JoAnne Kosey, weekly columnist for the Riverside-Brookfield Landmark, has been named 2008 Person of the Year by the Riverside Township Lions Club and Riverside Township Chamber of Commerce.
A lifelong Riverside resident and tireless community volunteer, Kosey will be formally honored at the Riverside Day golf outing and dinner scheduled for Aug. 27. Riverside Day is co-sponsored by the Lions and Chamber of Commerce. The golf outing will be held at the Oakbrook Golf Course, 2620 York Road in Oakbrook in the morning. The dinner will be held at the Riverside Golf Club, 2520 Desplaines Ave. in North Riverside.
Kosey is the latest in a long list of community leaders who have been honored with the Person of the Year Award. Last year’s recipient was Village President Harold J. Wiaduck Jr.
“Looking at the list of people who have been named Person of the year, to be added to that list is an honor,” Kosey said.
Dave Moravecek, president of the Riverside Chamber of Commerce, announced the award at the annual chamber steak fry in downtown Riverside on June 20. However Kosey had been notified of the award by chamber representative Brian Brennan on April 30.
“I just looked at him and said, ‘I can’t believe this,'” Kosey said. “Believe it or not, I was speechless for a few minutes.”
Kosey has served both as an elected and appointed official in Riverside, and has volunteered since the 1970s in church, school, fraternal and charitable organizations.
“She’s been active for 30, 40 years with St. Mary’s, various councils and boards and at the high school,” said Moravecek. “The culmination of that is what brought us to this point. Some people are active for a few years. With JoAnne, it’s been consistent for a long time.”
She served two terms on the Board of Education at Riverside-Brookfield High School and as a commissioner on both the Riverside Economic Development Commission and Historical Commission.
In addition, she served as a representative to the Des Plaines River Basin Steering Committee, on the executive committee of the Riverside centennial celebration and co-chair of the 125th anniversary celebration.
She was also instrumental in the establishment of the Riverside farmers’ market, which ran for two years in the 1990s, and formed the village committee for the Fourth of July celebration.
At St. Mary Parish, she was a member of the Pastoral Council, an officer in the parish’s Council of Catholic Women, taught religious education, co-wrote the parish’s mission statement and helped establish the school’s alumni group.
For a time, Kosey was also president of the Riverside Junior Woman’s Charity and was also a softball coach for Riverside Little League.
Kosey has also been active as a volunteer at Riverside schools, serving as a board member of the PTAs at Blythe Park and Hauser Junior High schools. At RB High School, she served as treasurer of the Booster Club and president of the Patrons Council and currently serves as president of the Riverside Brookfield Educational Foundation and as a member of the Alumni Achievement Committee, which elects alumni to the school’s Hall of Fame.
A graduate of St. Mary School, Nazareth Academy and Marymount College, she has been married for 43 years to Joe Kosey and has two children and four grandchildren.