| Drew Hastings | |||||||
| Birth Name: | W. Drew Hastings | ||||||
| Birth Date: | 2 March 1954 | ||||||
| Birth Place: | Casablanca, Morocco | ||||||
| Occupation: | stand-up comedian, author, and former mayor | ||||||
| Nationality: | American | ||||||
| Spouse: | Taryn Blanchard (m. 2014) | ||||||
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Drew Hastings (born March 2, 1954) is an American stand-up comedian, author, and former mayor of Hillsboro, Ohio.[1] Standing 6feet tall, he is often seen performing in a black suit and black horn-rimmed glasses.
Hastings was born in Casablanca, Morocco to an English mother, Pamela, and an American G.I. father named Drew. He emigrated to the United States at a young age and grew up in the Midwest, particularly in the Ohio cities of Kettering, Dayton and Cincinnati.[2]
Hastings began performing onstage at the age of thirty-one. After having lived in several large cities in the 1970s, including San Francisco and New York, he had moved back to Ohio. In the early 1990s, he moved to Los Angeles, where he would later receive several guest-starring roles and television pilots for networks such as Fox, NBC, and HBO.[3] While in California, he wrote and starred in several one-person shows, including, Commencement Speech, Life & Other Short Stories, and The Business of Living, the latter directed by Bob Odenkirk. The main character of The Business of Living, a motivational speaker/success guru named "Jack Freeman", gained a cult following in California and has become increasingly popular throughout the Midwest.[4] While living in L.A., he got a rare standing ovation on "The Tonight Show".[5]
Hastings would later sit in as a guest on The Bob & Tom Show.[6] In 2006, he starred in The Friends of Bob & Tom Comedy Central special alongside other comedians such as Bob Zany, Greg Hahn, and Roy Wood, Jr.
On April 26, 2008, Comedy Central aired Drew Hastings: Irked and Miffed, Hastings' premiere one-hour television special. The performance was released on May 6, 2008, through Image Entertainment.
Hastings expressed interest in running for mayor in the city of Hillsboro, Ohio in June 2010[7] as a Republican Party candidate. On January 20, 2011, Hastings took out a candidate petition to run for the position of mayor for the city of Hillsboro.
Hastings filed his petition with the county's Board of Elections, as did two other Republican hopefuls.[8] With the city's primary election held on May 3, 2011, Hastings won the primary election with receiving 295 votes. On November 8, 2011, Hastings won the Hillsboro, Ohio general election garnering 1,008 votes and his opponent, John Levo, received 614 votes. He was sworn in on January 2, 2012.[1]
On November 3, 2015, Hastings won a second term as mayor of Hillsboro with 59% of the vote over Pam Limes.[9] [10]
On July 12, 2016, Hastings was indicted on four charges, including elections fraud, following a months-long investigation by special prosecutors appointed by a Highland County judge. The counts included theft, theft in office and tampering with records.[11] [12] The judge in the case dismissed 2 of the 4 felony charges against Hastings, and a jury found him not guilty on the remaining charges on November 9, 2016.[13]
In September 2020, Hastings released The Business of Living, based on his one-person show of the same name. It was written under the pseudonym, Jack Freeman. A satire of the success and self-help genre. https://www.amazon.com/Business-Living-dont-need-success/dp/0578767228/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1639534942&sr=1-2