Distinguished SRC Retiree Award Recipient Dr. Roland Pettit

​Roland Pettit was born in 1932 in a farmhouse near Wyoming, Illinois. After graduating from Wyoming Community High School in 1950, he attended the University of Illinois, with a stint in the United States Army, and obtained a Bachelor of Science in agriculture in 1956. He returned and completed his Master of Science in agriculture education in 1971, and later obtained his Doctor of Education from Nova Southeastern University.

He credits growing up on a farm and his involvement in agriculture organizations for leading him toward a career in agriculture education, which began in Granville and then Galena.

Roland helped to launch a new ag program at Galena, and, after a few years, went into the feed and fertilizer business. Roland was the President of Western Fertilizer in southern Wisconsin, but the classroom eventually called him back.

Despite opportunities at John Deere, he chose to come to Canton Community College in 1969. He helped to launch another fledgling agriculture education program, and again, it quickly felt like home. He made lifelong friendships and helped shape hundreds of lives before retiring in 1988.

Unfortunately, with professional success came personal tragedy. Roland and wife Bernice divorced in 1983, and he lost both sons — Dan in 1999 at age 30 and Tom in 2019 at 53. His longtime companion, Sally Pletz, passed away unexpectedly early in 2020. In a life full of experiences, he counts those as his most excruciating. But there were plenty of good experiences along the way, as well.

After retiring, Roland got a job with the Illinois Department of Agriculture’s Bureau of International Marketing, helping to find markets for exporting Illinois’ farm products and natural resources. He traveled frequently and specifically mentions Korea, Hong Kong, Japan, France, and Italy as memorable experiences.

Today, Roland remains in Canton, with plenty to keep him busy. He recently sold his rental properties but remains involved with SRC and in the community, including Wesley United Methodist Church, and he enjoys working around his home.

Distinguished Alumni Award Recipient Pamela Wilson

Pam Wilson has been connected to SRC for most of her life. Her father, Bill, taught at SRC for 25 years (and received the Distinguished Retiree Award in 2012). Her mother, Mary, has been a participant in many SRC events over the years. Her three siblings, Randy, Jeff, and Carol, are all SRC alumni. But she’s forged a path all her own, and, because of her accomplishments, she receives the SRC Alumni Association’s highest honor this evening.

Pam received her associate degree from SRC in 1977. She continued to Southern Illinois University at Carbondale for her bachelor’s degree in zoology (1979). She earned her master’s in Health Education in 1991 from the University of Texas at Austin, and she was recognized with an Honorary Doctorate in Community Health in 2019 from SIUC.

Her Honorary Doctorate was bestowed upon her for her devotion to protecting public health, especially through her work at Texas’ Department of State Health Services. She was part of the state’s Oral Rabies Vaccination Program, which eliminated the domestic dog/coyote and Texas fox rabies variants. Additionally, Pam’s research and subsequent peer-reviewed articles led to Texas and other states implementing post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) protocol for domestic animals who have been exposed to rabies.

Pam’s extraordinary career in veterinary science and health education has led to a number of accomplishments and honors, including (but not limited to): the H.E.A.L.T.H. Award from the Texas Department of Health (1998), The Humane Educator Award by the Texas Animal Control Association (2000), and the Veterinary Technician of the Year Award of Special Merit by the Texas Veterinary Medical Association (2002). She has provided language for Texas state laws pertaining to zoonotic diseases and has authored several books (including multiple children’s books) and many articles and professional publications.

She received SRC’s Alumni Achievement Award (2002) and presented SRC’s commencement address (2003), and she delivered SIU’s College of Science and College of Agricultural Sciences’ commencement address earlier this year. After working at an animal clinic for many years, she currently works in Zoonosis Control at the Texas Department of State Health Services in Austin, TX and is an adjunct instructor for Austin Community College in veterinary medical terminology.

Alumni Achievement Award Recipient Nancy Anderson

Nancy Anderson has danced for all of her life, and she owned her first dance studio at age 16 and flew to Chicago regularly to attend “Dance Masters” classes while a student at Farmington High School.

Upon Nancy’s graduation from Farmington in 1964, her brother, Carl Taylor, encouraged her to attend Canton Community College, praising the smaller class sizes and individual attention from the instructors.  She attended classes in the mornings and taught dance in the evenings.  She met her husband, Bill (who is inducted to the SRC Athletic Hall of Fame this evening as a member of the 1964 Baseball Team), while they were both students, and they were married in 1966.

In 1975, she returned to Spoon River College and earned a nursing degree.  She was a 4.0 student and received the “Nurse of the Year” award, while continuing to run her dance studio and while raising two daughters.  She also was chosen as part of a group to represent Canton in a national television show, Almost Anything Goes.  A display dedicated to this event can be found at the Canton Heritage Center Museum.

In 1983, Nancy, Bill, and their family moved to Urbana, OH.  There, she opened the Nancy Anderson Dance Studio in 1994, where Miss Nancy and her team continue to provide tap, ballet and tumbling classes to students ages 4 and up.

Nancy is a certified Dance Masters of America Teacher, a member of the National Dance Association and The American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, and Recreation and Dance, and is a Certified Aerobics Instructor.  She has choreographed for the Fulton County Playhouse, the Canton Friendship Festival pageant, and for plays at Urbana High School for over 20 years.  She teaches a group of Senior Tappers in Urbana as a community service, and they won first place at Nationals in Florida.

She enjoys traveling with Carl and his wife Pat and spending time with Bill, and their daughters Jessica and Lezlee and their five grandchildren.

Alumni Achievement Award Recipient Klinton Briney

​Klint Briney is a Lewistown native and grew up on a working grain and livestock farm.  He launched first business at age 10 — a web design business, which he credits with helping to develop the passion that led to his career today in sports and entertainment marketing and public relations.

While a student at Lewistown Community High School, Klint began his college career by taking dual credit classes at SRC.  He also worked on the farm and at Dairy Queen and kept up his web design business.  He credits SRC with allowing him to plug in his education when he had the time to do so.

He then attended Butler University, studying business marketing, sports entertainment, and public relations, graduating in 2006 with a bachelor’s degree.  While at Butler, he undertook several internships, including one at MTV in New York City, that he believes were integral in helping to learn who he was, both personally and professionally.  He says he would not have been able to undertake that daunting of a schedule had he not had the ability to earn 26 credit hours from SRC before stepping foot on Butler’s campus.

Klint has worked for now-retired Indy 500 driver Sarah Fisher and NASCAR.  In 2010, he founded his own Los Angeles-based company, BRANDed Management, a sports/entertainment marketing and public relations agency.  He represents celebrities and athletes and teaches them how to handle media, secures sponsorship and endorsement deals, and manages some of the biggest events in the entertainment and sports industries.  He has developed brands for athletes, celebrities, and corporations, including some of the biggest names in sports and entertainment, and has helped to plan events and promotions associated with The Today Show, Susan G. Komen for the Cure, the Indy 500, The White House, and the Super Bowl.

He has published three books and has been featured and quoted in many media outlets, and he was a finalist for the 2012 White House Empact100 List of “The Top Entrepreneurs Under 30.”

Now 37, Klint lives in Los Angeles with Natalie, his wife of five years, and enjoys playing basketball, football, and volleyball, and he considers himself to be a fitness enthusiast.

Alumni Achievement Award Recipient Scott Brown

Scott Brown is a Canton native, a 2003 graduate of Canton High School, and one of four children of Marty and Kim Brown, though there were many other kids around as their family was a foster family while he was growing up.

He attended Spoon River College because it kept him closer to home.  Though he loved computers from a very young age, Scott credits a dual credit class taken at SRC with helping to fuel his interest in technology and with ultimately leading to his career. TimBukTech, a technology consulting firm that Scott officially founded in 2004, when he was just 19 years old, and for which Scott serves as owner and President, is the proof of that excitement for his work.

In September 2004, Scott opened a location in Macomb.  In 2005, he opened his first storefront location in Canton.  By 2009, TimbukTech had moved to its current location on Randolph Street in Macomb, and by 2014, it had moved to a larger location on East Chestnut in Canton.  In 2016, TimbukTech expanded to Washington, its third location, and the company now has nearly 20 employees and is continuing to expand.

TimbukTech has become a leader in the business technology sector in central Illinois, specializing in network security, risk assessment and management, computer repair and installation, and other information technology service and guidance to small businesses in small towns.

Along with his technological knowledge, it was the combination of his appreciation for his hometown and his desire to help his community that led him to contact Chris Helle, Director of Fulton County ESDA.  A high-profile search for a missing person in Fulton County in August 2020 triggered Scott to ask how he could help.  Ultimately, Scott purchased and donated a drone, equipped with thermal imaging, which is used in Fulton County on a regular basis and has even been used in counties across the region in emergency situations.

In 2021, Scott was recognized for his professional efforts, the growth of TimbukTech, and his service to the community by being named the Canton Area Chamber of Commerce’s Business Person of the Year.  The award not only recognizes growth in the business, but integrity and ethics in business dealings and a sense of civic responsibility and leadership.

Alumni Achievement Award Recipient Brian Fengel

A native of Canton and a 1983 graduate of Canton High School, Brian Fengel came to SRC with the intention of being a welder.  Brian attended SRC at various times from the fall 1982 to spring 1987 semesters, and took a variety of courses, but he earned that welding certificate in December 1985.

Brian turned to law enforcement after a family member fell victim to a scam and completed an internship with the Canton Police Department through SRC, which fueled his passion for law enforcement.  He joined the Bartonville Police Department in January 1990, and he became Chief of Police in 1998.

He is a 2001 graduate of the FBI National Academy and also graduated from the Northwestern University Executive Management Program.  During his tenure as Chief, he served on the Illinois Silver Search Task Force, AMBER Alert Task Force, and Elder Abuse Task Force, and he worked the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.  He established the Bartonville Police Explorer program, and also established the Bartonville Safety of Seniors Program.

Chief Fengel retired in 2019, after 29 years in law enforcement, to become the Director/Coordinator of the Central Illinois Police Training Center, located at Illinois Central College in East Peoria.  In this role, Brian coordinates training efforts for over 50 law enforcement agencies across the area.  He has also taught as an Adjunct Professor in criminal justice and criminal investigation at ICC for nearly 20 years.

In June 2014, he was elected the 4th Vice President for the Illinois Association of Chiefs of Police Board of Directors and is a member of the International Association of Chiefs of Police. He serves and has served on many boards, and Chief Fengel also serves as a member of the Public Safety Officer Medal of Valor Review Board, which operates under the United States Department of Justice, thanks to an appointment from the United States Congress in January 2015.

Chief Fengel has also served as a member of the Illinois State Law Enforcement Medal of Honors Committee. Chief Fengel was awarded the State of Illinois’ Elderly Service Officer of the Year award, sponsored and presented by the Illinois Attorney General’s Office, in October 2012.

Brian is a life-long resident of Central Illinois, originally from Canton but a resident of Peoria County for the last three decades.  Locally, he remains involved in Kiwanis, Shriners, Lions Club, and other community service agencies.  He and his wife, Tanya, have two children, Emily and Blake, an SRC alumnus himself and a member of the Snapper baseball team.

Alumni Achievement Award Recipient Chris Helle

Chris Helle, a native of Farmington, currently serves as Fulton County’s Emergency Services and Disaster Agency (ESDA) Director and 911/Emergency Telephone Coordinator.  After graduating from Farmington Community High School in 1997, Chris immediately became a full-time student at SRC. When he earned his Associate Degree at SRC in the summer of 1999, his intention was to pursue a career in criminal justice.

Instead, he went into the family sawmill business, Sawmill Hydraulics, and was key to helping the business grow into a national brand.  He was named the 2010 Small Business Exporter of the Year for his efforts.

At the same time, Chris was beginning to develop a passion for public service.  He first served as the Emergency Services Director in Farmington, his hometown.  In that capacity, he helped build Farmington’s efforts into a top-notch program.  Chris was recognized by the Governor of Florida and by FEMA for his role of providing support in the aftermath of the 2004 hurricane.  He was also recognized for those efforts by the Fulton County Board and was appointed as director of the county’s ESDA.  Chris serves on the Illinois Search and Rescue Advance Team. He was recognized as 2004 Volunteer of the Year in Emergency Management and as 2013 Neighborhood Hero.

Under his leadership, Fulton County ESDA has become the premier Emergency Services Agency in Illinois.  This volunteer-dependent agency is highly trained and has evolved from a group of trained storm spotters into a group that can support and command full-fledged disaster recoveries. Chris has written and received multiple grants for the county, and local governments and agencies. His leadership has also organized and unified all the local first responder agencies, allowing them to utilize each other’s expertise.  Through social media, Chris has built a large following through his accurate and comprehensive weather and disaster notifications; though, he humorously acknowledges the role that family/agency cat Trash Panda has played.

In his role as ETSB Coordinator, he has overseen a remap of the county, the process of renaming roads, adding addresses to parcels that never had them, and building a communication network that keeps Fulton County residents safe.

Chris and his wife, Stacey, have two teenaged children, Maddie and Ryan, and continue to live in Farmington.

Alumni Achievement Award Recipient Lindsey Larson

As an enthusiastic teacher, a talented performer, a committed social activist, and a dedicated mother of triplets, Lindsey Larson demonstrates exemplary abilities to lead and organize with fervor, to tackle challenges with courage, and to act on behalf of others with infectious zeal, despite not yet reaching the age of 40.

She served as Drum Major for the Canton High School Marching Band, performed in numerous plays, musicals, and Madrigals, reached the IHSA State Speech Competition in Poetry, and earned First Princess in the Friendship Festival Queen competition.  High School is also where Lindsey became an alumnus of Spoon River College, as a Dual Credit student.

As a teenager, Lindsey also volunteered at KARE, where kids and adults with special needs enjoy joint activities in social settings. Her rewarding work at KARE led Lindsey to Northern Illinois University right after high school where she earned a degree in special education. After graduation, Lindsey began teaching in DeKalb. While there, she also continued performing in local theatre. She met her future husband, Josh, and they moved to Washington after getting married.  She taught special education, participated in shows, and earned her master’s degree from Xavier University.

They decided to start a family and learned, while participating in an SRC Community Chorus production, that they would become parents of triplets — Hannah, Gwendolyn, and Elliot.  They moved back to Canton within a few years.

Chad Murphy, Director of the SRC Adult Education program, encouraged Lindsey to consider Spoon River College as her next career move and she accepted a position as GED instructor in 2019.

Today Lindsey serves on the board and teaches at The Breathing Tree Yoga Studio on the Square in Canton.  She fits in SRC Community Chorus performances around her children’s schedules. She organizes the local Live Life Full fundraisers, which has raised tens of thousands of dollars for the Foundation for Prader-Willi Research.

She credits her background in special education with being her primer for advocating for her own special needs child, life as a GED instructor, and life as a community member who works to help lift others up and realize their own potential.

Athletic Hall of Fame Inductees: 1964 Canton Community College Baseball Team

The Canton Community College/Spoon River College Alumni Association inducted members of the 1964 Canton Community College baseball team into Athletic Hall of Fame during the annual Alumni Association Awards Reception held November 6 at the Canton Campus.

Team members are Bill Anderson, Chuck Bentley, John Doolan (deceased), Mike Frisch (deceased), Ron George (deceased), Ed Hoffman, Carroll Herman (deceased), Dick Kautz (deceased), Jack Meyer, Jasper “Jay” Parrish (deceased), Rich Prosser, Paul Swiger, Ken Walker, Ed Warner, Randy Welch. Coach Harry Smith (deceased) and Manage Lee Baker.

The team was the 1964 NJCAA Region IV Champions and NJCAA Illinois State Champions

After a solid regular season, the 1964 Canton Community College men’s baseball team got hot at the right time and won the NJCAA Region IV Championship en route to being the NJCAA State Champions of Illinois. No CCC or SRC baseball team has ever advanced further into postseason play.

The team scored convincing wins in the playoffs over Black Hawk, Morton, and Belleville (now Southwestern Illinois College), allowing just five runs in the three victories. This advanced them to the Section Championship, where they won the first game against Ellsworth Community College (Iowa Falls, IA). Unfortunately, they dropped games two and three to end their season one game short of the NJCAA World Series in Grand Junction, CO — an eight-team tournament to crown the National Champion. Coach Harry Smith’s Crusaders ended the season with a record of 13-8.

Alonza Bradley: October Student Shout-Out Recipient

Alonza Bradley of Fiatt was the recipient of the Student Shout-Out for October at Spoon River College, and will receive a $100 Visa gift card. Bradley was recognized for “being an exemplary student who embodies the core values of SRC: caring, respect, integrity, fairness, and responsibility.”

“Alonza is unfailing supportive and respectful of his peers, and I admire his humanity — he is a deeply kind and empathetic person,” said English professor Laura Bandy. “I also appreciate his creativity and grit — he has a talent and passion for writing, but without follow through, that talent would go to waste. Alonza always follows through, spending time with his writerly endeavors every day and routinely seeking out ways to become stronger with his craft. I am a big fan of Alonza Bradley and am glad that he has chosen Spoon River College as an academic home.”

Bradley plays on the Spoon River College E-sports team and is a member of Phi Theta Kappa. He will graduate in the spring of 2022, and plans to transfer to Brigham Young University with aspirations of becoming an English professor.

The Student Shout-Out is an initiative that encourages any faculty or employee to nominate a student who deserves a special shout-out. “The reason can be big or small, but the important thing is that we hear about the positive and helpful things our students are doing,” said Abby Beck, TRIO advisor on the Macomb Campus.