Summer 2004
FEATURES
Geneseo
Foundation Recognizes Outstanding Supporters at 23rd Annual President’s
Dinner
SUNY Geneseo
honored several of its most active volunteers and supporters at the College’s
23rd Annual President’s Donor Recognition Dinner on April 30. The
event is held each year to recognize and celebrate the generosity of benefactors
of SUNY Geneseo, and is attended by hundreds from the College and community.
The Geneseo Foundation presented Meritorious Service Awards to Geneseo
Professor Emeritus of Art Paul Hepler, retired public schools educator
Ruth Hawley Gibson ’56 and Geneseo businessman Barry Caplan.
The Foundation also presented Nancy Least with the College’s
2004 Volunteer of the Year Award.
As a lifelong educator in Wyoming County and 1956 graduate of SUNY Geneseo,
Ruth Hawley Gibson has contributed to public education as a professional
and as a volunteer. She began her career by initiating and directing speech
correction programs at Warsaw and Wyoming schools, and from 1965-92, taught
remedial reading at Perry High School. At Perry, she also directed the
Drama Club and the AFS Foreign Exchange Program.
Beyond her professional responsibilities, Gibson has served the cause
of public education as a member of the Geneseo Alumni Association (GAA)
Board of Directors since 1965, including many years as its secretary.
She received the GAA Distinguished Service Award in 1991, and was recognized
among 100 of the College’s most notable alumni on the occasion of
its centennial celebration in 1971.
As a member of the Wyoming County Project Read Program Board of Directors
since 1978, Gibson has helped encourage parents to read to their children,
by working through schools, libraries and social service agencies.
As a volunteer tutor for Literacy Volunteers of America since 1992, she
has taught reading and English to Speakers of Other Languages to more
than 30 individuals. In the same period, she has also promoted international
understanding through service to the Rotary Youth Exchange Program in
Perry, by interviewing and counseling students sent abroad, and securing
host homes for each overseas student visiting Perry. She received the
Paul Harris Award, the Rotary Club’s highest honor, in 2002.
Professor Emeritus of Art Paul Hepler has served SUNY Geneseo and
its surrounding community as a teacher, artist and architectural designer
since 1956. After 36 years on the faculty, including many years as chair
and member of the art department and numerous college-wide committees,
Hepler retired in 1992. He continues to teach in the department, serves
on the Geneseo Foundation’s Art Gallery Collection Committee and
is official curator of the College President’s home art collection.
Hepler has made his mark on the architecture of the campus and the community
by contributing to numerous building designs. Projects in which he has
been involved include the Scoville Block in Geneseo, which won a New York
State Community Renovation Award. He also received individual commendation
from the Association for the Preservation of Geneseo (APOG) for his role
in moving and restoring Erie Railroad Station in Highland Park. Hepler
is a charter member of APOG, and a former Village Planning Board chair
and trustee of Geneseo Methodist Church. He has served various other local
and state organizations, including the NYS Craftsmen Board and an eleven-state
crafts council based in New York City. His paintings, drawings and wood
designs have been featured in exhibitions in New York, Albany and Rochester
and he has juried many local and regional art shows.
Hepler earned his M.A. and Ed.D. in art education at Teachers College
Columbia University.
Barry Caplan established Sundance Books in 1972 as a Main Street
bookstore, and added a textbook outlet on School Street in the mid-1990s.
On earning the campus bookstore contract in 1999, the company launched
Under the Sun, a venture that involves the participation of several local
businesses in the MacVittie College Union.
Caplan has also joined with other business owners to promote community
events, particularly through his involvement with the Geneseo Uptown Merchants’
Association (GUMA). The association coordinates an annual Teddy Bear Parade
at the Geneseo Rotary Summer Festival, a Community Christmas Sing, and
participates in the College’s annual Weekend of Welcome each fall.
Caplan is a member of the Livingston County Planning Board and the Association
for the Preservation of Geneseo. He also serves on the College-Community
Council and on the Corporate and Business Partners Advisory Council (CBPAC),
which works to promote mutually beneficial partnerships between the College
and local businesses.
Caplan and his wife, Angela Amedore Caplan, a 1974 graduate of
SUNY Geneseo and owner of Genesee Valley Dance, are longtime, generous
donors to the College, where they established the Josephine and Armand
Amedore Book Award for students in need. The Caplans are also members
of the Friends of Music, the Geneseo Friends of Art and the Spencer J.
Roemer Arboretum, and Barry is on the national board of directors of the
REX Foundation. The REX Foundation, which supports community-based projects
throughout the United States, was established by the Grateful Dead and
named in memory of a member of the rock group’s support staff.
Nancy Least has served as chair of the SUNY Geneseo CBPAC since
2001. Established in 1995, the group’s approximately 60 members contribute
financial and in-kind support for community and college programs and services.
The council also helps coordinate a variety of college-community collaborations,
including education and training programs, sharing of informational resources,
consulting services, student internships and research sponsorship.
Least has also lent generous support to the community and the College,
through Roger’s Haircraft in Geneseo and Lakeville, and Salon Secrets
in Geneseo.
Least is a member of GUMA, the Geneseo Rotary Club and the board of directors
for the American Red Cross, and serves as a patient care volunteer at
Teresa House and as the volunteer coordinator of Geneseo Central School’s
job shadowing program.
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With
festive banners draped across the Mary Jemison dining center windows,
President Dahl delivers remarks at the annual donor dinner.
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Chancellor
King thanks those in attendance for their support of SUNY and Geneseo.
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Art
Hatton introduces new members of the Ira S. Wilson Heritage Society,
the Sturges Society, the Wadsworth Society and the Geneseo Circle.
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New members were welcomed into the Heritage Society, including Geneseo residents John and Sheila Chanler. |
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The
Geneseo Student Association was presented with the Geneseo Medal
for Philanthropy.
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Geneseo
Professor Emeritus of Art Paul Hepler, center, receives a Meritorious
Service Award. From left, N.Y. State Sen. Dale Volker; Geneseo President
Christopher C. Dahl; Hepler; Myrtle A. Merritt, board member, Geneseo
Foundation; and Dean Johnston, chair, Geneseo Foundation.
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Barry
Caplan of Sundance Books, center, receives a Meritorious Service
Award. From left, N.Y. State Sen. Dale Volker; Geneseo President
Christopher C. Dahl; Caplan; John Linfoot, vice chair of the Geneseo
Foundation; and Dean Johnston, chair of the Geneseo Foundation.
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Nancy
Least, second from left, is presented with the Volunteer of the
Year Award by President Dahl, left, along with (from left) Bill
Mathews, Kevin Gavagan and Dean Johnston.
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Photos
by Ron Pretzer
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