by Anne Minard

POCATELLO - Six score and 15 years ago, Abe Lincoln, was assassinated while watching “Our American Cousin” at the Ford Theater.

On Friday night, he finally made his way to Pocatello.

The third annual Masonic Patriotism Night went off without a bang - thank goodness. The dinner and awards ceremony was dedicated to people who have served either locally or in the country’s interest. The Reverend Roger Bray, pastor of the Central Christian Church in Pocatello, urged the audience to take pride in the “rich heritage that has been passed on through the work and sacrifice of others.”

The star of the show was an animated Lincoln impersonator, Homer S. Sewell III. He told a rapt audience “his” whole life story, from the first times he learned to be honest as a child to his strides in the legal and political arenas.

“I never gave up and I never want any of you to give up,” he told listeners young and old. “There is no limit to what you can do. It’s time for us to have a lady president. Don’t you think so?” he said, earning cheers.

Sewell broke character only once, to lamenth what he’s observed in tours of elementary schools throughout the nation.

“How many of you have read the Emancipation Proclamation?” he asked the audience. He said in most school, the only people to admit having read the document are parents and teachers.

The Masonic Lodge crowd was one that didn’t get away without a tutorial on the 1863 Gettysburg Address.

“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation,” chanted the crowd of 100 or more, “...this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom - and that government of the people, for the people, by the people, shall not perish from the earth.”