Gast To Be Honored In Shriner Parade At First Friday
May 27, 2017 at 2:44 a.m.
Gast To Be Honored In Shriner Parade At First Friday
By David [email protected]
Longtime Mason and Shriner and World War II veteran Bob Gast, 95, will be honored in the parade by serving as grand marshal.
On Oct. 7, Gast was presented with five medals, including the Silver Star, Bronze Star, Combat Infantry Badge, World War II Victory Medal and European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal, for his actions in WWII which were documented but awards hadn’t been presented.
Gast led his Army platoon into battle in Germany’s famed Herken Forest, an area on the western front and the scene of a series of fierce battles in 1944 between American and German troops, according to an Oct. 8 Times-Union story.
He was a second lieutenant when he earned the Silver Star on Nov. 12, 1944, after being shot in the arm. He returned to duty in 1945 and led an Army platoon in a small German town.
In an interview Thursday morning, Gast, a former Warsaw City Council, said he’s been a member of the Masonic Lodge for at least 50 years, as he received a pin commemorating his first five decades.
“There’s probably a number of people who have been 50 years,” he said. “I got in pretty young so it’s got to be more than that. And I don’t remember how long I’ve been in the Shrine.”
He said he joined the Shrine Club in the late 1940s or early 1950s. Gast said it was loyalty more than anything that kept him in it for so long.
“I got somewhat inactive. At one time I was fairly active ... I’ve always had an interest in it. It seems to me like if you belong to something and believe in something, you ought to try and do something. In other words, I used to participate in the wonderful things they do,”?he said, such as the Shrine Hospital and the third-graders’ annual trip to the Shrine Circus.
Gast is one of the oldest Shriners around, he joked. Mizpah Shrine Past Potentate John Hall said some of the local longest-serving members were Gast, Jack Anglin, Bruce Howe and Russ Heyde.
The First Friday parade will start at the Owen’s supermarket at Columbia and Market streets. It will head down Market to Indiana Street, over to Center Street and back to where it started, Hall said.
Hal Harting, Mizpah Shrine potentate, said the Shriners have done parades for decades. The parade next week is a Mizpah parade and the local Shrine club is hosting it for the sixth or seventh time. Mizpah has six parades this year in northeast Indiana.
Harting said the upcoming parade will include a calliope, the car club, a Corvette club, horse patrol, color guard, the giant fez and the Antique Power Club “which is the antique tractors.”
Hall said the tractor club’s presence is a big deal because there should be 30 to 40 of them. There also could be bagpipers.
First Friday coordinator Paula Bowman said there will be an announcer for the parade. There will be a booth for the Shriners so people can learn more about the Masons and Shriners. “You can’t be a Shriner without being a Mason first,” she said. “Both are very giving groups.”
Roger Laird, president of the Kosciusko County Shrine Club and Car Club, said they celebrated their 75th birthday in 2016. The club takes about 1,500 third-graders to the circus every year, holds fish fries and takes admission at the county fair.
To become a member of the Shriners, a person has to be a Mason first, Harting said. He said it’s not a service club but a fraternity with the belief in God. “It teaches you how to live a better life, basically,” Hall said.
Also a part of June’s First Friday will be motorcycles and motorcycle groups – American Bikers Aimed Toward Education, Christian Motorcycle Association and the Patriot Riders – along Buffalo Street, said Bowman.
Other vendors will be on the courthouse lawn. Bowman said there will be several new ones and “lots of food.”
The band Mercy Triumph will perform from 5:30 to 9 p.m., with a break in the middle for the parade, Bowman said. Mercy Triumph, which she described as a “great” band, is a part of the CMA.
“It’s just going to be another fun night,” Bowman said of June’s First Friday.
Longtime Mason and Shriner and World War II veteran Bob Gast, 95, will be honored in the parade by serving as grand marshal.
On Oct. 7, Gast was presented with five medals, including the Silver Star, Bronze Star, Combat Infantry Badge, World War II Victory Medal and European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal, for his actions in WWII which were documented but awards hadn’t been presented.
Gast led his Army platoon into battle in Germany’s famed Herken Forest, an area on the western front and the scene of a series of fierce battles in 1944 between American and German troops, according to an Oct. 8 Times-Union story.
He was a second lieutenant when he earned the Silver Star on Nov. 12, 1944, after being shot in the arm. He returned to duty in 1945 and led an Army platoon in a small German town.
In an interview Thursday morning, Gast, a former Warsaw City Council, said he’s been a member of the Masonic Lodge for at least 50 years, as he received a pin commemorating his first five decades.
“There’s probably a number of people who have been 50 years,” he said. “I got in pretty young so it’s got to be more than that. And I don’t remember how long I’ve been in the Shrine.”
He said he joined the Shrine Club in the late 1940s or early 1950s. Gast said it was loyalty more than anything that kept him in it for so long.
“I got somewhat inactive. At one time I was fairly active ... I’ve always had an interest in it. It seems to me like if you belong to something and believe in something, you ought to try and do something. In other words, I used to participate in the wonderful things they do,”?he said, such as the Shrine Hospital and the third-graders’ annual trip to the Shrine Circus.
Gast is one of the oldest Shriners around, he joked. Mizpah Shrine Past Potentate John Hall said some of the local longest-serving members were Gast, Jack Anglin, Bruce Howe and Russ Heyde.
The First Friday parade will start at the Owen’s supermarket at Columbia and Market streets. It will head down Market to Indiana Street, over to Center Street and back to where it started, Hall said.
Hal Harting, Mizpah Shrine potentate, said the Shriners have done parades for decades. The parade next week is a Mizpah parade and the local Shrine club is hosting it for the sixth or seventh time. Mizpah has six parades this year in northeast Indiana.
Harting said the upcoming parade will include a calliope, the car club, a Corvette club, horse patrol, color guard, the giant fez and the Antique Power Club “which is the antique tractors.”
Hall said the tractor club’s presence is a big deal because there should be 30 to 40 of them. There also could be bagpipers.
First Friday coordinator Paula Bowman said there will be an announcer for the parade. There will be a booth for the Shriners so people can learn more about the Masons and Shriners. “You can’t be a Shriner without being a Mason first,” she said. “Both are very giving groups.”
Roger Laird, president of the Kosciusko County Shrine Club and Car Club, said they celebrated their 75th birthday in 2016. The club takes about 1,500 third-graders to the circus every year, holds fish fries and takes admission at the county fair.
To become a member of the Shriners, a person has to be a Mason first, Harting said. He said it’s not a service club but a fraternity with the belief in God. “It teaches you how to live a better life, basically,” Hall said.
Also a part of June’s First Friday will be motorcycles and motorcycle groups – American Bikers Aimed Toward Education, Christian Motorcycle Association and the Patriot Riders – along Buffalo Street, said Bowman.
Other vendors will be on the courthouse lawn. Bowman said there will be several new ones and “lots of food.”
The band Mercy Triumph will perform from 5:30 to 9 p.m., with a break in the middle for the parade, Bowman said. Mercy Triumph, which she described as a “great” band, is a part of the CMA.
“It’s just going to be another fun night,” Bowman said of June’s First Friday.
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