As a lifelong resident of Springfield, I’ve had many reasons and opportunities to promote the assets of our community, which are many and varied. I feel it is an important role for us, as private citizens, to take an active role in sharing our time, talent and treasures to the best of our abilities.
While there are many areas that I have found to support and grow our community, including some ways in the past to support Sangamon State University, I personally became more engaged as our senior prominent University of Illinois established a presence in Springfield through UIS. This represented an asset with much potential to strengthen and grow our community.
Partially because I am a graduate of UIUC, I easily became engaged at that time, and also because of the people, such as Naomi Lynn, Vicki Megginson, Nick Dolce, Ron Wojcicki and many others. Through my love of sports, and the physical need of TRAC’s construction, I became engaged financially, through a 5-year commitment, to support part of that program. This was followed soon by the financial support for athletic scholarships, which I continue yearly still today.
While supporting other aspects of UIS, such as Visual Arts, Performing Arts, etc. my particular fondness for athletics has allowed me many more opportunities, as well as for my wife Lynne and our friends, to financially support teams in baseball, basketball, softball, etc., which gives me personal satisfaction as I see them achieve new milestones every year. All of this, of course, is a lot about personal relationships, because of the many people with whom I am in contact, throughout these programs, i.e. Chancellor, staff, faculty, coaches, students, et al. [Koch, Lorber, Sestak, Kok, Snopko, Whelpley, Schnapp, Pate, Sarra, Kabbes, Brown, Ramirez, Walker, Kost, Guthrie, Kane, Dalfonso, Beasley, Rothmund, Edgar, Derhake, and many, many more]
For me, this is not just about giving, but also receiving. Because of the residual value, I receive so much personally in return for what I give financially.
