Founders Day
On Monday January 23rd, Moeller High School welcomed this year’s Founder’s Day honorees and their families to celebrate each winner’s accomplishments.
The Founder’s award acknowledges a person who exhibits a continuous commitment to values in education by promoting the dignity and rights of all people, accepting others with love and respect, being dedicated to a collaborative and honest search for truth, undertaking the intellectual life as a form of service in the interest of justice and truth, and exhibiting the Marianist traits of openness, hospitality, graciousness, and faith in a loving God.
Mr. Joebgen, a member of the Founder’s Day award committee, explained what qualities nominees must have to receive this award.
Founders Day mass honoree: Derek Williams
First, recipients must be nominated; the nomination form closely follows the criteria laid out above. Nominations help the committee to understand what makes someone deserving of this recognition. Primarily the committee is looking for people who have made a remarkable contribution to our students’ relationship with Christ by exemplifying the characteristics of a Marianist education.
Pete and Claudia Kimener were the first to receive this award on Monday after mass. Pete and Claudia’s son, Joe, Class of ’03, was awarded the Basketball Man of Moeller award. Coach Carl Kremer who has a great connection with the family had nothing but positive words about why Pete and Claudia were the perfect fit for the award.
The second recipient of this award was Kevin Wood. Mr. Joebgen, who is great friends with Mr. Wood, explained why Wood exemplifies all the qualities for this award, saying, “Kevin sort of created a vocation within a job. It could have been easy for him to just do the basic necessities of the job, but he was excited to work here because he could gain something greater from it. He did not just choose to participate, he chose to lead.”
One of Mr. Joebgen’s favorite things about Wood is that everything he has taken action on has come from an idea of “How cool it would be for the students.” Mr. Joebgen continued, saying “[Wood] would come up to me and say, ‘If we could do this or imagine how much the students would love this”’ He could picture this vision in his mind and then share it with others so they could picture it also. It became a reality and positively impacted everyone involved.”
The third and final winner of the Founder’s award was our very own Mr. Derek Williams. Mr. Joebgen also reflected on Mr. Williams’s nomination and win. We asked Mr. Joebgen what separated Mr. Williams from all the other great faculty and staff, and he simply smiled and replied, “What makes him stand out from all the other people who deserve the award is that the way he approaches his work is personal to him. When Mr. Derek looks at students, he sees himself 32 years ago. I think Derek wants to be the person that other people were for him when he was a student here. More importantly, he will do whatever whenever to help any student.”
All of these fine men and women who won this Founder’s award exemplify on a day-to-day basis how to live a Marinist life, and more importantly, put the needs of other people in front of their own.