Wesley Powell receives Mason’s Award by Carolyn James

Wesley Powell receives Mason’s Award by Carolyn James

Top photo, Sally Powell puts the Mason's pin on her husband's lapel at ceremonies. Above, Wes and Sally Powell's family poses for a photo at the event.

A host of friends, relatives, neighbors and officials gathered at the Masonic Temple in Amityville May 21 to recognize the dedicated service of Wesley Powell to his community.

Powell., who owned and operated Powell Funeral Home before turning over the reigns of that family business to his son Andy, was Masonic Master of the Amityville Lodge in 1965. At the time, the organization was undergoing some difficult financial times and there was serious thought being given to selling the building it owns on Avon Place.

Powell refused to let that happen, taking the financial situation in hand, saving the building and guiding the organization’s finances through the next 40 years.

"There has never been a time when I ever called upon Wes for any kind of help and he did not come through," said Donald C. Marino, the Lodge’s current Master. "He is an honest, upstanding man we are proud to call brother."

Powell began working part time in the funeral home and became a licensed funeral director in 1958. He is a member of the Nassau Suffolk Funeral Director’s Association, the New York State Funeral Director’s’s Association and the National Funeral Director’s Association.

A veteran, he served in the U.S. Army from 1954-56 and spent 18 months in Germany in the Medical Corps. He and his wife Sally will celebrate their 47th wedding anniversary in October. The couple have four children, Wesley and his wife Beverly, Nancy and her husband Michael, Stephen and William and his wife Michelle.

The list of organizations and other affiliations he has maintained throughout his adult life is extensive, as noted by Marino during his speech in announcing Powell as the Mason’s Dedicated Service Award, which is given by the Masons to a brother Mason who exemplifies service.

"He has demonstrated how a Mason should conduct himself in his involvement with his, and the other churches in the community, and in the many civic organizations in which he is involved," said Marino. "Even with all these activities taking up a good deal of his time he has managed along with his lovely wife, Sally, to raise a beautiful family."

"The strongest ties which link our fraternal and Masonic organizations together throughout the Empire State are the ties of common feeling which bond the individual Mason, one to another," said Mason Grand Master Carl J. Fitje. "You join an alumni of other recipients who are well known for their generous and philanthropic spirit and for their diligent and untiring work."