CELE HAHN
PUERTO VALLARTA, MEXICO – Former State Rep. Cele Hahn has passed away at age 72.
Hahn, a Republican, served four terms as Westfield’s voice in Beacon Hill’s lower house from 1994 to 2002, and was a ranking member of multiple committees during her tenure in the legislature, on the Joint Committee on Banks & Banking, Election Laws, and the House Committee on Long-Term Debt and Capital Expenditures.
She also served for eight years on the Insurance Committee, where she worked for HMO reform and Non-Group Health Insurance.
Hahn also held committee assignments with the Commerce and Labor Committee and the House Ways and Means Committee.
Bill Harmon pours champagne for Cele Hahn in 1994 to celebrate her election to the Massachusetts Great and General Court. (File Photo by Carl E. Hartdeegen)
Originally from the state of Iowa, Hahn earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Iowa in 1964 and worked as a reporter for newspapers in Miami, FL., Huntington, W.VA., and Albany, N.Y. before finding her way to western Mass., where she and her husband Curt built, owned and operated the 50,000-watt radio station WNNZ on Union Street in Westfield for 20 years.
She is survived by her husband of 44 years, two children, Chris and Thea, and five grandchildren.
In Westfield, local civic leaders spoke highly of the former state rep. Monday, remembering her as a no-nonsense representative who was everything a politician should be.
“She was a good friend of mine and supporter of my former boss Steve Pierce, who was the state representative for 12 years,” said Michael R. Knapik, former state senator for the 2nd Hampden-Hampshire District and current executive director of university advancement for Westfield State University. “Cele was very well-known in the community as a past-president of the Chamber of Commerce, a local businessperson and the owner of our local radio station.”
Knapik remembered her first foray into politics in ’94, which coincided with his run for the state senate.
“It was a great opportunity for her,” he said of Hahn running for his old seat. “She brought a skillset which most legislators don’t have, with a great amount of experience from the private sector as a small business owner, and also from the press.”
“She was almost the prefect candidate, and she was a great partner for representing Westfield and it’s needs. She served this community exceptionally well, and was a great partner of mine during the terms she served,” he added. “She was a no-nonsense, serious public servant who had an urgency based on her background to get things done in Boston, and she became a very active spokeswoman for pro-economic development, pro-jobs policies, and she was a very good, unabashed standard-bearer for the Republican Party.”
Knapik sang Hahn’s praises on city efforts during her eight year-tenure, especially her work on the Great River Bridge project.
“That’s the singular public works accomplishment over the last generation for Westfield, and she spent the better part of her career helping that along the way,” he said.
Bo Sullivan, Knapik’s development officer in WSU’s Advancement Division and co-host of the “Brad and Bo” weekday morning show with Brad Shephard for Springfield’s WHYN NewsRadio 560-AM, fondly remembers and credits Hahn with helping him launch his career.
“I knew Cele since I was in middle school when I’d help my dad broadcast high school football games,” said Sullivan. “After I graduated from the University of Hartford in May of ’89, she hired me in September.”
Sullivan spent a year at WNNZ before jumping to WHYN, but Hahn’s influence remained with him for years after his last signoff in Westfield, even as he campaigned as a Democrat to take over her seat in 2002.
“She gave me my foot in the door and taught me the radio business,” Sullivan said. “Cele was a professional. She had one of the last locally-owned radio stations, and she and kept it going as long as she could, which, in my eyes, was great to see because theres nothing like working for hometown talent.”
Lynn Boscher, former executive director of the Westfield Chamber of Commerce, recounted his experiences with Hahn and said her marriage to her “best friend” left an impression on him.
“She and Curt have been an inspiration to me and my wife,” said Boscher, who also ran to succeed Hahn in Boston in 2002. “She was a longtime friend and proponent of Westfield who had a proven record of getting things accomplished in a bipartisan way.”
“She used her newspaper and business skills to benefit Westfield, and she will be missed,” he said.
“I knew and listened to Cele (on radio) long before she became state rep, and I know she’s been physically absent from the city for awhile, but she hasn’t been absent from our minds and hearts,” said Knapik’s successor in the Senate and Hahn’s in the House, Donald F, Humason, Jr. (R-Westfield), who said that he remembered Hahn most for her tough persona on the Hill but also the small, unsung courtesies she extended in the community and to fellow pols.
“She announced in her last term that she wasn’t going to run again (in 2002), which gave myself, Bo Sullivan, and Lynn Boscher time to get ourselves ready to campaign,” he said. “And usually, when an official announces they aren’t running for reelection, it makes them a lame duck, but with Cele, it only made her presence stronger.”
“She still has a very tough rep in Boston. She was very ardent in fighting for Westfield,” Humason said. “(Her death) is a loss for Westfield, but I’m glad she’ll be remembered.”
Hahn’s legion of colleagues in radio also spoke of the effect Cele and Curt had on their careers and lives on-air.
“I’ve known the Hahns since 1986 when I owned WSPR,” said Michael Harrison of Longmeadow, publisher of Talkers Magazine, a leading trade publication in the talk radio industry. “We were competitors for two years, and ended up becoming very good friends after. I then watched her campaign and evolve into an elected official, and she was the finest politician I ever knew. It was a loss for broadcasting when they sold the station (WNNZ), a loss for politics when she retired.”
Harrison is a steadfast believer that, had she wanted to, she could’ve gone on to even higher statewide office.
“In talk radio, we’re extremely skeptical of politicians, but I was amazed by her. She could’ve been governor,” he said. “She was very well-liked, an incredibly dignified and talented woman who was so good-natured and sincere. What a loss for Westfield.”
“I worked for the Hahn’s in the early ’90s when they hired me to produce and anchor an arts show,” said Mark Auerbach, a public relations consultant from Longmeadow who also writes an arts column for The Westfield News. “I got to know them, however, when I was the PR director for the Springfield Symphony Orchestra. When we held our summer pop series in Westfield, they did everything to promote it.”
Auerbach referred to Cele as the face of the Union Street station, while Curt was the behind the scenes wizard.
“When she had her show ‘Conversations with Cele’, she was considered somebody to listen to,” said Auerbach, who left the station after taking a job with WFCR New England Public Radio. “But I adored Cele. And even when she had to back away from radio (while in office), she had such community spirit.”
“They were great mentors for my radio and journalism career,” he added. “They were always positive, always opening doors, and I’m permanently indebted to them.”
