Elks ruler bucks tradition

Ringing an upstairs ceiling among the storied ghosts in the historic Elks lodge in Van Nuys hangs a photo gallery of mostly wizened men.

The picture pantheon will soon get a new addition after the Van Nuys-Reseda Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks Lodge 2790 installs a revolutionary sort of Exalted Ruler.

Out with the old grand pooh-bah, in with the new: 24-year-old Tiffany Lace, among the youngest exalted Elks in the nation.

"We've overcome all these negative aspects of Elks," said Lace, who graduated from Canoga Park High School and Cal State Northridge and now teaches seventh-grade math at a school in Boyle Heights.

"Women, we've got them. Young people, we have them too.

"What I'm trying to do as Exalted Ruler is bring in more young people so it doesn't disintegrate - not just our lodge, but Elks nationwide."

That a young Japanese-American woman will lead a lodge in a 143-year-old fraternal order that once accepted only white men has become the buzz of the Friar Street Elks.

This was the lodge whose predecessor, the Van Nuys Elks, opened in 1957 with a mass swearing-in ceremony of 1,600 men at the now-defunct Devonshire Downs.

Over the years, the lodge became a favorite male tippling spot. Elks were Elks. The auxiliary Does were Does (although they're now called Emblems). And the two factions interacted primarily at dance-hall mixers.

The Van Nuys lodge merged with the Reseda Elks

in 1995, a year before most lodges across the nation accepted women.

And while membership has now dwindled to fewer than 200 members, nine of the lodge's 13 top officers are female. The highest ranking is Lace, who will be installed tonight for a one-year reign as Exalted Ruler.

"This is a milestone in an otherwise traditional old-boys organization," said Michele Klees-Werbeck, editor of the Elk Lodge 2790 newsletter and a past exalted ruler herself. "She is a breath of fresh air."

During a recent fish fry the lodge holds on Friday nights during Lent, the fresh air wafted upstairs. Past gold stars painted during a film shoot. Past two rooms known for recent ghostly events.

And into a great hall lined with old theater seats and a tall throne backed by an American flag.

It was here that Lace, who had founded an Antler youth program as a teen, learned the rituals of Elkdom - winning blue-ribbon awards for arcane Elks rituals as a Loyal and a Leading Knight.

And it was here that the new Exalted Ruler organized murder-mystery dinners, casino nights and Halloween parties that helped energize young and aging members alike.

"Tiffany's one of the best we've ever had, as far as enthusiasm," said Jim Meech, 66, a past Exalted Ruler. "She's hard working. Every single day. Every single event. From that standpoint she's exalted."

The Elks has its roots in a New York City drinking fraternity known as the Jolly Corks, founded in 1867 by British actor Charles Algernon Sidney Vivian and frequented mostly by thespians, according to American Heritage.

The next year, the drinking society that met atop a saloon opted for a higher calling and, after helping the poor widow and children of a deceased member, declared itself the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks.

Five presidents, including John F. Kennedy, were Elks, as were legendary NLF coach Vince Lombardi and Hollywood celebrities Clint Eastwood and Gene Autry. Actor Andy Divine, a former honorary mayor of Van Nuys, at one point served as Exalted Ruler of a San Fernando lodge.

Nationwide, the Elks have raised hundreds of millions of dollars for charity, especially for disabled children. The order's nearly 1 million members are required to be U.S. citizens and believe in God.

Members like British immigrant Alfred Steed, who joined in 1962, two months after becoming a U.S. citizen.

"It's changed, yes, a lot of our older traditions are gone," said Steed, 84, of Sylmar. "It was a brotherhood - we all called each other `brother.'

"We are badly in need of younger members, and (Lace) is the inspiration for a whole new generation of Elks."

In fact, Lace's two younger sisters have already joined the lodge. She plans to devote more time to Elks programs such as veterans charities, dictionaries for third-graders, drug awareness and scholarships.

She wants to make way for younger members, while keeping the Elks traditions and rituals, she said. And safeguard the values of the benevolent order - charity, justice, brotherly love and fidelity, "especially fidelity," she said.

Does she feel exalted?

"In terms of being above everybody else? No," Lace said. "But presidential, yes. Not like a ruler; this isn't a communist organization.

"I'm excited. It's been a long-time coming. The first time I stepped into the Loyal Knight's chair, it was overwhelming. The Exalted Ruler chair was intimidating.

"But I'm growing into it."

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No one will say it's haunted, but there are tales of spooky and inexplicable occurrences at the historic Friar Street building that houses BPOE Lodge 2790.

Tiffany Lace knows well the stories of the club where she'll be installed tonight as Exalted Ruler.

During the 1994 Northridge Earthquake, the power blinked off in the damaged building - but the electric candle adorning an Elks memorial continued to blaze.

At the well-worn bar, Elks have seen tops mysteriously explode off of bottles of aged tequila.

And in an empty upstairs barroom that once served as a union hall, legend has it that a man was tossed through the second-floor window to his death when a fight broke out among members of the labor group.

Two months ago, a TV crew of ghost hunters tromped into the lodge to drum up his and other spirits. As they gazed at the empty upstairs bar, mayhem reportedly ensued.

"That crack happened," Lace said, pointing to a fissure above the bar. "And a trash can flew across the room."

mdash; Dana Bartholomew

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