Profile of a Mason

Van Wesley Hadaway, 32°

Born in rural Alabama, moved to Murfreesboro, Tennessee, at age 4, grew up in Middle Tennessee, then toured the world as an enlisted member of the United States Air Force. That’s Van Wesley Hadaway, a Mason with many interesting aspects and activities in his life.
Van is a United States Air Force veteran with four years of service. He spent two of those four years at Kanena Air Force Base in Okinawa, Japan, as an avionics technician on fighter and reconnaissance aircraft.
While he was a student at Middle Tennessee State University, he was a member of Sigma Chi Fraternity, where he served as the Chapter Historian. He studied his lifelong hobby of photography when film and negatives were necessary, long before the age of digital imagery. He brags that he can take the best vacation pictures ever seen and won a first-place award for an entry at the Texas State Fair to add credence to that claim.

After his college days, Van moved to Dallas, Texas, where he worked as a project manager for Decker Mechanical Company, specializing in industrial construction. After 20 years he retired and moved back to Murfreesboro. He is the father of two children, one son and one daughter, and one granddaughter.

Van was raised a mason in 2001 at Waxahachie Lodge #90 in Dallas, Texas, where he subsequently served as Worshipful Master in 2007, and as Treasurer in 2009 and 2010. He joined the Scottish Rite in 2002 in the Dallas Valley. Currently he is a member of Mount Moriah Lodge #18 in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, and a member of the Commandery, the Council, and the Chapter of the York Rite Bodies. As a member of the Nashville Valley of the Scottish Rite, he is in the cast of the 14th degree and was in the 9th degree in the Dallas Valley.
Van has long had an interest in and is a participant of folk dancing. He is a member of the Cripple Creek Cloggers, an Appalachian dance group in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. Also, he is active in the Jubilee American Dance Theatre, a folk-dance group out of San Francisco, California, that tours internationally to folk festivals. As a member of the planning committee, he is busy making plans for the International Folkfest to be held in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, in 2023 and 2024.
As noted, in addition to his masonic activity, he finds time to be instrumental in several community organizations. It is that spirit of community interest, together with a desire to be a productive asset in the Middle Tennessee area, that makes him and masonry an asset to society. It is an example of living a good life filled with masonic values. The Scottish Rite is fortunate to have Van as a member.