Donald Welge
D
onald Welge, of Chester, Ill., has served as president and CEO of Gilster-Mary Lee Corporation since 1965. He joined Gilster Milling Company in 1957, immediately after earning a bachelor’s degree in agricultural economics and helped build the organization into a $900 million dry-food, private-label manufacturing company. He is perhaps most locally recognized for his partnership in the Mary Lee Donut Shop franchise company in Baton Rouge. Welge is actively involved with numerous professional, community, and civic groups and has served on the boards of or as an officer of the Perryville, Mo., Chamber of Commerce, Chester Chamber of Commerce, the Okaw Valley Boy Scout Council, St. John’s Lutheran School, and Buena Vista Bank, currently serving as president of the bank’s holding company. He was named Southern Illinois Business Leader of the Year in 1988, Chester Post Veterans of Foreign Wars Citizen of the Year in 1986 and 2001, and Chester Chamber of Commerce Citizen of the Year in 1992. A major benefactor of the Department of Agricultural Economics & Agribusiness, Welge has contributed generously to the department’s five scholarships and supports a professorship. He has maintained strong ties with LSU, the LSU AgCenter, and the College of Agriculture and served for many years on the college’s alumni board. He received the College of Agriculture Outstanding Alumni Award in 2003 and served on the Dean’s Strategic Planning committee in 2009-10. Don and Mary Alice Welge will celebrate their fiftieth wedding anniversary in August of this year. They have two sons, Rob – an LSU graduate – and Tom, both of whom are in business with their father, and four grandchildren.
26 LSU Alumni Magazine | Summer 2012