Taped to the heavy wooden door at Club Broadway is a notice telling customers not to carry in bags or backpacks. It’s a sign of the building’s use as an Everett nightspot, neon and all.
Stand under the arched entryway at 1611 Everett Ave. and look up. Carved in stone is a sign of the 1920 building’s history. "Knights of Columbus," it says in impressive block letters.
The Roman Catholic men’s organization hasn’t met in the building since 1928. But if patrons of the nightclub assume it’s some long-forgotten group, they have never met the likes of Eugene Brown, Charlie Bloomfield or more than 300 other men involved in the Everett Knights of Columbus Council 763.
Founded with 38 members on Nov. 29, 1903, the Everett council of the fraternal group will celebrate its centennial with a dinner Saturday at the Howard Johnson Plaza Hotel. An open house is set for 11 a.m. Sunday at its hall at 2913 W. Marine View Drive in Everett.
There’s no need to dust off 100 years of meeting minutes to find ways the group benefits the community.
"This noon, I was out at St. Mary Magdalen School for the student-of-the-month program," Brown, 62, said Thursday.
The group gives three $50 savings bonds and certificates per month at St. Mary Magdalen, Immaculate Conception/Our Lady of Perpetual Help School, and Archbishop Murphy High School.
"Students are chosen based on involvement in their community, school and church," said Brown, the group’s grand knight this year.
"They’ve been wonderfully supportive ever since the school was a mere idea," said Kris Brynildsen-Smith, principal at Archbishop Murphy High near Mill Creek.
Snohomish County had no Catholic high school before 1988, when what is now Murphy opened as Holy Cross in the old Perpetual Help School in Everett.
In 2003, Murphy had 53 graduates. The Murphy Wildcats were the 2002 Class A football state champions. Looking for a repeat, they’ll play Tacoma Baptist in the second round of state playoffs Saturday.
The Knights of Columbus paid $500 to print brochures asking for help in establishing the high school in 1987. The group donated $10,000 to launch fund-raising and sponsored the school’s first auction.
The group helps fund two Murphy scholarships a year, and recently put on a barbecue at Murphy’s homecoming football game. Bloomfield, 83, estimates the organization has donated some $150,000 to the new school over the years.
With members from Immaculate Conception, Our Lady of Perpetual Help and St. Mary Magdalen parishes in Everett, the Knights of Columbus serves programs ranging from Boy Scout troops to retirement funds for priests and nuns, parish food banks and the Interfaith Association of Snohomish County’s homeless shelter.
"We still do our steak fry once a month," said Brown, who does "a little bit of everything except the cooking" at the fund-raisers.
At the heart of the organization is the Catholic faith of its members. "That’s our foundation," said Rod Bly of Everett, a member since 1957.
The organization was born in 1881 at St. Mary’s Church in New Haven, Conn. A priest there, the Rev. Michael McGivney, envisioned a society bound by love of country, family and faith. The mission included life insurance to aid deceased members’ widows and children.
In 1954, at the behest of the Knights of Columbus, President Dwight Eisenhower approved adding "under God" to the Pledge of Allegiance.
"And we’ve got to keep it there," said Bly, alluding to the 2002 ruling by a panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals that reciting the pledge in public schools is an unconstitutional endorsement of religion. The Justice Department appealed the decision, which was put on hold but could reach the U.S. Supreme Court.
At this summer’s Knights of Columbus convention in Washington, D.C., Brown said, "We passed a resolution that would support all efforts to keep it in."
"It’s a good fraternal organization," said Bloomfield, who is most proud of "helping secure a Catholic high school in Snohomish County."
And that other building? The one with the neon and the casino?
The Everett Knights of Columbus lost its Everett Avenue home in 1928, when there was no money to pay the mortgage.
What’s now Club Broadway was sold to the Masonic Order for $35,000.
Columnist Julie Muhlstein: 425-339-3460 or muhlsteinjulie@heraldnet.com
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