St. Clement Council 10,084
• 114 Lindberg Avenue • Johnstown, PA 15905 • (814) 255-4422 •
The St. Clement Council meets in the Clementian Room of the Saint Clement Parish Adult Education Center. St. Clement's Church is located on the corner of Lindberg Avenue and Goucher Street in the Upper Yoder Township suburb of Johnstown, PA. The current Grand Knight is Gary Beuke. You can contact the Knights by phone at (814) 255-1802, or by email at [email protected].
Fourth Degree Meetings of the All Saints Assembly (954) are held at the Johnstown
Council (467) on Main Street in Johnstown, PA. These meetings are held on the first
Wednesday of each month.
The St. Clement Council meets on the third Monday of each month in the Clementian Room.
The Officer's Meeting is at 6:00 p.m., the Rosary at 7:15 p.m., and the General
Business Meeting is at 7:30 p.m.
The St. Clement Council was instituted on May 5, 1989 in honor of Rev. Msgr. Joseph M. O'Toole, founding
pastor of St. Clement Parish in 1956. Msgr. O'Toole retired in June 1989, and died on February 18, 2002
while residing at Garvey Manor in Hollidaysburg, PA. He had been extremely generous to our church and
council over the years.
In 1989, Gary Beuke, a Past Grand Knight of Johnstown Council 467, and Gary Bellack, a Knights of Columbus
insurance agent, decided to form a new council in honor of Msgr. Joseph O'Toole at the St. Clement parish
where they were both members.
Msgr. O'Toole served as the Chaplain Emeritus. He was followed by Rev. Msgr. William Shultz as chaplain.
Msgr. Shultz was the second pastor of St. Clement Parish.
Msgr. Shultz encouraged the first project of the Knights, which was to convert the former convent of the
parish into an Adult Activity Center, with a large meeting room for the Knights as well as other parish
organizations. He called it the Clementian room.
Msgr. Shultz also allowed the Knights to use the former sacristy as a storage room. The chapel was
converted into the Aquinas Room, a smaller meeting room. A room for the Legion of Mary became the Marian
Room and the future office of Very Rev. Robert Radasky, the parochial vicar at St. Clement, became the
DeSales Room.
An apartment was fashioned upstairs for the caretaker of the building, who was Mrs. Mary McGill, a former
organist at the church and a former part-time cook for Msgr. O'Toole.
Down through the years since the councils origin many activities have been held in the Clementian Room
besides meetings: Children's Christmas parties, family picnics, cook-outs held after golf outings,
receptions, etc.
Many church activities were held under the auspices of the 3rd pastor and council chaplain, Rev. William E.
Rosenbaum who came to St. Clement's in 1996 during the 40th year of the parish's existence. Prayer
Services, retreats, Memorial Masses, breakfasts and spaghetti dinners have been held in the church and the
social hall underneath the church.
In 2001, a new roof and vestibule/steeple were added to the almost 45-year-old church. The Knights help
take care of the landscaping of the church grounds and at the shrine that Msgr. O'Toole had erected to the
Blessed Virgin, St. Jude, and St. Kateri Tekawitha, the first native-American candidate for sainthood. In
nice weather the Knights go outside to the shrine and pray the Rosary before their monthly meeting.
Another tradition of the council is for each member to bring a can of food to the monthly meeting and
donate it to the St. Clement Food Pantry. If the member forgets the can, he is "fined" $.50 - which also
gets donated to the food pantry as a monetary donation during the holidays.
Through the years various seminarians who are to become priests have been funded through the council's
Refund Support Vocations (R.S.V.P.) program. For every $500 contributed to a seminarian $100 is
refunded by the Supreme Council. Rev. John D. Byrnes, Rev. Richard Tomkosky, Rev. John Nesbella,
Rev. Matthew Reese and Sean Maki, a seminarian at Pontifical Seminary Josephinum in Columbus Ohio have
been recipients of this monetary assistance. A plaque is also displayed in the trophy case in the church
vestibule to show participation in this Supreme Council Program, along with other plaques that show
participation in various Knights - related programs.
One such program that is annually participated in - sponsored by the PA State Council - is the Chance Of A
Lifetime (C.O.A.L.) program, in which many prizes, trips, cars, VCR-s, cameras, TV-s, etc. are awarded
based on a ticket drawing held in Philadelphia every December 8th, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception.
The tickets are made available every August 15th, the Feast of the Assumption. The proceeds of this
"religious drawing" benefit the student loan program offered by the state.
The council's newsletter was named in a contest in 1980 as "The Discoverer" by the late Brother Knight
James McNally of Michigan, formerly from Johnstown. The first editor of "The Discoverer" was Brother Gary
Beuke from 1989 to 1994. "The Discoverer" is now published quarterly.
The council has participated in pro-life activities and with contributions and collections for Mom's House
and Birthright, both of which present alternatives to abortion. The council hopes to become more active in
the annual March for Life in Washington, D.C. every January 22, which commemorates the date of the Roe vs
Wade Supreme Court ruling which legalized abortion. Yellow ribbons, lapel-stickers (red roses) and
"precious feet" pins have been sold to raise money for the St. Clement's Catholics for Life and to help
sponsor a bus to the March. Carnations have been given on Mother's Day in exchange for donations to
Birthright.
The St. Vincent De Paul Society has been the beneficiary of the St. Clement Council in the form of a New
Year's Eve dinner, which has been cooked by the council for the Family Kitchen, which serves the needy of
the Johnstown Community. This project was started during the administration of Grand Knight Dan Zakraysek.
Past Grand Knight Greg Wright has always chaired the "Measure-Up" campaign in which small plastic rulers
are exchanged for donations to the PA ARC, which aids developmentally disabled people. The campaign is
always held after the Masses on a weekend in April.
Michael Polenik volunteered to be our charter Grand Knight. Gary Beuke volunteered to be our financial
secretary, which office he still holds as of 2001. (His term is renewed every three years by the Supreme
Council upon the recommendation of the local Grand Knight and the three trustees). The Knights who have
served as Grand Knights at the St. Clement Council are:
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