Family ties, belief in mission motivate local Shriners leader

June 1, 2022 | Mike Lydick
mlydick@thereminder.com

Recently installed as the Melha Shriners’ 112th potentate, or president, Jeff Hastings stands in front of a painting of the group’s Springfield hospital, Shriners Children’s New England. The painting hangs at the Shrine Center in Agawam, the group’s temporary home as it searches for a permanent headquarters.
Reminder Publishing photo by Mike Lydick

AGAWAM – A longtime Agawam resident is now the top-ranking member in the Melha Shriners of Western Massachusetts. Jeff Hastings, a 1985 Agawam High School graduate, will lead the fraternal organization in 2022 as it celebrates 125 years of community service.

He was installed as the group’s 112th potentate, or president, in April at the Melha Shriners’ annual meeting, where Hastings was presented with the potentate’s fez. He was elected in December 2021.

Melha Shriners are the local chapter of Shriners International, a philanthropic fraternity based on fun, fellowship, and the Masonic principles of brotherly love, relief, and truth. The organization is perhaps best known for founding its Shriners Hospitals for Children, one of which is in Springfield.

Masonic and Shriner roots run deep in Hastings’ family. His father Arthur E. Hastings Sr. and grandfather Walter Ruckstuhl were Masons and Shriners. His mother Barbara A. Hastings, and grandmother Margerat Ruckstuhl, were also involved with Masonic and Shrine affiliated organizations.

Both of his brothers, Charles (Chuck) and Arthur (Ed), were in DeMolay, a Masonic-based organization for teenage boys. Hastings and his brother Ed joined Melha Shriners in 1993, just as their father was about to be voted in as potentate for 1994.

Hastings was asked to get into the progressive line for potentate in 2014 by the potentate-elect for 2015. He explained that the normal process is for the potentate-elect to ask someone he believes would be a good leader for the Shrine. The first four years are by appointment of the elected potentate.

“I’ve always aspired to do my best to help the organization that I believed in for so many years,” said Hastings, who is also a member of the Melha Highlanders, the Scottish bagpipe band at Melha. He’s been a snare drummer for the band for more than 25 years and served through the line of officers to become chief (president) of the band after serving as secretary for many years.

“As I proved myself to be a good leader, the newly elected potentates continued to appoint me through the line,” he said.

After the last appointed position, Hastings was nominated to his first elected position, as members of the Shrine felt confident in his abilities to vote him into that office: “They continued to have confidence in me as each year they elected me to the next position up the line until I was elected potentate last year.”

In his new one-year, volunteer position, Hastings acts as a CEO, serving as chair of the organization’s Board of Directors. He will manage the internal operations of the organization and is responsible for overseeing its multiple units and clubs.

As one of the top three officers, Hastings also serves as an elected representative to both Shriners International Fraternal Corporation and the Shriners Hospital for Children Corporation. They are involved in the governance of the international operations of the two corporations.

Hastings’ wife Nancy will serve as first lady of Melha. Traditionally, the first lady picks a specific project for the hospital that has meaning to her. She plans fundraisers during the year to raise money to support a project that has a direct impact on the local community and hospital to provide items not normally allocated in a hospital budget.

“Nancy has chosen to raise money for some equipment for the Gait Lab to study patients with cerebral palsy for fall risk,” he said. “The equipment is designed to be worn in non-clinical environments in hopes that the data collected will better represent what a patient will experience in their normal lives.”

Following his graduation from Agawam High School, Hasting joined the Army, serving as a crew chief on helicopters for three years while on active duty in Germany, and for six years in the Massachusetts National Guard.

Hastings earned degrees from Holyoke Community College, Western New England College and Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI). While at WPI earning his master of science degree in biomedical engineering, he worked in the biomechanics research and development department at Shriners Children’s New England hospital in Springfield.

During his time there, he contributed to nine published papers in peer-reviewed journals. His first as a primary author was the cover article of the Journal of Prosthetics and Orthotics, a specialty service provided at the Springfield location.

Hastings and his wife have three children, all of whom are involved in Masonic family youth programs. He said his children are “happy and healthy,” but during his time at the hospital in Springfield he saw firsthand that not all children are born as fortunate. The great care children received at the hospital was one of the reasons he decided to join the Shriners and begin his journey to the top of the organization.

Hastings, 55, left the hospital in 1999 and moved into the information technology field. He currently works for BizTech Solutions as senior interface developer, responsible for the design and implementation of business automation solutions geared around document management systems and scanning processes.

As with most fraternal organizations, Hastings said getting and keeping members in the Melha Shriners has become a challenge: “We’ve suffered with a decline in membership that seems to be associated with the decline of the Baby Boomer generation.” He added that as membership declined, the financial obligations the organization took on with a large membership created a burden.

“We have been working through adjustments in our operations over the past few years to reduce the financial burden and to work to create a more stable organization for the future,” he said.

Those financial strains put led to a decision to sell the organization’s longtime home on Longhill Street in Springfield. The building was sold in 2019 and the Shriners moved to a temporary location at the Clarion Hotel in West Springfield.

“To support our members better, we moved to Agawam in 2020,” said Hastings “The move to 270 Main St. provides a more personal and economical space for our members.”

He added that the Shriners are continuing to look for a new, permanent home.

Hastings said he is excited to be presiding as potentate during a year when there are many important anniversaries occurring.

“The Shriners Hospital system is 100 years old, Melha Shriners is 125 years old, and Shriners International is 150 years old this year,” he said. “We have plans to celebrate these at times throughout the year.”

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