Reply #9: Special Grand Cross Capping Presentation For Ill. Joe L. Allbritton, 33°, [View All]

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Special Grand Cross Capping Presentation For Ill. Joe L. Allbritton, 33°, G.C.

On July 6, 2000, a special Grand Cross capping presentation was held in the office of Sovereign Grand Commander C. Fred Kleinknecht for Brother Joe L. Allbritton. Ill. Allbritton was unanimously elected by the Supreme Council to the Scottish Rite's highest honor, the Grand Cross, during the October 1999 Biennial Session. Grand Commander Kleinknecht arranged for this special event in the House of the Temple so that he could personally give the Grand Cross cap to his good friend and congratulate him on obtaining and deserving this great honor. He noted that Ill. Allbritton has been helpful in and around the capital city for many years and that his son, who will ultimately take over the business, is petitioning for membership in Freemasonry. Also in attendance at the ceremony were Ill. William G. Sizemore, 33°, G.C., Grand Executive Director, and Bro. Todd E. Carton, 32°, Chief Financial Officer of the Supreme Council.

Bro. Allbritton was raised a Master Mason in Baylor Lodge No. 1235 in Waco, Texas, in 1949 (meriting him 50-year Masonic honors in 1999) and became a Scottish Rite Mason in the Valley of Houston, Texas, in 1952. For his many services to Masonry and America, he was invested with the K.C.C.H. in 1975 and coroneted a 33° Inspector General Honorary in 1981.

Ill. Allbritton is Chairman of the Board of Riggs Bank N.A., the largest bank headquartered in the nation's capital. A native of Mississippi, Ill. Allbritton received a law degree from Baylor University in Waco, Texas, and engaged in extensive banking activities in the United States and abroad prior to coming to Washington, D.C., in 1974 and purchasing the Washington Star newspaper. He served as the newspaper's Chairman and Publisher until 1978, when he sold it to Time Inc. Ill. Allbritton, through privately held companies, owns and operates eight ABC network-affiliated television stations in the United States, and a 24-hour local news cable channel in the Washington area as well as daily and weekly newspapers.

Active in numerous civic, professional, and cultural endeavors, Ill. Allbritton is a past officer or present member of the Council on Foreign Relations of New York; the Federal City Council and the Bankers Roundtable in Washington, D.C.; the Protestant Episcopal Foundation of the District of Columbia; Georgetown University; the Greater Washington Board of Trade; the National Geographic Society; the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts; the National Fund for the United States Botanic Garden; Baylor University and the Baylor College of Medicine; the Lyndon Baines Johnson Foundation; the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation; and the George Bush Presidential Foundation.