SCN recognizes 2024 award winners

by Agnes Geiger, Patrice Johnson and Mary Jo David

In 2020, the Stockbridge Community News introduced two annual awards—the Award of Excellence and the Readership Award. Both awards honor dedicated people who make essential contributions to our newspaper and its mission to promote the common good of residents through publication of local news and useful community information.

Award of Excellence Winner: Rachel Sweet

As an acknowledgment of her fine work and dedication, Rachel Sweet has been recognized with the Stockbridge Community News annual Award of Excellence for 2024.

The award was created in 2020 to recognize SCN’s unsung heroes. These are the people who may work in the background with little recognition, but they play a critical role in making SCN a quality publication for the community.

Sweet began her involvement with SCN after kindly listening to her mother-in-law, SCN Treasurer Judy Williams, explain about how much time it was taking to do the invoicing.

“Being a sweet daughter-in-law, Rachel offered to help out, even though, living in Lake Orion, she knew little about the community,” Williams recalls.

This moment of weakness was seven years ago. Sweet has been on the job ever since. She is a member of SCN’s Support Team, working in billing.

Each month, Sweet receives a list of advertisers who need to be billed for ads in the previous month’s edition of SCN. Based on that list, she creates and distributes each invoice to the appropriate business or individual. She’s also responsible for sending out late notices. The work is time-consuming and demands accuracy and attention to detail.

Joan Tucker, president of the SCN board of directors, knows Sweet is a valued member of the newspaper’s team.

“Rachel is solid,” Tucker said. “She has done her job well for the past seven years and we can always count on her month after month.”

Sweet grew up in Monroe and attended Monroe High School. She later earned a bachelor’s in mathematics education from the University of Toledo. Recently, she earned an associate degree in business from Oakland Community College.

Sweet currently is employed as the administrative assistant to the vice rector of Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit. She’s also active in her parish.

She has been married for 23 years to Williams’ oldest son, John Sweet. They have two sons, Gregory and Jake, both college students.

Williams finds it remarkable that Sweet has continued to find time for her SCN duties throughout the years, considering family and other work responsibilities. She also feels very fortunate to have a great assistant in such a crucial role.

“Rachel has been my lifeline,” Williams said. “She is always willing to make any last-minute adjustments and changes. I don’t know what I would do without her help.”

Readership Award Winner: Kelsey Rasmussen

Just over one year ago, Kelsey Rasmussen, along with fellow teacher Amanda Mathews, recognized a need and approached the editors at Stockbridge Community News with a proposal for a new Positive Parenting column. Since launching the column in December 2023, Rasmussen has held primary responsibility for overseeing the column, including identifying guest columnists, managing submissions, and regularly submitting her own column entries.

For her professionalism, management and strong writing skills, Rasmussen is being recognized as SCN’s 2024 Readership Award winner.

For over a year, Rasmussen has ensured SCN’s Positive Parenting content fills what had previously been a void in subjects directed at younger adults, and specifically parents in the community.

Guided by the goals outlined in the original proposal, she has sought out guest contributors who can write on topics for educating parents of local children—from toddlers through school age—improving the enjoyment they derive from parenting, and helping to increase youngsters’ socio-emotional and cognitive development.

As an educator, Rasmussen, who is a native of Michigan, is nationally certified to teach chemistry and holds two masters degrees: an M.S. in Geo Sciences from the University of Michigan and an M.A. in Education from the University of Pennsylvania.
In her time spent in Pennsylvania, Colorado, and in Stockbridge, she has taught high school science, math, physics, chemistry and advanced placement computer science.

While at UM, Rasmussen received a prestigious Knowles Science Teaching Foundation (KSTF) grant, awarded each year to about 30 math and science university students across the nation. KSTF fosters the professional development of “teachers who are collaborative, innovative leaders,” and focuses on making positive educational change.

Today, she is a fellow with KSTF, and educational journals have published her research.

During her time teaching in Longmont, Colorado, Rasmussen’s robotics team won national recognition, and she led the development of the school’s STEM program, helping to found the successful Girls Who Code group to attract young women to the computer sciences.

Kelsey and husband Eric are residents of Stockbridge and full-time parents of preschool-aged twins.

“Through the effort she puts into finding knowledgeable contributors for the Positive Parenting column and the topics they write about, it’s clear to me Kelsey has found a way to apply her extensive science and research skills to the art of parenting,” said Mary Jo David, SCN’s editor-in-chief.

Considering most parents have had little-to-no parenting training when their first child comes along, the content presented by Rasmussen and her fellow Positive Parenting columnists has been a welcome addition to readers of the Stockbridge Community News.