Lot # : 26bv - Historic Masonic Grand Master 14K Gold Medal

This medal belonged to Storm Onus Whaley, an historical figure from our local Sulphur Springs community. Top is marked 14K and all other parts test electronically as 14K or more. Storm Onus Whaley was born in Mount Vernon Missouri on 31 May 1882. He married Mabel Prater in 1910 and they gave birth to a son, Storm Hammond Whaley, who also gained some prominence, being the acting director of the University of Arkansas from 1959-60 and from 1970-92 served as the communications director for the National Institutes of Health. The senior Storm was a banking man. After marriage, he and Mabel moved to Sulphur Springs, where he accepted a position of bank teller at the Bank of Sulphur Springs. He was eventually promoted to Cashier, a position he held until 1927. During his time as the cashier at Sulphur Springs, Whaley and his bank were robbed four times in five years, and in 1926 he authored "The Thrills and Chills of a Much Robbed Banker" for the American Banker's Journal, detailing his experiences of being held at gunpoint and described advice for how to best conduct oneself in the event of a robbery. Survivor of Four Holdups Gives Advice on How to Treat Bandits... “If a bank robber walks into the Bank of Sulphur Springs, presents arms, and tells Cashier Storm O. Whaley to "Stick ‘em up" Whaley loses no time in complying. "Fine day, isn’t it?" Whaley remarks to the bandit, with a cheerful smile. Mature experience has taught Whaley the advisability of such etiquette. Four robberies in five years Is the record of the bank he helps run, and Whaley, along with his assistant, Miss Clara Abercrombie, didn’t miss a one of them. The bandits who participated in the four robberies totaled 15, with some very notorious desperadoes included. The robberies caused five lives, including that of one of the bank’s presidents, LM Stout. Thus the matter of having to face six-shooters has become rather commonplace to Whaley and Abercrombie. They believe they know more about the bank robbing industry, from the standpoint of victims, than any other two bank employees in the country. Tranquil obedience to all orders served by their desperado visitors was the first lesson they learned, and they have observed it fully. Once, admits Whaley, he was badly frightened. After covering Whaley with a pistol, a bandit himself became so terrified that his hand shook like a leaf and he couldn’t speak above a whisper. "I was afraid he would pull the trigger unintentionally," said Whaley, "But I was lucky. He didn’t. It was the tightest place I ever was in." John Birchfield was the robber who figured in this episode. Later he became one of the Southwest’s most feared desperadoes, destined to die within a few years at the hands of the law he flaunted. He was shot down by guards as he tried to escape from prison at McAlester, Oklahoma. The first robbery which Whaley and Miss Abercrombie experienced introduced them to Buck Davis. Buck carried away practically all the portable resources of the bank save a bundle of Liberty bonds. Whaley, bandying small talk with Davis, persuaded him the bonds were worthless oil stocks and the bandit flung them to the floor. When the cashier tried to induce him to leave behind some of the other securities, Davis wheeled around and cocked his pistol. "See here young man," he snarled. "I’m running this bank now. You can run it after I get out the door." Whaley thereupon inserted in his notebook a rule about not getting too persistent with hold-up artists. Out of one robbery, Whaley got a laugh. He had been invited to address the Benton County Bankers Association, and when a bandit walked into his private office with a leveled gun, Whaley was at work on the manuscript of his speech. It was entitled ‘The Thrills and Chills of a Much Held-Up Banker.’ Whaley expanded the speech considerably the next day. For LM Stout, president of the bank, came a tragic climax. "These hold-ups must stop," Stout declared after the third one had been perpetrated. He bought a shotgun and loaded it with buckshot. A few months later, Whaley, sitting in the director’s room in the front part of the bank, noticed Miss Abercrombie walking through the lobby toward the front door, powdering her nose. Whaley stepped out to investigate. A gruff voice commanded "Stick ‘em up." Whaley did. Miss Abercrombie had reached the street. She smiled at two other bandits seated in an automobile outside. They paid no attention to her. She walked slowly down the block to where Stout, the bank president, ran a small store. "They’re here!" she gasped as she entered the store. "Two are in the bank. Two more are out there in the car." Stout seized his shotgun. He watched through a window. Two men came from the bank, their pockets stuffed with cash, and walked to the car. Stout kicked open the door. "Hold up there fellows!" he shouted, aiming the shotgun. A moment later Stout dropped; his abdomen riddled with buckshot. His 17-year-old son, Louis, dragged him back into the store while the bandits were starting the motor of their car. Stout handed the gun to the boy. "Here Louis," he said. "I am all shot to pieces." The lad took the weapon and stepped into the doorway as the bandit car went by. His shot wounded the driver and another bandit so severely that they drove down a blind street and deserted the automobile a few minutes later. The two wounded men were arrested by a posse after a short chase and the two others were captured a few days later in Oklahoma. Stout died the day following the robbery. Fate of the 15 robbers who have robbed the Bank of Sulphur Springs from time to time indicates anew that bank robbing doesn’t pay. Only two have escaped capture. Four have been killed and the rest are serving long prison terms. "But others will call on us some day no doubt," said Whaley. – The Capital Times, Madison, Wisconsin, 09 April 1927” ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ In 1924 Whaley entered Arkansas politics for the first time when he was selected as part of the Arkansas delegation to the 1924 Democratic National Convention in New York City that nominated former U.S. Solicitor General John W. Davis for the presidency. An active Mason for years prior to his service as a delegate, Whaley was elected as Most Worshipful Grand Master of the Free and Accepted Masons of Arkansas in 1925 for a one year term. Active in other areas of public service in his state, Storm O. Whaley was for six years (1927-1933) treasurer of the Ozark Playgrounds Association, an organization established in 1919 to promote tourism throughout Northwestern Arkansas and parts of Missouri and Oklahoma. In this post, Whaley was responsible for originating the Ozark Smile Girl contest and the Flaming Fall Revue, and during this time earned a reputation as a leading orator in his state, "with heavy demands made on his time by calls from many places." In November 1927 Whaley was invited to broadcast from the University of Arkansas' radio station KUOA, and his address, titled The Ozarks and Opportunity, touched on business, agriculture and tourism opportunities for the area. In the address, Whaley related that: "The steady growth, evidenced during the last few years, is largely a direct result of the effort made by the Ozark Playgrounds Association to sell not only the visitor the wealth and beauty of this region, but in making the resident cognizant of Ozark possibilities." A founding organizer of the Bank of Bentonville in the early 1930s, Storm Whaley would serve as that bank's cashier until his death and in February 1930 announced that he'd be seeking a seat in the Arkansas Senate. He would win election that November and at the start of the 1931-35 session was named to the following committees: Claims, Confederate Pensions, Finance, Public Service Corporations, Mines and Mining, Revenue and Taxation, Roads and Highways. He would also hold the chairmanship of the Banking, Building, and Loan committee. Elected for a four-year term that was to conclude in 1935, Storm O. Whaley died in office on June 16, 1933, having succumbed to injuries he received in a car accident the day prior. He had been traveling with some prominent Bentonville men when the accident occurred.