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Owens Inaugural Alumni Hall of Fame Class Featured at Creative Expressions Arts Fundraising Event

The community is invited to join Owens Community College alumni, faculty and staff for a special evening celebrating 20 years of the arts as well as the college’s inaugural Alumni Hall of Fame class at 5:30 p.m. Saturday, April 20 at the Center for Fine and Performing Arts.

Creative Expressions, the annual arts fundraiser, supports the endowed Artistic Award Funds for students pursuing a career in the Fine and Performing Arts. The 2023-2024 academic year marks 20 years since the Center for Fine and Performing Arts opened in August 2003 for the 2003-2004 academic year.

Sponsored by the Owens Community College Foundation, the Alumni Hall of Fame awards will be presented to outstanding Owens alumni who have excelled personally and professionally, making a continued and significant difference in their community on a local, state, national or international level. The Alumni Hall of Fame class includes:

• David W. Seeger, Ed.D., a 1980 marketing and sales graduate who was the president and CEO of Great Lakes Credit Union, Inc. for 27 years. He is an adjunct faculty member at Owens.
• Melanie L. Dunn, a 2011 commercial art graduate who works at Madhouse, one of the leading advertising agencies in Toledo. She also owns her own freelance design agency, Cuttlefish Graphics.
• Glenn E. Houck Jr., a 2004 radiography graduate who is the director of radiology clinical operations at Michigan Health. He is a U.S. Army veteran.
• Lesa M. Swimmer, a 1996 associate of arts graduate who started on campus as a student worker and tutor and 30 years later remains at Owens as a highly-respected instructor teaching math, biology, chemistry and physical sciences.
• Sarah R. Heldmann, a 2014 occupational therapy assistant graduate who works at Wood County Board of Developmental Disabilities while serving in local, state and national leadership positions related to her work as an occupational therapy assistant.

Complete bios of the inaugural Alumni Hall of Fame class are available at owens.edu/alumni/awards.

Beginning at 5:30 p.m., the semi-formal event includes dinner and artwork auction as well as the Alumni Hall of Fame presentation before concluding with the student theatre production of “Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812.”

Renowned artist Ray King of Philadelphia, who created and installed the “Owens Rings” sculpture hanging in the Center for Fine and Performing Arts Rotunda for the August 2003 opening, is scheduled to attend.

Tickets, priced at $150 per couple and $100 for an individual ticket, include a commemorative gift, an individualized, handcrafted art piece of glass from the Toledo Museum of Art inspired by the “Owens Rings.”

Tickets are available online at www.owens.edu/fpa/giving. Seating is limited.