Silver Bow Kiwanis Kiwanis Club Meeting, Jul 22, '14

12:00-1:00 Tuesday, July 22, 2014

Today we were joined by Michaela from the Montana Tech Circle K.

Dave gave us an update from the International Convention earlier this month in Japan. The Taiwan district has pledged $7 million toward the EliMiNaTe project. In more local news, the Helena club has become a model club and the Dillon club is expected to announce in the next few days. This puts the EliMiNaTe project over $61 million so far in pledges!

Mark then introduced Dean, the president of the butte chapter of the Montana Tech Alumni Association.

Dean let us know that the Alumni Association supports Digger Athletics through a number of scholarships, as well as helping other students. The Alumni Association provides food for studying students during finals when students may not have time to get home for meals between tests and study sessions.

The Alumni Association has also started scheduling and conducting events for December graduating seniors. Previously graduates who completed their degrees in December could either come back at the end of the school year (which may be logistically difficult) or didn't have any form of graduation ceremony or public recognition.

The Alumni Association also sponsors Reunion Week, inviting past Tech graduates to come back and see the campus and greet the graduating class. This year there were graduates from as early as 1944 and as recent as 1989.

The Montana Tech Alumni Association has been working in recent years to develop local chapters to help organize alumni and help with reunion and recruiting events. The newest chapter is the Butte, Montana chapter which is just forming. The Butte chapter will be the 11th chapter of the alumni association.

Dean then introduced Peggy, the Executive Director of the Montana Tech Alumni Association. Peggy is the first executive director of the association. Before her tenure, the Alumni Association did not have and executive position.

There are currently over 12,000 members of the Alumni Association, 6,300 of whom graduated since 1999. The Alumni Association is clearly growing quickly. Because of a large endowment a late member made in his will, membership in the Alumni Association is now free. All graduates of Montana Tech and all students who successfully completed a full year at Montana Tech or Highlands College (or any of their previous incarnations) are members of the Montana Tech Alumni Association.

The Alumni Association provides many scholarships for a variety of students, with criteria varying from hometown or home county, high school grades, financial need, or standardized test scores. Peggy encouraged anyone who is applying for enrollment at Montana Tech to apply on-line for scholarships. Once you apply, they try to fit you to the scholarships that you will qualify for. She also let us know that students should re-apply each year. Some scholarships are only available to students meeting certain requirements at tech, from grades to curriculum studied, to year in school.

Presentation

Peggy McCoy and Dean Bentley, Tech Alumni Association

Menu

Open Face Turkey Dinner

Attendees

20

Event Updated

10:22 Tuesday, July 22, 2014