Past Events

Keys to the Future III

The Sun Prairie Education Foundation kicked off its Keys to the Future III, the annual fundraiser for the Foundation, on Oct. 14, 2010 at Angell Park Pavilion. Thanks to everyone for attending!

Click on the link for photos from the event :

Keys to the Future III photos

SPEF kicks off 'A Foundation Worth Building'

The culmination of roughly a year of planning occurred on Wednesday, April 28, when members of the Sun Prairie Education Foundation conducted the kick-off to A Foundation Worth Building in the new Sun Prairie High School.

Prospective donors heard from several important donors who have already committed to donating sums of money to the Sun Prairie Education Foundation in exchange for naming portions of the new school in their honor.

Both Glenn Fenske and Gene Schey attended a press-only preview that morning with then-SPEF President Randy Handel inside the new high schools Performing Arts Center and explained why they believed their gifts to the SPEF were so important.

The Fenske Family has pledged $50,000 to name one of the two courtyards at the new school, and Schey donated $50,000 to name the commons area at the new school the Schey Commons.

I think its something that we all look at and realize that our education and how we handle it are the most important things for all of us and for the future of our country, Schey said. We need only look around the world to see where there is not good education to see what the result of that is. And sometimes, we dont have to look around the world -- we dont have to look too far away in our own country to see where education is probably neglected, and therefore, we get the result that we have.

Schey said he talked with his wife, Dorothy, and they decided that anything they could do to aid education would be satisfying.

As Ive always felt, if we do something for someone else, that is really the satisfying part of life, Schey said. And I think thats why we feel the Foundation has a lot of dedicated people -- both from the school and from the community -- and any way we can help them, we feel thats best for everyone concerned.

It is an exciting day for us to go public with the [public] phase. We have been behind the scenes with our fund-raising, remarked Fenske, a past president of the Sun Prairie Education Foundation and one of its founding board members. He credited District Administrator Tim Culver with starting the Sun Prairie Education Foundation with the assistance of many community leaders.

This facility that we are going to have the naming rights in is something that will exemplify and further enforce the quality of education we have in the Sun Prairie Area School District . . . this will be the real shining star but we also have elementary, middle and upper middle schools, Fenske said. We are extremely pleased and the Fenske Family is so proud to be able to contribute to this.

The kick-off marked the public portion of the campaign to secure donations for the SPEF " a campaign which began with the planning stages of what to make available at the new high school for naming, and continued with discussions with and approval by the Sun Prairie School Board to dedicate naming in exchange for donations to the Sun Prairie Education Foundation.

The goal for the campaign is to try to raise support to fund grants to support the outstanding efforts of our teachers at the elementary, middle and high school level, Handel said. Our mission with the Sun Prairie Education Foundation is to provide extraordinary learning opportunities for students. We do a grant process to make all that happen.

This campaign -- A Foundation Worth Building -- is really designed to bring our endowment to a million dollars. If we could get to that a million dollars, wed be able to generate roughly $50,000 a year (in grants), Handel said.

Pending the school boards approval, we have some major gifts that are going to give us some momentum to hopefully have a very successful campaign, the SPEF president said. This campaign we hope will take us through the 2011 school year and at that time, we hope to achieve our goals.

Handel concluded the morning event by stressing the importance of the fund-raiser. From a timing perspective, its perfect. Weve got some traction in the community. People understand what were doing; theyve got a good blueprint to understand what were doing . . . what this campaign does is feeds off of and leverages just an unbelievable facility that we can put some naming rights to -- and accelerate our goal to get to a million dollars. We think that over the next two years with this new facility and with these opportunities, we can reach our goal.

And if we do that, we will have some unbelievable opportunities for children -- youre talking about distributing $50,000 a year into perpetuity, which right now, were distributing about $15,000 to $18,000 a year, so well almost be tripling what were doing and well be able to keep that going, Handel said. The timing is perfect and to not take advantage of such a facility would be a mistake on our part.

Kick-off event: Sinatra and more

The evening kick-off featured a performance by the Sun Prairie High School Jazz Ensemble as the first-ever performance in the schools new Performing Arts Center. International opera singer Kyle Ketelsen sang some Frank Sinatra songs with the ensemble, which concluded in a final jazz number without Ketelsen -- and received a standing ovation from those in attendance (to see portions of the performance, log on to sunprairiestar.com and scroll down to the Video Gallery to locate the video).

Handel said to date, roughly $240,000 has been pledged for the naming rights campaign -- including the Fenske and Schey gifts; a donation by Matt and Nancy Harms to name the scoring system in the new high school pool; pledges by Jim and Val Stiener and the Chase Family to name the new wrestling room; contributions by the Thompson and Simon families to name the new fitness room; a donation by Tim and Beth Mielcarek to name the scoreboards in the new fieldhouse; a donation by Ketelsen and his wife, Rebecca, to name a music rehearsal room; donations by Walter Kubly, the Handel family, Bill and Lorette Wambach and Ollie Berge to name classrooms; and the Sun Prairie Education Foundation -- just to name a classroom.

And after some of you tonight write checks . . . Handel said, getting a few chuckles from the crowd, were done! We can just eat dessert, have coffee and take tours and go home.

Besides Schey and emotional Fenske, Jim Stiener and Jenny Simon made remarks to the crowd of potential donors about their gifts and why they made them to the SPEF.

If I had known this was going to include public speaking . . . Simon said, getting some laughs from the audience. It was a tough decision with the economic times we have right now. But the biggest reason we decided to move forward with this is the ability to be able to spread the payments out for 10 years . . . and we want to be viewed as a leader in the fitness industry in this area.

And we do feel that instilling the habit of working out in young people is so very important, Simon said. We really want to be a part of that . . . and maybe some day, when they get a little older, theyll come knocking on our doors [at Prairie Athletic Club].

The other thing that happened is we took two tours of the high school and we were so very impressed with what we saw, and believe it is such a blessing for the businesses and the community that we really wanted to say thank you and give back, Simon said.

We feel it will bring people to town and it will bring more business. So to partner with the Sun Prairie Education Foundation, to be able to do that, sounded like a great idea to us, Simon said. Thank you.

Twenty-five years ago, I had the opportunity to come here because I fell in love with beautiful young woman back there. If you turn around, shes sitting right behind Val, Stiener said, getting some laughs from the audience. She told me not to do that, so I did it. Anyways, 25 years ago, I came here to meet Vals family for the very first time. And I knew two things about her dad, Dave Chase: One, that he was a colonel in the Army and that he owned a local business.

Well, right there " that was intimidating enough, but when I got off the highway onto Main Street, there was this huge sign for Chase Lumber. Im very proud to stand here 25 years later representing my wife of 20 years, Val; my brother-in-law Stu Chase -- whose wife was not able to be here tonight -- and my father-in-law and mother-in-law, Jan and Dave Chase.

This is a real special time for us, just because of the timing. Our son happened to finish his career here and I think theres been a Chase in the high school here since they first built it -- and Im sure some of the materials came from Chase Lumber, Stiener said. So were very proud to be a part of it. I think the towns and the city were ready for this. When we learned we were going to get one high school, we were very excited about it. Certainly the kids deserve it -- this is a state-of-the-art facility, second to none in the state of Wisconsin, and its right here in Sun Prairie.

And thats pretty special stuff, Stiener said. Were glad to be a part of it, glad to put our name on it and be a part of that legacy for the next generations to come. Thank you and enjoy the rest of your evening.

Gifts remaining

The following areas remain to be named in the new Sun Prairie High School. Gifts of $50,000 or more may be paid over 10 years; the amounts attached to each area are the amounts required to be pledged in order to secure the naming rights:

$250,000 each -- Performing Arts Center; Fieldhouse; Pool;

$100,000 each -- The IMC/Library.

$50,000 each -- Concession Stand; track; tennis courts.

$25,000 each -- Performing Arts Center lighting system; and girls or boys locker rooms. Courtyard II will be named for former SPHS Social Studies Teacher George Conom and be known as Conom Courtyard.

$10,000 each -- PAC sound system; and trophy case.

$5,000 each -- Pool bleachers.

$2,500 each -- One of 118 classrooms in the new school, or the music rehearsal rooms.

For more information about the naming rights campaign, log on to sunprairieeducationfoundation.org or call Ron Blawusch at (608) 837-4511.