Ill. Bro. Sederstrom was elected Sovereign Grand Inspector General (SGIG) in Nebraska at the 2009 Supreme Council Biennial Session. He is preceded by only five men who held the title of SGIG in Nebraska since 1900. They are Ill. Bros. Henry Alverson, 33° (who served as SGIG in both Iowa and Nebraska in 1915), Frank Cargill Patton, 33° (1917-1950), Joseph Seacrest, 33° (1951-1971), Herbert Ronin, 33° (1973-1990) and Warren D. Lichty, 33° (1991-2007). The gaps in between indicate these men were Deputies during that time.
Charles V. Sederstrom, Jr., 33°
Sovereign Grand Inspector General in Nebraska
In 2007, Bro. Sederstrom was appointed Deputy of the Supreme Council in Nebraska by Grand Commander Ronald Seale, 33°. Since then he established an Orient Council made up of Personal Representatives, Valley Secretaries and a representative appointed by the Venerable Master of Perfection from each Valley that have quarterly meetings either in person or via teleconference. They discuss Valley activities and opportunities to help Valleys with membership and other programs. Bro. Sederstrom makes these meetings enjoyable and asks the Valley leaders for input of how we could do things better. He had an Orient website developed to keep track of projects going on in each Valley, broadcast email news articles and maintain a database of Orient members’ emails so everyone can be aware of current events.
He has asked each Valley to review the bylaws of their Boards, Lodges and Foundations as many have been in place for many years. He asked that they be brought up-to-date. The first change was the Scottish Rite Foundation of Nebraska. The RiteCare Clinics in Hastings, Lincoln and Omaha are the main focus of the Nebraska Foundation and letters of thanks from grateful parents made everyone realize that this program needed to be expanded. Nebraska is the second state in the Southern Jurisdiction of Scottish Rite to hire a Development person. A Foundation search committee interviewed several candidates finally hiring Ill. Bro. Ben Harvey, 33°. Bro. Harvey had retired as Director of the Masonic Eastern Star Home for Children where he had served for 28 years. He had experience in fundraising and is well known across the state. He has made great strides in bringing awareness of the RiteCare program to our communities.
Another project the Supreme Council asked Bro. Sederstrom to do during the 2007 Supreme Council Session was to hold dinner/auction events in the Orient as a fundraiser for both the Orient and the House of the Temple Foundation. It was a pilot program tried in four states and Nebraska was asked to participate. Three events have been held since it started, one in Hastings and two in Omaha. To date over $50,000 has been raised in these special events. They are a lot of work to setup but they turn out to be fun and give the Scottish Rite an opportunity to introduce non-members to our RiteCare program and to the fraternity. At the last one held in Omaha a Scottish Rite petition was taken by one of the parents of a child going to the RiteCare clinic. It also helps the House of the Temple Preservation Foundation in their campaign to update the beautiful headquarters in Washington DC.
Studies are ongoing to find ways RiteCare services can be re-established in western Nebraska at Alliance Valley and surrounding communities. One of the challenges is the great distances traveled if a clinic is in one location. Some research is being done to see the viability of using telemedicine to bring RiteCare services in that area.
Background
and the largest hospital in the state with 10 hospitals, 140 employed physicians, and several hundred separate points of entry into the health system. Bro. Sederstrom was the Venerable Master of the Lodge of Perfection in the Omaha Valley and has been active in Masonic bodies over the course of the past twenty-five years. He is a member of Mizpah Lodge, Scottish Rite, the York Rite, and Tangier Shrine. He served as the Personal Representative of the Sovereign Grand Inspector General of Nebraska, Ill. Bro. Warren D. Lichty, for several years and was a member of the Cathedral Board of Omaha which oversees the operation of the Omaha Scottish Rite Masonic Center.
A little about his background, Bro. Chuck was born in Deadwood, South Dakota. He attended Black Hills State College and the University of South Dakota in Vermillion, South Dakota and received his Juris Doctorate degree. He began practice in 1968 in Omaha, Nebraska with Donald H. Erickson; and they began the law firm of Erickson & Sederstrom. The firm currently has 32 members and is the fifth largest in the state of Nebraska. Bro. Sederstrom’s area of specialization is in Corporate Law with a particular reference on Health Law. He currently is General Counsel to Alegent Health, which is the largest nongovernmental employer in the state of Nebraska