Wayne Wassenberg 

Wayne joined the Knights of Columbus sometime back in the 1950’s--he’s not exactly sure when.  He’s a native of the Green Bay area and joined Council 617, following in the footsteps of his father who was a Fourth Degree Knight.  Wayne and his brother went through First, Second and Third Degree all on the same day, and he recalls the small, hot room with about fifty men crammed in for the ceremonies--”there were some very irritable people in that room.”  He does remember bowling with some of the men of his first Council, but he admits that work and other responsibilities kept him from being very active in the life of the Council, and he found it difficult to get to many meetings.  He sensed a renewed interest in the Knights around the time the new Council 10243 was formed with St. Bernard Parish as its home, and Wayne transferred in about a year after the Council began.

 

His time in Council 10243 has certainly been active.  He was elected Warden just a few months after he joined the Council and was later elected Chancellor, an office he held until just this past June.  He’s found pleasure in many of the workings of the Council, and he especially likes the meetings, “because I like people,” and he enjoys the opportunity to get together and socialize.  He has been a part of numerous Council activities such as the Knights’ Grill, the Booyah Sales and the Pancake/Porkie Breakfast, and likes to be a part of anything the KC’s do as a group.  Wayne was also involved in the Council’s support of the Green Bay Police Department’s Teddy Bear program, and it was he who went out to purchase the bears that were to be donated to the police several times.  He remembers once taking the bears down to the police station, noting that Fr. Al decided to hold the ugliest animal of the lot for a picture.  (“It looked like a Morgan Dog from the 40’s.”)  He became a Fourth Degree Knight in 1992, a part of the Council’s second group of Fourth Degree candidates, along with Terry Misfeldt and Fr. Al Lis.  Wayne is a consistent face at activities and meetings of the Council, and he felt deeply honored by being elected Knight of the Year by the Council for Fraternal Year 1993-94; “It shows your peers are thinking of you.” 

 

Wayne served in the marines for eight years and found himself serving in the Pacific during part of World War II.  He and his wife, Alice, were married in 1947.  They became a part of St. Bernard Parish some twenty years ago and Wayne has served as an usher, a money counter and as a member of the Stewardship Committee at the parish.  Wayne had also been an usher at St. Philip parish prior to joining St. Bernard.  Before his retirement several years ago, he worked as a Railroad Yardmaster, a task he enjoyed because “I could tell people where to go, what to do when they got there and when to come back.”  Though he says he never finished High School (“The war got in the way”), he has accumulated great knowledge from reading, averaging four books per week.  All his brother Knights appreciate the contribution he has made to the fraternity.

 

Fr. Al Lis, O.F.M.

                                    October 1994