KNIGHTS OF COLUMBUS CRUSADES CRUSADE # 1 BY JOHN DUSSAULT This is the first of a series of articles written by long time Knight John Dussault. Purpose of the series is to high light some of the things that occur when one is an active member of the greatest men's organization in the Catholic Church. Crusade # 1 tells the history of the author, John Dussault, in this fraternity. My first encounter with the Knights of Columbus took place in 1950 when I was a senior at St. Benedict's College in Atchison, Kansas. I attended this college on the GI Bill after my discharge from the U.S. Navy in 1947. During my senior year several of we veterans discussed the possibility of starting a Knights of Columbus Council at the college. We found the interest among the students but we also found that being seniors who hoped to graduate at the end of the year was not the place to start. We had to create interest among the underclassmen. St. Benedict's, being an all male college was a good place to create this interest. I should mention that later the college became coeducational and the name was changed to " Benedictine ", which it still is today. The created interest by the underclassmen also grew and a couple of years later a council was formed and continues today. After graduating with a BA in Mathematics and Physics in 1951 I became a teacher of math and science in the Senior High School of Guymon, OK. Guymon is located in the Panhandle of Oklahoma. There are very few Catholic Churches in the area. St. Peter's Church in Guymon drew parishioners from a 60 mile radius. When my wife, Helen, and I attended our first mass there a gentleman came up to us, held out his hand and said, "You must be the new teacher at the high school." I said that I was and he said, "are you a member of the Knights of Columbus"? At the same time he was saying this he was pulling out a form 100 and telling me that he was going to be my shadow until I signed the application to join the knights. This man's name was Tim Clawson and he ushered at the one mass held every Sunday and was a one-man membership committee of St. Peter's Council 3309, not unlike our own Bill Ashley at council 9710. After the application was filled out it was voted on at the next council meeting, held a week later, and the week after that initiation was held. Because of the large distances people had to travel I found that initiations were held on Sunday, after the one mass and it consisted of first, second and third degrees all being administered the same day. To illustrate how few Catholics were in the area, I found that I was only the second Catholic teacher to be hired by the Guymon public school system. The area was known as being a part of the"Bible Belt" and all public school teachers were expected to attend all of the funerals that were held involving relatives of any of the students in the school system. There were many Protestant Churches in Guymon, consequently we attended many funerals during the school year. We stayed in Guymon for two years, then in June, 1953, I was hired by Cessna Aircraft Company in Wichita, KS., to work in their Commercial Division Engineering Department. We moved to a suburb of Wichita, a city called Derby. The parish there was St. Mary's and it did not have a Knights of Columbus Council but one was in the process of being formed. I became a charter member of the new St. Mary's Council 4458 and later became part of the first degree team and after that served one year as Grand Knight. We bought our first house in Derby and lived in it for eight years. During this time we adopted two children, a boy and a girl, and then had two more children by natural birth, a girl and then another boy. With four children the house we thought would last us for years suddenly became quite crowded. We found a larger home to buy in Wichita, so in 1961 we moved once more. This time our new parish was All Saints. We were happy that All Saints had a parochial school through the eighth grade. Since our new home was only about six miles from St. Mary's Council in Derby I continued to be an active member of council 4458. In 1967, after completing a general managers training course at Cessna I was promoted to Division General Manager of the newly acquired McCauley Accessory Division in Dayton, OH. I took the new job in January of 1967 and Helen and the children remained in Wichita until the school term ended in May before they moved. When the family arrived in Dayton we moved into a new home in North West Dayton. It was near St. Rita's Parish Church and the nearest Knights of Columbus Council was the Marian Council 3754. Council 3754 had its own facility which was very nice and it was only one block away from our new home. The facilities of this new council which serviced several parishes consisted of a meeting hall, complete with kitchen, offices, extra rooms for initiations, several acres of grounds which had a base ball diamond, basket ball goals and other play ground equipment. It was a very active council which had frequent dinners, dances, bingo games, dance instructions and other parties. The facilities were sometimes rented out to help generate funds to support it. I was not as active in this council as I would have liked as my new job required considerable travel. The division I managed not only serviced our parent company, Cessna, but also sold aircraft equipment we manufactured world wide. In fact, I was traveling so much that I even took a withdrawal card from the knights for awhile. We lived in Dayton from 1967 until 1985. In 1982 General Dynamics acquired Cessna. As a result of this acquisition several officers of Cessna were offered early retirement if they met certain qualifications. As a Vice President and Divisional General Manager I met these qualifications and took early retirement January 1, 1983. This ended most of my traveling, consequently I became active again in Council 3754. The youngest of our four children was now 23 and all of them were on their own so my wife and I did some pleasure traveling for about six months. I then took a one year contract to be Executive Director of the National Aviation Hall of Fame in Dayton. I had been on their Board of Trustees for several years before retiring. In addition I kept busy doing some consulting on aviation structures and repairs and stayed active in Council 3754. As a result of our travels we found that we were attracted to the area of San Diego in southern California. By the spring of 1985 our youngest son had established a business in San Diego and one of my sisters and her family lived there. We decided to sell our Dayton home and move to San Diego. We moved in August, 1985 into a new home in a subdivision named Scripps Ranch.. The closest Knights of Columbus Council was Good Shepherd Council 9076 in Mira Mesa, another nearby subdivision. It also was a part of Good Shepherd Parish. This was a very active council and I became quite involved by chairing various activities. They participated in a 4th of July Parade every year in both Mira Mesa and Scripps Ranch and having just bought a new pick up truck I volunteered to build a parade float. It was called "Lady Liberty" and depicted the Liberty Monument on the back of the pick up, while playing recorded patriotic music on the truck radio. The Grand Knight of 9076, Tom Murphy, kept turning up the volume on the radio so high that he fractured both of the truck's radio speakers. We did win first prize. At this council I was also active on the membership committee, chaired several dances and participated on the first degree team. One of the dances was a Holloween dance. In addition to Ghosts and Goblins we incorporated a Western Theme. This involved having bales of straw around the dance hall and we wanted a paper mache horse if we could find one. We finally found one in Tijuana, Mexico. It was quite large so I picked it up in my pick up truck. When crossing the border returning to the USA the Border Guards were very suspicious of this paper mache horse in the back of the truck and almost destroyed it trying to insure that it contained no drugs or contraband. After gluing the horse back together it became a big hit at the party. In September, 1985 a new parish was formed in Scripps Ranch and was named St. Gregory the Great. We became charter members of the new parish and soon started work on the establishment of a new council of the Knights of Columbus. I was elected president of the steering committee to help form the new council. The new council representatives of the State Council were Lee Harris, former Charter Grand Knight of Good Shepherd Council 9076 and Frank Still, a long-time knight who is past grand knight of Council 9710 and also former Secretary of the Nevada State Council. Lee Harris is now disceased but Frank Still is still a member of Council 9710 and Bishop C. F. Buddy Assembly 2022. The new council was chartered in 1986 and was named the Scripps Miramar Council 10094. The name was selected because we also helped service and had several members from what was then the Miramar Naval Air Station. I was also elected the Charter Grand Knight of the new council. Later the council was renamed the St. Gregory the Great Council and the Naval Air Station became the Marine Corps Air Station. Council 10094 was a very active group. It was the only men's organization in the new parish and as such involved themselves in all phases of the parish operation trying to truly become the right arm of the pastor. The council members served as lectors, members of the building committee, members of the choir, ushers, fund raisers, handymen on the parish grounds and were volunteers for all parish activities. In addition to being active in council 10094 in 1986 I joined the Balboa 4th Degree Assembly 40 and immediately acquired Color Corps regalia and became active in the Color Corps. The Balboa Assembly was generally centered in the southern part of San Diego and in 1989 a new Assembly was formed in North San Diego. The Charter Faithful Navigator was Barney Barnes, a member of Ascension Parish. It was called the Bishop Charles F. Buddy Assembly 2122 and held meetings at Ascension Parish in Terrasanta. In addition to being a charter member of this new Assembly, being active in the Color Corps and was named Commander for one year, I worked my way through the officers chairs and in 1993 was elected Faithful Navigator. After being Faithful Navigator for one year, in 1996 I was then elected District Deputy. This position I held for two years. In the district we had five councils. These included 2 councils in Poway, one each in Mira Mesa, Scripps Ranch and Ramona, CA. An inactive council in Julian was unchartered during this time. In the new council 10094 and the new St. Gregory's Parish fund raising was a high priority. We found that major grocery and drug stores would give a 6% discount on grocery gift certificates if they were purchased in lots of $5,000. These certificates were the same as cash and could be used to purchase anything at their respective stores. The parish had no available funds so I and two other Knights contributed $5,000 each to buy certificates from Vons, Luckys and Long Drug Stores. We and the Pastor agreed that we would sell the certificates to parishioners after all week end masses. Five percent of the Six percent profits would go into the building fund and we three investors would keep 1% of the profits in return for the use of our money. Sales were slow initially but after we educated the parish on the process, sales picked up rapidly. Other parishes and non profit organizations heard about the activity and asked us to sell to them also. We sold to them using the same 1%/5% division we used at St. Gregory. We took orders weekly and packaged and delivered orders twice weekly. Our sales at the end of the second year grew to $2.5 million and our original $5,000 individual investment grew to $30,000 each. Because of the risk of carrying around $50,000 or more in certificates, which were the same as cash, we decided to train our customers in the business of buying and selling their own certificates and then turn the process over to each of them. We recovered our investment in the process. This activity continues yet today at St. Gregory the Great with the proceeds now helping with their new grade school. In 2001 real estate was selling well in the San Diego area and my wife and I decided that we did not really need our four bedroom home and large yard to take care of and put Scripps Ranch house up for sale. It sold to the first buyer to look at it and we had to find a place to move in a hurry. We were looking for a two bedroom home or condo. There were none available in Scripps Ranch but we found such a house in Rancho Bernardo located about 10 miles to the north, but still in the city of San Diego. Rancho Bernardo had a great parish named San Rafael and a great Knights of Columbus Council 9710 called Valley of the Angels. This council was affiliated with another 4th Degree Assembly. Fr. Joseph T. O'Callahan, 2652. We were now joining our seventh Knights of Columbus Council and our third 4th Degree Assembly. In our new surroundings we find ourselves in a fantastic Parish with an absolutely great Pastor, an active council and assembly, busy women's organizations, wonderful RCIA activities and beautiful facilities which are getting better with a new office and meeting room complex under construction. In addition to doing the part of Chancellor on the first degree team at Council 10094 I also substituted as Chancellor on the degree teams at St. Michael's council in Poway and the council at Mother of Confidence Parish in Clairemont. In our new location at San Rafael we find that we can occupy ourselves in every activity we could possibly desire. Our health has been good enough that we participate in many of the ongoing ventures. Helen is active in the Ladies Guild and assists the office with mailings. Both of us have sponsored converts in the RCIA Program. I have helped in membership campaigns, recruiting, basketball free throw contests, building committee work, Lenten fish fry dinners and monthly coffee and doughnuts and breakfasts. So our Crusade continues and hopefully it will not end until it is our time to go to our final reward, our FINAL CRUSADE.
Page Holbrook Watts
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