Born Ermes Effron Borgnino, III to Italian immigrant parents, he served in the United States Navy after high school, and was discharged in November 1941, reenlisting after the attack on Pearl Harbor. After the war, he took up acting, which led to a successful career spanning 58 years, during which he received numerous awards, including an Academy Award for Best Actor. Ernest Borgnine was raised a Master Mason in Abingdon Lodge No. 48 in Abingdon, VA, and was also an active Scottish Rite Mason and member of Long Beach Valley, where the auditorium was named in his honor. He was coroneted a 33° Inspector General Honorary in 1983 and received the Grand Cross in 1991. Borgnine was known throughout his professional and fraternal life as a warm, kind man, who had an “everyman” appeal.

Clausen was an accomplished attorney who served as Assistant United States Attorney in San Francisco.  A member of the Judge Advocate General Corps during WWII, he served honorably in that conflict, and later was Special Investigator for Secretary of War Henry Stinson, carrying out the Congressionally mandated investigation into the attack on Pearl Harbor. The Clausen Report of that investigation is the definitive determination of the cause of that attack. Clausen was an active Scottish Rite Mason, and served as Grand Master of Masons in California, and later as Grand Commander of the Supreme Council of the Ancient and Accepted Southern Jurisdiction, U.S.A. While Grand Commander, he authored several books discussing Freemasonry that are considered important works in the canon of the fraternity.

Earl Warren had a distinguished career in the law and government, serving as Governor of the State of California, and later as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. He is remembered by many as the chair of the committee that investigated the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, known as the “Warren Commission”. After serving in WWI, he began his Masonic journey in 1919, and his legal career in 1920. Warren is generally considered to be one of the most influential Supreme Court justices and political leaders in the history of the United States, having presided over the Warren Court, writing the majority opinions in landmark cases such as Brown v. Board of Education (1954), Reynolds v. Sims (1964), Miranda v. Arizona (1966), and Loving v. Virginia (1967). Schools, monuments, university halls and ships have been named in honor of this outstanding Scottish Rite Mason.