Before We Met

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Bob and Alice decided it was important they invest Alice's time into being a stay-at-home mom. Bob taught Ivy-Tech night classes to make up part of the lost income.  Julie arrived in July 1978.  Once Alice realized two cups of morning coffee wasn't good for a breastfeeding baby, life was calmer.  They took Julie everywhere including the League of Women Voters' meetings, church, the library and lots of garage sales.

With Scott's birth in 1982 the activity level never slowed.  In 1988 we moved to a neighborhood with lots of kids and quiet streets.  It was a great place to ride bikes. Julie organized a sisters' club and made a life-long friend next door.  Scott’s friends congregated in our yard and explored our woods and ravine.

In her spare time Alice sold Avon Products for five years and achieved President's Club five years and Honor Society two years of the five.

Bob taught the first programming class at BHS. Initially his classes included high school students and teachers who would then teach programming classes. 

As others taught basic classes, Bob expanded the tech curriculum and developed a program so each building had a Computer Technology Leader. Each year a different teacher applied to be a CTL.  They were loaned computer equipment in return for leading workshops and working directly with teachers in their individual buildings.  Bob also added two teacher trainers to serve as a vital part of the technology team.  Bob was blessed to have the support and input of the Supt., the Asst. Supt, the Business Mgr, and the Facilities Dir. allowing rapid technology growth and leadership across the curriculum and all the facilities.  

In 28 years, Bob went from three Tandy Radio Shack Model III computers and two, fourteen station connected CBM 8032 computer labs to over 5000 computers administered by an outstanding tech team, pictured above.   Every student in the Brownsburg Senior Academy had a laptop in 2008 and every student in the corporation was being taught to use computers.  Bob retired in 2010.

Alice was hired by Shank Public Relations Counselors (SPRC) in 1990.  There she learned to use state-of-art technology to raise awareness for their business and nonprofit clients. Event management, strategic planning, writing and media relations were areas she especially enjoyed.

She organized grand openings for Home Depot, Dick’s Sporting Goods and a variety of food samplings at the Indiana State Fair for several summers. 

During her 14 years at SPRC she developed the company’s internship program and supervised over 20 college interns. In 2003 Alice served as the president of the Hoosier Chapter of the Public Relations Society of America.

From 1999-2004 Alice’s largest client was Americans for Balanced Energy Choices. She was tasked with generating positive media for the use of coal to generate electricity in Indiana. This was done primarily with live client talk-show interviews and a wide variety of letters to the editor authored by well-known Indiana opinion leaders. 

Alice became the community relations administrator at Indianapolis Power & Light (IPL) in January 2005. Her responsibilities were in three areas—the media team, coordinated the community volunteer program and developed a program to make presentations to schools, civic groups, representing IPL at as many neighborhood festivals and events as possible. This included the creation of light-weight portable displays, giveaways and brochures that highlighted IPL’s commitment to the environment, safety and its customers.

She helped reestablish the summer intern program, advised senior leaders on nonprofit board service and personally represented IPL on the boards of the Indianapolis Public School Education Foundation, Teachers’ Treasures, United Ways’ Corporate Volunteers Council and the Hendricks County Community Foundation. 

Bob - Into the digital age 

*Calculators replace slide rules  

*First micro computers in classrooms

*First mini-computer for business

*Building and introducing electronic photogates into physics labs and developing software programs for data analysis

 *Telephony systems replace analog phones and intercoms.  

*Video distribution for all schools.  Broadcast and receive video from any classroom

*Internet access to all locations

*FIrst BCSC TV station to be broadcast out to the community on commercial cable

*BCSC connected by its own private fiber network

*Security system for corporation monitoring and facility control 

*Student access of grades and records from home

*Distance learning by video connecting to remote classrooms and remote speakers

*First Challenger Learning Center in a school in central Indiana

*1-1 student/laptop ratio for Sr. Academy

 Alice – Into the digital age 

*During the 1970s she used recorded television news programing to help teach current events and US government, typing her tests and lessons on an IBM Selectric. 

*While at home during the 1980s she attempted to keep up with the technology Bob brought home to share with the kids, and quickly realized they were born into the digital age and she was an immigrant in a foreign land.

*When lobbying for the League of Women Voters she purchased printed copies of proposed laws at the state capitol from Legislative Services.

*When she returned to work in 1990, she was assigned a desktop computer with word processing, spreadsheets, databases, and a fax machine.

*Then came email, Windows, websites, PDAs, cell phones, media pagers and Blackberries.