I feel like I’ve been the most blessed person. I’ve had a job I’ve loved for 38 years.”

Hastings Senior Center Director Laurie Thrush

Thrush will celebrate her retirement at an open house on Thursday June 27 from 2-4 p.m. at Tilden Community Center located at 310 River St.

Tilden Community Center
310 River St.
Hastings, MN 55033
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After making a career of working with Hastings’ retirees, on June 28, 2024 Hastings Senior Center Director Laurie Thrush will join their ranks. Thrush has been with the Hastings Senior Center for 38 years, shaping the center’s programming, trips, and generally, having “the pulse of the community,” and making sure those needs are met.
Thrush came to the Hastings Senior Center in 1986 and remembers of that time that “I would go to meetings and be mistaken for the high school representative.” In 1986 the Hastings Senior Center was located in what was then the high school, but is currently the Hastings Middle School.
“It was hard planning programming when lockers were slamming,” said Thrush.
As the district grew, the then high school expanded into the senior center, pushing the senior center out into the community. That was a great thing, says Thrush, which not only expanded the senior center’s reach but brought more people into their programming.
Creating programming that reflected and met the needs of the Hastings community was a key part of Thrush’s job. Over the nearly four decades of Thrush’s time at the senior center, that programming has changed a lot. According to Thrush, some groups and events are cyclical.
“We used to have a big Euchre group and now we do again,” she said.
Other groups appear out of nowhere and become incredibly popular. Thrush remembers when some members began playing a strange game called Pickleball more than a decade ago, long before the game would come to complete with tennis courts for space. Other signs of the changing times came in the form of Zoom fitness classes and meal deliveries that have become a mainstay even after the pandemic.
“There’s more emphasis on health and social activities but those are important,” said Thrush.
Other events have dwindled or stopped entirely. One that Thrush noted was the Red Hat Society, a social organization originally created for women over the age of 50 and based on a line from the Jenny Joseph poem Warning. According to Thrush, when she first attended events for the society, she was too young to wear the red hats and purple outfits of the group and instead “had to wear lavender and a pink hat.”
The COVID-19 Pandemic posed a unique set of challenges for the senior center. Thrush and other employees “did whatever we could to keep people engaged,” including grocery and meal deliveries and online check-ins. In part due to the strong community built around the Hastings Senior Center, “our membership didn’t drop during COVID. That’s why we rebounded so well after COVID: we stayed connected.”
Thrush said she has mixed emotions in retiring: “I absolutely love my work at the senior center.” Despite retiring, Thrush isn’t saying goodbye to the senior center and its programming. She has already become a member and even signed up for a trip with the center.
“I feel like I’ve been the most blessed person. I’ve had a job I’ve loved for 38 years,” said Thrush.
When asked if she had any insight into retirement after a career in working with those who had already taken the plunge, Thrush’s response was that of gratitude: “Don’t take life for granted […] the ones that age well are the ones that accept the changes and adapt: they keep living life.”
Thrush will celebrate her retirement at an open house on Thursday June 27 from 2-4 p.m. at Tilden Community Center located at 310 River St.