The Courier-Journal from Louisville, Kentucky • Page 7

THE COURIER-JOURNAL, SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 7, 1991 A 7 Black Masons hope gathering in Southern Indiana raises group's profile crecy about its rituals and aversion to active recruiting have limited new memberships. "The concept of Masonry is that you don't go out and recruit," Inskeep said. So the lodge is counting on the Prince Hall celebration to pique some interest. There will be a meeting and lunch today for the Masons while their wives tour factory outlets and antique shops in Carrollton and Madison. A banquet and dance will be tonight.

Public ceremonies will begin at 1 p.m. tomorrow with a parade through Madison from Second and Jefferson streets to Trinity United Methodist Church. A religious service, also open to the public, will begin at the church at 2 p.m. "It's a very big deal" for the local Masons, Elsie Payne said. "This is the biggest thing the Madison lodge has undertaken for a long time." By DAVID GOETZ Staff Writer MADISON, Ind.

As many as 300 black Masons from across Indiana and parts of Kentucky are expected in Madison this weekend to honor the memory of Prince Hall, a Revolutionary War soldier and the founder of black Masonry in the United States. Local Masons hope the two-day celebration, the first held in Southern Indiana in several years, will awaken new interest in the organization among Madison-area blacks and a new awareness of the black community among whites. "In the past, when things were a little different, the lodge was dominant in the (black) community," said Frank Inskeep, a 30-year Mason and member of Madison's Eureka Lodge No. 30. Now young black men interested the black Masons has remained relatively stable for years.

The 150-year-old black communities of Hanover and Madison have declined in recent years, numbering 363 in the 1990 census, an 8 percent drop from 1980. "A lot of younger people leave," said Elsie Payne, Daniel Payne's wife and coordinator of events for the Prince Hall celebration. "If they go to college, they never come back." There are no black businesses in town, no black teachers, doctors, dentists or bankers, she said. Before integration, the Masons were a center of the community, Elsie Payne said. "For a lot of the older people, that's all they had was the lodge." Now the lodge's members are aging, she said.

Four of the 28 members are in their 70s. The organization's traditional se Continental Army. In Indiana, the black Masons took a leading role in the anti-slavery and equal-rights movements, said Emma Lou Thornbrough, professor emeritus of history at Butler University. Thornbrough has written extensively about black history in the state. "The people we would think of as being leaders before and after the Civil War were members," Thornbrough said.

"There was a great deal of prestige attached to being a member of the Masons." Black fraternal organizations of all kinds sprang up after the Civil War, Thornbrough said, as freed slaves moved north and cities grew, reaching their peak of influence in the early 20th century. Their influence eventually waned, however, possibly because of the competing interests of modern society. But Payne said membership in in community service look to the Jaycees or the Chamber of Commerce, said Inskeep, who is president of the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. "Hopefully this will give them some idea of what Masonry's all about." Black Masons have not been very active in the community in recent years, said Daniel Payne, worshipful master of the Eureka lodge, because of a lack of interest among blacks and a lack of recognition from white groups. Hosting the Prince Hall celebration "gives more prestige and gives the people in Madison a chance to know of our lodge," Payne said.

The Eureka lodge draws its membership from Jefferson County, and surrounding counties in Indiana, as well as from Kentucky towns across the Ohio River. According to the lodge history, the first lodge at Madison was set apart from the Grand Lodge of Ohio in 1852. It was known then as King Solomon Lodge and was the second-oldest lodge in the state. Interest waned in the 1890s, and the Madison lodge lost its charter from the state organization. When it was reorganized two years later, it was renamed Eureka and became the 30th lodge in Indiana.

The Indiana lodges trace their lineage to the first lodge for black Masons in America, chartered by British Masons in 1784 and founded in Boston by Prince Hall. Hall was a leather worker and a former slave, possibly from Barbados, freed in 1770 from service to the family of William Hall. He fought for George Washington in the Revolutionary War, according to the lodge history, and was instrumental in getting black troops accepted as regular members of the Bremer Ehrler may try for a 4th term as county clerk in bid to unseat Jackson 12.97 (in department stores O) STERLING SILVER! Fascinating. Whimsical. Earrings pins of pure sterling.

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store prices! TrE LOOK-THE NAME -THE PRICE daily drive from Louisville to Frankfort, he said yesterday. The Kentucky Registry of Election Finance decided last week to investigate Jackson's involvement in a 1989 fund-raiser at which $3,000 was raised in illegal donations that ended up in her campaign coffers. Delahanty predicted that will hurt Jackson. "The Republicans have been peddling her as a wholesome person," he said. Jackson was out of town and couldn't be reached for comment yesterday.

Her spokeswoman, Sherri Craig, said Jackson will run again. The fund-raiser flap has not been resolved, Craig said, and "is no reflection on the excellent way the (clerk's) office is being By SHELDON SHAFER Staff Writer Secretary of State Bremer Ehrler may run for Jefferson County clerk again, a post he has held three times. The race will be in 1993, but local Democrats want Ehrler to declare early to discourage any intra-party rivalry, thus offering the party the best chance to unseat incumbent Republican Rebecca Jackson. She won the office in 1989 in a major political upset over incumbent Democrat Jim Malone. Ehrler is leaning toward making the race, said Sean Delahanty, Jefferson County Democratic chairman.

"Bremer would be impossible to beat. He's well loved. He has a lot of Republican support." Ehrler, 77, won't decide until he leaves his state job in January. He said his health is excellent, and he doesn't expect his age to be a factor if he runs. "Reagan was old.

There are senators up there in Washington older than I am," he said. Ehrler served as county clerk from 1974 through the end of 1984, winning three landslide elections. In January 1985, then-Gov. Martha Layne Collins appointed him Jefferson County judge-executive to serve out the year remaining in the term of Republican Mitch McCon-nell, who had been elected to the U.S. Senate.

Ehrler was elected secretary of state in 1987. He won't seek another state office primarily because of the Children of national figures on list in South Carolina scholarship flap reached, university officials said. John Palms, who formally replaced Holderman in March, decided last week to release the remaining names anyway. "In my opinion the privacy privilege is outweighed by the public's right to know," Palms said yesterday. IOTP' il ill Ita i Associated Press COLUMBIA, S.

C. Children of national and state officials are among students who received scholarships at the discretion of the University of South Carolina's former president, records released yesterday show. James Holderman, who resigned last year amid a controversy over his spending, handed out the awards to the sons of U.S. Sen. Mark Hatfield, Deputy Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger, former Jamaican Prime Minister Edward Seaga, state Chief Justice George Gregory and the daughters of State Treasurer Grady Patterson.

The names were among those of about 270 students that previously had been kept secret. The university disclosed the names of 110 recipients with their approval. Some 190 students refused and about 80 could not be Hatfield's son received $11,350 between 1983 and 1988. An aide to Hatfield in Washington said the senator's office had no comment. A federal grand jury has probed financial ties between Holderman and Hatfield, who received thousands of dollars in gifts and free flights to Columbia when Holderman was president.

No charges have been filed. Eagleburger's son received $400 in the 1987-88 and 1988-89 academic years. Eagleburger lectured at the university before joining the Bush administration. He was unavailable for comment, a State Department spokeswoman said. Patterson's daughters received about $4,600 in scholarships between 1985 and 1990.

He did not return a phone call to his office yesterday. Gregory, whose son received $2,228 during the 1988-89 academic year, had no comment. A fine mess they're in now SCHENECTADY, N. Y. Army recruiters racked up more than $6,000 in parking tickets, then sent them back to the city accompanied by a 1958 ruling that gave the federal government immunity from parking fines.

Only one problem, said Michael Schafer, a city lawyer. The decision was overruled in 1967. The Army wants the old tickets forgiven. Schafer wants full payment. "We don't want anyone to feel above the law," he said.

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