February 2025 Issue

It’s been a while and there’s lots of great news to share! I hope you’re all healthy and warm! I can only tell you that it’s soooooo cold in Texas – this is not why I moved here 25 years ago…We hope you’ll mark your calendars for our annual meeting Wednesday July 23 – Friday July 25 in beautiful downtown Cleveland, Ohio! On the edge of Lake Erie, with an average July temperature in the mid-high 70s, the weather will be amazing! More details soon – and we hope you’ll plan to join us and celebrate all our connections.

If there’s anything you need, please let us know. In the meantime, read on for some great updates!

Linda Chair, JASAN

lschoelkopf@hotmail.com

Connections are happening

Team JASAN: Kevin Pacht, Tami Godsey,

Howard Bartner (not pictured)

Our good friends in Colorado Springs spent some quality time together bowling to help raise money for the Colorado Springs JA office. Although many of us thought we had seen the last of those bowling alleys when we left JA, we are proud that our colleagues were among the top fund raisers at this event! Thanks to Tami Godsey for putting the teams together – and to those who raised funds and those heavy bowling balls.

Sally Stamper hosted a virtual gathering for our friends in the mid-Atlantic area. Those who participated – while small in number – had a great time catching up and staying connected.

We’ve got a gathering scheduled in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area for Tuesday, March 4 – and we’ll be touring the JA Dallas BizTown, which is currently hosted at the Garland ISD’s career and technology facility. One of our hosts is our own Lisa Cox, current President of the Garland ISD Education Foundation. If you’re going to be in the area on March 4, please let me know (jastaffalumninetwork@gmail.com) and we’ll send you the details. You can also check the event on Facebook.

Contributions are happening

We are so grateful to The Achievement Foundation for their continued investment in our goal to help JA professional staff attend the National Leadership Conference. As you likely know, their latest investment is a new three-year, $15,000 per year challenge grant. Our challenge (and we’ve chosen to accept it!) is to raise the matching $15,000 for 2025, 2026, and 2027 – along with the funds necessary for our other work. That other work includes the Flemke Award, the Jim Sweeney Entrepreneurial Excellence Award, the JA Professional Staff Hall of Fame, our annual meeting, building the documentation of our history – and all the magic that happens behind the scenes.

We hope you’ll take a minute and let us know that you’ll make a contribution to continue our work during 2025-26 – by helping us match The Achievement Foundation Grant, investing in our operating funds – or both (if you can!).

First oral history in 20 years!

Sally Stamper, with the help of Hud Whitenight and Arlene Wanninger (at JA USA), has figured out how to use Zoom to record our oral histories – and how to have a common background!

Check out the first one completed. You can see Donna Buchanan being interviewed by Howard Bartner and learn so much about the days when women were just starting to work in leadership positions with JA.

If you are interested in helping with upcoming videos or helping us with the transcriptions of past audio discussions, please let us know at jastaffalumninetwork@gmail.com.

JASAN's first global investment

In June 2024, JASAN agreed to support the JA Worldwide Leader Exchange and Development (LEAD) Program. LEAD is designed to be a transformative experience, uniting JA leaders from diverse backgrounds, cultures, and regions to exchange ideas, learn from one another, and deepen our understanding of how we can make an even greater difference for the next generation of young people.

As part of this experience, each of these JA leaders will be paired with another participant in the

program. They will spend a week visiting each other’s operations, attend a regional gathering of JA

executives, and participate in the JA Worldwide Global Leadership Conference in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in November 2025. There, they will have the opportunity to meet and learn from their counterparts across the globe.

The first three pairs of JA associates have been selected. They are:

The 2025 LEAD Participants

You may remember that Sara Dziuk, the JA USA participant, was the Karl Flemke Achievement Award winner in July 2024.

Let's Welcome New Members!

Sharon Lents began her 30+ year career in October of 1990. She worked for 19 years in the Indianapolis JA office, where she held several positions starting as a part-time secretary for Applied Economics and concluding her time as Chief Operating Officer. During that time the Indy office expanded programming to include Exchange City and launched the first JA Finance Park. Sharon served on a task force and worked part-time with JA Worldwide to redevelop Exchange City and Enterprise Village into JA BizTown. In 2009, Sharon was hired by JA Worldwide as Director of Capstone Implementation and Support, assisting and supporting JA Area offices as they launched capstone programs locally. Her role expanded to include oversight of implementation, training and support for all JA programming. Sharon also served as strategy lead for development of K-12 learning experiences, as well as development and execution of annual and long-range strategic education goals and core capabilities to support JA products.

Since retirement in February of 2024, Sharon has been able to travel for fun -including visits to several national parks for hiking, visiting children and grandchildren, and exploring Scotland. She also spent time working on a few of her "someday" projects and learning new skills. There has been more time for reading, walking, the gym, outings with friends, and helping where she can.

Sharon looks forward to re-connecting and staying connected with JA friends and colleagues. Sharon shared, “JA was a huge part of my life for a long time, and I am blessed to know many wonderful people through the organization. I'm not certain yet what activities JASAN is involved in, but I look forward to learning more and welcome the chance to get involved!”

Sara Logar began her 23-year Junior Achievement career in Fort Wayne, Indiana as the JA Exchange City (now JA BizTown) Program Manager. Following the launch and success of JA Exchange City, she later helped start JA Finance Park in Fort Wayne. After five years, her husband Matt was relocated to Milwaukee, Wisconsin where she was hired by JA of Wisconsin to implement JA BizTown and JA Finance Park. Sara spent eight years in Wisconsin and grew her career to eventually become Vice President of Program Operations. In 2015, her family moved to Michigan, and she was able to continue her JA career through a wonderful JA USA opportunity, as Senior Director of Field Services Support on the Education team. In 2021, she was selected as MVP (Model of Values Professional) … a national JA award!

Currently Sara enjoys spending time with her children; volunteering in their schools, attending their various sports and activities. She also continues to work eight hours a week for JA USA.

Sara looks forward to staying connected with former colleagues through JASAN.