Retired Du Quoin teacher to guide work of 2,400 So. Ill. Shriners: Denver Tolbert elected potentate at Ainad; installation in January
Retired Du Quoin Middle School instructor Denver Tolbert will guide the work of the 2,400 members of the Ainad Temple Shrine in 2017 as the Potentate following his election on Dec. 15.
He will be installed on Jan. 14 during a very special installation ceremony at Ainad Temple in East St. Louis.
Ainad Temple, Tolbert and hundreds of shriners across Southern Illinois are responsible for hosting the annual Ainad Shrine Circus. The circus will celebrate its 50th anniversary (dating back to 1967) in 2017 and plans are already being made for one of the largest celebrations in shrine history.
Not since the late Gene Morris of Du Quoin served as potentate have we had someone of this city as the head of this great fraternal philanthropy.
Officers of the Ainad Temple serve on what's known as the divan and Tolbert's succession to potentate most recently included his work as Chief Rabban.
Wife Johanna is also a retired career educator.
In Tolbert and wife Johanna's world, children shouldn't be crippled. They should run and dance. As an eighth grade science teacher in Du Quoin Community Unit District 300 he has been around children his whole life.
As potentate, he is at the center of something extraordinary--the world's greatest philanthropy. He assumes this role shortly after the new $47 million Shriners Hospital for Crippled Children was opened on the campus of Washington University's School of Medicine.
U.S. News and World Report calls the St. Louis Shriners Hospital for Crippled Children one of the world's 10 best medical centers for crippled children.
We are very careful about blending the work of Ainad and the hospital. The members of Ainad serve the hospital, but they are not one in the same.
The Du Quoin Evening Call has a longstanding relationship with Ainad Temple and with the hospital. When the Du Quoin State Fair was home to the Hambletonian, the newspaper's special edition sold by shriners in the grandstand raised tens of thousands of dollars for Ainad which, in turn, went to the hospital. Being in the St. Louis hospital's Gold Book of contributors has always been a source of pride for the newspaper.
The work at Shrine hospitals and burn centers is extraordinary.
They talk about flying an 8-month-old child from a tropical island to St. Louis to repair a shoulder damaged during delivery. They talk about never destroying decades of x-rays for the sake of silver recovery because of the opportunities for research to solve child medical problems like brittle bone disease. They talk about how many days a week should the hospital be open with some thought that kids need to be at home with their families on weekends when possible.
They talk about the dozens of Ainad shrine members who use vans and personal vehicles to get children to and from their medical appoints. At every turn they talk about making children smile again. Next year, Tolbert will be at the center of one of the greatest medical charities on earth. We can all be proud.