Chuck E. Dover Jr. named Knight of the Year

IC photo/Marie Mischel

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Chuck Dover (right) accepts the 2022 Utah Knights of Columbus Knight of the Year award from State Deputy Nick Nielsen during the May 7 awards banquet.

TAYLORSVILLE — For a long time, Chuck Dover Jr. believed he had failed in his vocation for life. As a young man, he had entered the seminary, but discovered the way of a priest was not for him. It was only when his attitude about that experience was questioned later by Father Joseph Roy, a priest serving in his home parish, that he began to view his life differently.

Through his or her creation, “God calls everyone; you just weren’t called to a religious vocation. People in life would be so happy to have the life ministry that you have and how many lives you touch in living your life,’ Fr. Roy told me,” Dover said.

“From that point on, my life started blossoming,” said Dover, the Utah Knights of Columbus 2022 Knight of the year. “It started reaching out to many areas because I realized he was telling me, ‘Live and you will accomplish a lot of things.’ That’s when it sunk in that maybe God called me to do something totally different, created me for a totally different purpose.”

A cradle Catholic, Dover learned about service as a boy after his mother broke her back in an accident, which resulted in her hospitalization for almost three years. Trying to keep up with the medical bills, the family lost everything. They were saved from destitution by the kindness of family, neighbors and members of their parish, Dover said. The experience instilled in him a desire to give back.

Joining the Knights of Columbus in 1981 was a natural outgrowth of those feelings, Dover said. It was also through his membership in the Knights of Columbus that his father, who wasn’t Catholic, found his way to the faith. As supportive parents, the elder Dovers attended many Knights of Columbus conventions with their son and were impressed with the caliber of people they found there. Finally, at the age of 82, Dover’s father announced he wanted to be baptized.  

Dover asked his father why, after so many years of declining to participate, he was making that decision.

“’I’ve been to every major shrine of the Catholic Church; I always heard the Gospel from the altar, but going to [national Knights of Columbus] conventions I got to see it in action, and I wanted to be a part of it. It’s because of the Knights of Columbus that I became a Catholic, not because of what I heard but what I saw,’ he said,” Dover recalled.

Dover began his service in the Knights of Columbus at the age of 29 after a Knight, Steve Moran, invited to help organize a new council at Saints Peters and Paul Parish, where he was attending services.

“I didn’t have any clue what Knights of Columbus was in the beginning,” he said. “I’ve just stayed in the Knights ever since.”

Since that time Dover has held local, state and district offices including Grand Knight, Faithful Navigator, State Warden, District Master for Utah and Vice Supreme Master for the John H. Reddin Province. In 2011, he founded a state scholarship through the Knights and has served as chairman of that scholarship committee ever since.

“My affiliation became more than just membership,” he said. “It became more of a ministry within the laity of the Church. The Knights was a vehicle for me to get more involved in being a Catholic.”

Now retired, Dover has had several careers including as a restaurant owner, real estate agent and in airport security. He and his wife, Tina, have been married 42 years. They have three children and four grandchildren.

Along with his service in the Knights of Columbus, Dover is a member of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, the Fraternal Order of Eagles, the Italian American Civic League and the Stella d’America Lodge in Carbon County.

“Those affiliations have helped me to be able to do a lot of community service and a lot of work for people in need,” he said. “Combined, it has been quite an endeavor, but it has all been part of that ministry of life.”

In the last few years, Dover has struggled with his health. He was diagnosed with stage 4 melanoma cancer in 2018 and by 2019 the strains of treatment left him depleted, uncharacteristically exhausted and discouraged.

“I really had a struggle in life,” Dover said. “I remember praying, ‘God, I don’t want to live like this,’ and I really didn’t. I had only been retired for a couple of years, and it was not what I expected.”

Still, everything changed when his youngest daughter gave birth and introduced him to his grandson, whom she named after her father.

Meeting his namesake gave Dover a new lease on life; that day his prayers changed from asking for release from this life to imploring the Lord for more time to be with his grandchild, he said. “I thought, ‘I’ve got this new grandchild that needs me, and I want to see him grow. My whole attitude towards life changed; I called him my therapy baby.”

Among other things, Dover threw himself back into service with the Knights. He became chairman of the Father McGivney Guild and has served in the position for the past two years.

He encourages young Catholic men to join the organization to help them understand the purpose of life and of the Church in their lives. “In the Knights of Columbus, I see faith in action,” he said. “I see not just the lessons of the Church but what it takes to bring those lessons to fruition.”