With the Midwest Shrine Association Summer Conference in town bringing hundreds of visitors from across the Prairies and American Midwest, we sat down with the Imperial Potentate of Shriners International Brad Koehn to get his thoughts on his Moose Jaw experience, his role as Imperial Potentate and Shriners itself.
Q: Can you tell me about your role as Imperial Potentate?
A: Well, the Imperial Potentate is the Chairman of the Board of Directors of Shriners International, and as such, I oversee a board of twelve gentlemen who conduct the business of Shriners International. They are also board of directors of Shrines Hospitals for Children along with another eight-member board conducted business for the hospital system.
Q: What are your first impressions of Moose Jaw?
A: We love the smaller towns. It's great to have the public come out and we enjoy interacting with them and spreading the message of not only fraternity, but philanthropy.
Q: You mentioned being out in public spreading those messages, was the intention to make the conference more of a public event?
A: Well Shriners International has been around 150 years and in the hospital system for over 100 and we continue to send a message to the public that we we’re here to help the children of the world and provide care to them.
Q: Can you tell me more about that message and what Shriners International does?
A: Shriners is a is like a college fraternity, they're a group of gentlemen who come together for fun and fellowship. We have roughly 160,000 members across the world — and it is worldwide.
Shriners Hospitals for Children has been around for over a hundred years, and it is a conglomerate of a healthcare system that has hospitals, ambulatory surgery centers clinics, telehealth clinics, and we operate in over 125 touch points.
We provide services to children who need services in the areas of orthopedics, burns, cleft lip and palate, and spinal cord/scoliosis — and that's at no cost to the family — and for children birth to eighteen years of age.
Q: You mentioned that you enjoy small towns like Moose Jaw, how have they done as hosts so far?
A: We haven’t even been here 24 hours yet, but so far it is A+.