A couple of years ago, things at Murrieta № 869 were starting to feel stagnant, says Rufi Magbuana. He’d been one of the charter members of the lodge when it was launched in 2018, but by 2022, he says, the group had hardly grown at all and found that it was having trouble distinguishing itself among the dozen Masonic outfits in Riverside County.

So he and several other members hatched a plan: They’d essentially reset the lodge, with a new name and a new identity. Thus Widows Sons № 869 was born, a group that would meet just quarterly, and instead focus primarily on traveling to perform the ritual for others, embracing philanthropy as a core tenet, and involving family more than ever before. Magbuana knew he’d need officers to help carry out the vision— and he knew exactly who his first call would be to.

“I knew Dennis from one of my other lodges, and when I met him I said, ‘Man, he’s going to be great one day.’”

As it turns out, he was even more right than he could have known. And less than two years later, not only has his first recruit turned into a key figure in the lodge, but he’s been honored as the Southern California Mason of the Year.

For Dennis Caoile, it’s the culmination of a whirlwind 18 months during which the leadership skills he accumulated over 20 years in the military have been redirected into his lodge. “When they called, I remember I said, ‘OK, I’ll help out,’” Caoile says somewhat nonchalantly. “Then I guess the rest is history for me.”

And now it’s history for the fraternity, too. In just three short years since being raised and affiliating with Widows Sons, he’s served as that lodge’s senior warden, candidates’ coach, prospect manager, assistant secretary, and now master. In that time, he’s overseen one of the most ambitious lodge calendars in the state, with ritual and social events scheduled just about every week, including a first-ever district-wide past masters night (which more than 42 past masters and 100 longtime Masons attended), a charity golf tournament (raising more than $10,000 for the Masonic Homes and other projects), a blood drive (benefitting the Red Cross), and fundraising motorcycle rides as far away as San Diego and Northern California. The lodge has performed degrees for lodges all over the Southland, twice this year hosted the division’s Masonic Outreach Services meetings, and this fall will lead a motorcycle brigade to the Masonic Homes in Covina to deliver a significant lodge gift. On a personal level, Caoile has also become president of his division’s officers’ school of instruction and in 2022 won its ritual competition. Even more crucially, during that time Widows Sons № 869 grew from just 31 members to 75, most of whom were gained via word of mouth and by affiliation. 

For Caoile (pronounced kay-olee), who was born in Pangasinan province in the Philippines, that sort of energetic leadership is second nature. Having enlisted in the U.S. Marines at 19, he spent 22 years in the service, rising from private to gunnery sergeant and finally to the position of chief warrant officer 3 in administration, a role reserved for officers considered experts in their field. Based at Camp Pendleton and serving in Japan, the Philippines, and throughout Asia, he led teams of as many as 20 Marines—many of whom were Freemasons. When he retired from active duty in 2018, he decided he finally had the time to join. “Whenever I do something, I want to commit 100 percent of myself and my time to it,” he says. 

That hasn’t been lost on his colleagues. Says Magbuana of Caoile, “He’s an overachiever. He’s always going to do the very best he can. When we went to Dennis and said we’re starting something different over here and creating a new identity, he was a big part of that, and now he’s taking it to an even different level. Everything for him is for the benefit of the lodge and the fraternity.”