(Pictured above: Rhonda Mays.)
The class includes the late John DeMotte, a 1947 graduate, formerly of Brookville; the late Charles Elliott “Andy” Hastings, a 1912 graduate, formerly of Brookville and Pittsburgh; and Rhonda Mays, a 2000 graduate, of McLean, Va.
The 2022 class selections were announced by John Pozza, chairperson of the school’s ad hoc HOF Committee.
The three will be inducted at a public ceremony to be held as part of Brookville’s homecoming festivities on Thursday, October 6 in the high school auditorium.
DeMotte was a leading Brookville business and community leader for a half-century. He began his career as a meat cutter for Russie’s Supermarket in Brookville while in high school. In the early 1950’s he began selling Prudential Life Insurance and was promoted to district manager in the Pittsburgh region in 1957.
In 1960, he purchased Sterck’s Newsstand in Brookville and opened DeMans. Over the years DeMans had served Brookville as a newsstand and gift shop and still operates as a regional distributor of athletic team sporting goods, providing quality services to Brookville Area High School. DeMotte started and operated SueAnne’s, later to be Jode’s dress shop, and Village Shoes family shoe store.
(Pictured above: John DeMotte.)
He gave his life and service to Brookville. DeMotte was active as a trustee at the First Baptist Church in Brookville, served several years as president of the Brookville Borough Council and for many years as chairman of the Brookville Municipal Authority.
Always vitally interested in the well-being of the community, he was a founding member of Historic Brookville, Inc., and served on the board of directors of the Brookville Hospital. He was honored by his hometown with the receipt of the Dr. Walter Dick Memorial Award and also enjoyed his time with the Brookville Lions Club and Brookville Community Club. He was also a member of Hobah Lodge #276 F&AM, and a 32nd degree Mason at the Coudersport Consistory, and was a member of the Altoona Jaffa Shriners.
His civic service extended far beyond Brookville as he served several years as a board member and a term as President of the Pennsylvania Municipal Authorities Association (PMAA) and received that organization’s highest honor, the Sahli Award, for service to municipal authorities across the Commonwealth.
DeMotte was also affiliated with several business and trade associations and boards, including the S&T Bank Advisory Board, Team Athletic Goods and the National Sporting Goods Association.
Hastings is considered Brookville’s all-time greatest athlete. He was an All-America halfback on the University of Pittsburgh’s undefeated and back-to-back NCAA national champion football teams in 1915 and 1916 under legendary coach Pop Warner. His Pitt football teams won 32 straight games through 1918, still the best in school history. Hastings also lettered in baseball, basketball and track & field at Pitt, and at at Kiski Prep where he earned his college scholarship.
Also handling the majority of Pitt’s kicking duties in his four seasons, Hastings still ranks sixth all-time on the team’s scoring list with 255 points. His 30 touchdowns make him one of just 10 Panthers to score at least that many in the program’s history, and he booted 13 field goals and 36 extra points.
(Pictured above: Charles Elliott “Andy” Hastings.)
Prior to Pitt and Kiski Prep, Hastings starred in baseball, basketball and track at BHS, serving as captain of the basketball team his senior year.
Ironically, Brookville did not have a football team when Hastings was in high school. However, the best details of his athletic ability there can be traced to the Jefferson County Track and Field Meet in 1911, where he scored 44 points, more points by himself than any of the competing high schools, and all on a dirt track without modern equipment. The former BHS gymnasium was dedicated and named after Hastings in 1919.
During World War 1, Hastings interrupted his college education and athletic career. In late July 1917, he was the lone volunteer, among 222 Pittsburgh men and women, including noted physicians, surgeons, nurses, and some of the most prominent people in athletics and activities at Pitt, to leave for Angers, France where he assisted the University of Pittsburgh‘s 500-bed base hospital there.
While in France, Hastings befriended a wounded soldier, Harry G. Smail, and it was through the efforts of the one-armed Smail that Hastings would be honored in his hometown. Smail, who had never met Hastings until they were in France during the war, attributed his survival to Hastings’ care and attention. With this in mind, Smail spearheaded the drive to have the Brookville gymnasium rededicated a second time in honor of Hastings in 1939. The Blake E. Irvin V.F.W. post joined in the effort.
After returning to Pitt to complete his senior year earning his degree in Economics, Hastings established a successful business career with the Blawnox Steel Corporation in Pittsburgh, and was active in numerous charitable organizations.
Mays is the Washington, DC-based International Republican Institute’s (IRI) regional deputy director for Asia. In this role, she oversees implementation of political party development, democratic governance, civil society, elections, women’s political engagement, youth leadership, religious tolerance and countering violent extremism programs in more than a dozen countries in Asia.
Mays joined IRI in 2014 to manage the Institute’s programs in Burma, and subsequently oversaw IRI’s work elsewhere in Southeast Asia, including Indonesia, Laos and regional youth engagement through the Young Southeast Asian Leaders Initiative (YSEALI). Mays is a civil society expert with more than a decade of experience in democracy, human rights and advocacy work. As an advisor to IRI’s Civil Society Development Community of Practice, she offers IRI staff across all regions guidance in best practices and innovative approaches for supporting civil society in challenging political contexts.
Prior to joining IRI, Mays was the Asia lead on Freedom House’s Emergency Assistance Program, providing support to threatened human rights defenders and civil society organizations (CSO) in the region. In that time she worked extensively with former political prisoners in Burma, providing assistance to help them reestablish their lives after release from prison, and worked on religious freedom and LBGTI rights issues in Southeast Asia. She also briefed U.S. government officials and members of congress on human rights issues in Asia to inform foreign policy decisions impacting the region.
Mays started her career at the National Endowment for Democracy, administering grants to local CSO’s across Southeast Asia and helping develop their organizational and technical capacity.
Mays holds a BA in International Politics from Penn State University and completed graduate coursework in Southeast Asian Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, focusing on the political history of Southeast Asia and the role of nationalism in independence-era Burma and Indonesia.
She previously lived in Jakarta, Indonesia and speaks Indonesian. She is the co-author of the chapter, The Evolution of Violent Extremism and State Response in Indonesia, chronicling Indonesia’s lengthy struggle with violent extremism, in Routledge’s forthcoming volume, Countering Insurgencies, Terrorism and Violent Extremism in South Asia.