GCC holds 22nd annual Celebration of Achievements Banquet

By IAN MINIELLY

[email protected]

Ironwood - Gogebic Community College held its 22nd annual Celebration of Achievements banquet Thursday evening, honoring three people and a band.

Kelly Marczak, executive director of the GCC college foundation and James Lorenson, president, worked the crowd, welcoming everyone for coming and thanking them for their presence and time.

Charlene Newhouse, foundation president, provided opening remarks to the crowd and honorees. Lorenson provided the following honorees with plaques:

-Matthew Kurta, the Distinguished Alumnus award.

-Ron and Carol Trethewey, Honorary Friends of GCC.

-The Gogebic Range Band was also named an Honorary Friend of the College with Larry Gabka receiving the award for the members of the band.

Kurta is ranked by the Michigan Information and Research Service, Inc., as one of the most effective lobbyists in Lansing. He works with clients in a wide variety of fields, but specifically called out those making energy policy, impacting natural resources, retirement and education.

Kurta, an Ironwood native, graduated from GCC in 2001, holding the only office he ever plans on holding as Student Senate President, before completing his studies at Western Michigan University and being named a Michigan Political Leadership Program Fellow at Michigan State University.

Kurta currently resides in Holt with his wife, Rebecca, and their son, Matthew.

Ron and Carol Trethewey recently moved to Duluth, but their roots in the community go as far back as 1938.

Ron worked his way up through the local school system on the Michigan side of the border, while Carol did the same on the Wisconsin side. They put their differences aside when they joined in marriage after meeting while volunteering with Theater North in Ironwood in 1974.

Ron spent years working in the school system before settling in as sports editor at the Daily Globe, where he won the James Trethewey Award in 1996 for his timeless dedication to Upper Peninsula high school athletes.

Carol traded St. Louis Park, Minn., for Hurley as a professional, eventually finding her way to the St. Ambrose School in Ironwood, before a position in the third grade opened at the South Side School in Hurley, where she retired in 1993.

Gabka noted the band was formed in 1979 as an outgrowth of the Ironwood City Band, which formed in 1928 and played until 1963. The band's membership consists of community members, GCC students, area band directors and local middle and high school band students, with supplemental playing from temporary summer residents.

For most concerts, the band averages 20 to 25 players and plays a variety of music, from marches to polkas and rags, movie show tunes, big band, swing and jazz classics and finally patriotic scores and concert band pieces. The band is a nonprofit and frequently performs benefit concerts for Regional Hospice, HOPE Animal Shelter, Salvation Army and the local food pantries. The concerts are free and donations are used to buy equipment.

Kelly Marczak said the Celebration of Achievements banquet is the signature event for the GCC Foundation. Marczak said the foundation provides:

-Mini-grants paid out off the interest accrued every year off the endowment for the staff and faculty. The dollar figure fluctuates yearly as the grants receive the interest off the investment.

-Scholarships for GCC students.

-Funding gaps for specific projects on campus or even things like field trips for the students.

The foundation keeps a rolling list of high achievers who have moved through the halls of GCC and begins the process of whittling them down in June, according to Marczak.