Stephenville Mortician Serves Up Cheesecake on Calendar for a Good Cause

Photo courtesy of Men of Mortuaries

By Jessica Horton, Texan News Service

This year the nation’s funeral directors came together to do something they usually don’t get a chance to do -- save lives.

One of them, Brad Masters, a Stephenville resident, got that opportunity when he posed for a 2008 calendar called “Men of Mortuaries.”

Masters has heard the all the jokes, like the one about the “drop-dead gorgeous” guys who bared their chests for a good cause – to help women and men undergoing treatment for breast cancer.

For his calendar photo Masters took off his shirt, donned a black apron and offered a tray of – what else? -- cheesecake to two women who can’t take their eyes off his muscular physique. He appears as Mr. February in the calendar.

“Sweets from a sweetie. Brad really puts his heart into his work,” reads his bio on the Men of Mortuaries website. “He likes that this calendar is helping women survive breast cancer with dignity. Showing the world how fun funeral directors and morticians can be? That’s just icing on the cake.”

Masters joked around on the calendar, but he is serious when it comes to the subject of breast cancer. He experienced the disease’s ice-cold grip when he was growing up in the small West Texas town of Wheeler. Master’s grandmother beat breast cancer and a teacher and family friend also battled the disease.

He got interested in the funeral business while in high school. Masters took a part-time job mowing the grass and washing hearses at Wright Funeral Home in Wheeler. After four years for working for Wright Funeral Home, Masters graduated from Wheeler High School and moved to Stephenville to attend Tarleton State University.

"Everyone in my class wanted to go off to college to be an engineer, a football coach, a farmer,'' Masters said, "but everyone knew I wanted to be a funeral director. And everyone supported me the whole way. There were no jokes.”

Masters said he went to Tarleton because that’s where his brother was, but it was not where he wanted to be. So, he enrolled in the Mortuary Sciences School of Dallas for the spring 2006 semester.

When a flyer about the Men of Mortuaries calendar to benefit the KAMM Cares Cancer Foundation made its way into his hands while he was in mortuary science school in Dallas, Masters did some research. He found KAMM Cares to be a foundation dedicated to the care and assistance of those going through treatment for breast cancer. The organization was founded by Kenneth McKenzie in honor of his sister Katherine Alyce McKenzie-Meadows, who battled and overcame breast cancer.

"I saw what it was all about and decided to do it," Masters said.

All the money collected by the foundation goes to provide such necessities as childcare, groceries and other items, along with dealing with radiation and chemotherapy and any other treatments. The organization offers both financial and moral support for individuals going through a particularly hard time.

McKenzie is known for his unique ways of raising money, such as yearly estate sales, which go to benefit Southern California’s hospice programs, and a movie premiere that raised funds to help Long Beach AIDS Walk.

In 2006, McKenzie began production of the Men of Mortuaries calendar for 2007 to raise funds to extend the work of KAMM Cares. McKenzie said the calendar is just one of the ways his foundation uses humor and happiness to help others cope with this painful illness and create more awareness about the cause.

Masters and his friends thought it might be fun to try to get in the 2008 calendar but didn’t really think they could make it.

"When they told me I made the cut and would be going to Los Angeles to the finals, I was pretty excited," Masters says. "Then, when I saw all the other guys I thought, ‘I don’t stand a chance.’ Some of them were bodybuilders who work out every day."

Eighteen men were picked out of more than 400 applicants. They flew to Los Angeles to shoot the calendar in January 2007. Of them, 14 appeared in the 2008 calendar. Masters was named Mr. February. All those days and nights playing football, basketball, and running track for the Wheeler Mustangs had given Masters just the muscular look the calendar needed.

"We were all excited about what we were doing," Masters said. "Some of the publicity stops, the cause we were promoting and just having fun being part of it all was great."

Not everything, though, turned out to be so much fun.

Last year, shortly after graduation, Masters got his first job as a provisional funeral director in Lindale, north of Tyler. While getting to know the staff, he mentioned the calendar. They didn’t seem to mind, but said he should tell the owner anyway.

Masters told his supervisor about the calendar, only to be given two options -- quit the job or quit the calendar. The funeral home did not want the image or the publicity Masters’ involvement with the calendar brought to the establishment.

After he was asked to resign from his first job, Masters got a job at Lacy Funeral Home in Stephenville the day after Christmas. Vance Wade of Lacy Funeral Home doesn’t mind that Masters appeared on the calendar, which he viewed as tastefully done. Wade said it’s good for funeral directors to give back to others and help support breast cancer patients.

Masters can laugh about his scuttled first job now. But he said things have turned out for the best.

For now, he’s enjoying the attention the calendar brings – not only to him and other morticians, but also to the people who are fighting every day to stay alive.

To order the calendar, visit www.menofmortuaries.com. 2008 calendars cost $15, T-shirts $20.

The Texan News Service is a project of Tarleton State University's journalism program.