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SIX09 Back to School COMMUNITYNEWS.ORG
AUGUST 2022 FREE
Groeger recognized for her service
Artist takes solo flight at Zuzu Gallery
BY BILL SANSERVINO
The Greater Eldridge Park Neighborhood Association has built a tradition over the last 8 years of celebrating a Lawrence Township woman who has worked to improve the community. GEPNA has announced that the 2022 Woman of Excellence Award winner is long-time resident JoAnn Groeger, who is currently a member of the Lawrence Township Board of Eduction. Groeger has lived in Lawrence Township for 45 years. She and her husband, Steven, raised three children who are all graduates of Lawrence High School. Prior to coming to Lawrence, she graduated from Hopatcong High School and attended Kings College, where she earned a degree in health and physical education. She then earned a master’s in education from Georgian Court College. According to a GEPNA release, Groeger worked for 32 years as a physical education and health instructor in the Lawrence Township Public Schools. During that time, she worked in every school in the district except See GEPNA, Page 2
BY THOMAS KELLY
Mercer County Community College Athletic Hall of Fame inductee Diane Rose Kelly recently released a music album called “Avalon Rose.” Kelly is a native of Lawrence Township.
Former MCCC sports star inducted into 2022 Hall of Fame class BY RICH FISHER
When Diane Rose Kelly got word she was being inducted into the 2nd Annual Mercer County Community College Athletic Hall of Fame Class, it led to a moment of shock, followed by entry into a time machine. “I was totally surprised to get the call,” the Lawrence Township native
said. “It felt like a spin back in time.” And what a spin it has been for a woman who has lived the epitome of a full life. The condensed version, which is tough to get from the gregarious Kelly, is as follows: It started with her athletic exploits in soccer and softball at Notre Dame High School and Mer-
cer, and in soccer at George Washington University. She had a fling with a start-up women’s team, the New Jersey Wildcats, but was getting out-physicaled by opponents. “Truth be told I was now in a rock star body not a soccer body,” Kelly said with a laugh. “It was time to play for fun.” See KELLY, Page 5
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Sherri Andrews is a person where the artist inside came out later—in bursts of movement and color. But before that—and her solo exhibition at the Zuzu Gallery in Lawrence Township through Saturday, Aug. 27—she was a young woman in East Orange who hustled her way through Drew University and Harvard Business School and promised herself she would make enough money to be comfortable and not financially worry. “I worked intensely in the financial field, commuting into NYC daily and raising my son, along with my husband (Daniel Luchansky), who was also in the financial business. With a grueling commute and demanding job, I had very little free time and hadn’t realized I might have a hidden talent,” Andrews says. But after 10 years as a hedge fund portfolio manager at Quattro Global Capital and another seven years at another hedge fund, Andrews decided that 2017 was a good time for her to get out of finance and into something that had crept into her See ANDREWS, Page 3
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