-of-duty" service to the Loyal Order of Moose and its principle philanthropic endeavors of Mooseheart, a city for children in need, located 40 miles west of Chicago, and Moosehaven, a retirement community for senior members, located on the banks of the St. John River in Orange Park, Fla.
Donald Hardy
Founded in 1918, the Pilgrim Degree is the highest degree of the Loyal Order of Moose.