Alumnae milestones
For complete news and notes from classmates and to post your notes, go to BenniesConnect: www.csbalum.csbsju.edu
Milestones 1947 Honor O’Connell Hacker was awarded Hill Murray High School’s Distinguished Alumni Benedictine Award in May ’12. Hacker spent 31 years inspiring students in her religion classes and received the Teacher of the Year Award in ’86.
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1984
Mary Hougnon Benjamin is the development director at CROSS Food Shelf.
Anne Nicolai lives in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico and works as an associate editor of Sol: English Writing in Mexico.
Sharon Brin Hathaway illustrated a book written by her sister, Becca Brin-Manlove ’79, Hauling Water: Reflections on Making a Home in the North Woods. Jonelle Spanier Heinen received first place at the Rice Memorial Hospital’s My Nurse Makes a Difference awards in May ’12.
Judith Sitarz was named the 2011 CSB Entrepreneur of the Year by the Donald McNeely Center for Entrepreneurship.
Mary Lenard joined the Margaret A. Cargill Foundation as director of the Aging Services Program.
1974 Mary Kay Schanhaar Welle received the 2011 Nan Hilt Writers Award from the editorial board of the journal, Orthopaedic Nursing. Her manuscript, “Inferior Vena Cava Filter Use as Pulmonary Embolism Prophylaxis in Trauma,” was selected as making the most significant contribution to the nursing literature for volume in ’11.
1983 Mary Cassidy Lenker was named executive director of the Foundation for Eden Prairie Schools.
1985 Collette Balder Miller received her master’s degree in educational psychology from the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities and deaf/ hard-of-hearing educator’s license.
1988 Irma Mayorga is a professor of drama and humanities at Dartmouth College in Hanover, NH. Jan Wilson Haas is the author of the book, Moving Mountains – One Woman’s Fight to Live Again, second place winner for autobiography/ memoir and merit winner for inspiration/ spirituality in the Colorado Independent Publisher’s Association 2012 EVVY Awards.
1975 Elizabeth Dinndorf was named the 18th president of Columbia College in Columbia, S.C. She began her presidency in July ’12.
“Bennie was a good girl… going to see the whole world.”
Denise DeVaan was named the 2011 Social Entrepreneur of the Year by the Donald McNeely Center for Entrepreneurship.
1977 Peggy Landwehr Roske, was awarded the spring ’12 Extraordinary Performance Award for her work as a College of Saint Benedict archivist.
1978 Sandy Stumvoll Anderson received the Region 8 Distinguished Teacher Award from the National Catholic Education Association in April ’12. Connie Kutzke Dilts is a marriage and family therapist in private practice in Billings, MT. She is currently teaching a master’s-level play therapy class at a local university.
From the song, Bennie and Johnnie, by national recording artist Mat Kearney, who headlined this year’s 12 Pines concert. Kearney was so inspired by our communities, he later wrote the song which played more than 10,000 times within the first 24 hours of being posted online.
1979 Lynn Newman was appointed chair of the College of Saint Benedict Board of Trustees.
Scan to listen
Photo by Paul Middlestaedt
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