Betty LeClere, owner of Betty’s Flowers & Gifts, 9138 Broadway Ave. in Brookfield, was given special recognition in December by the Brookfield Village Board for her more than 20 years as a local business owner and her involvement in the community.
After Village President Michael Garvey announced the honor at the board’s Dec. 12 meeting, Assistant Village Manager Stevie Ferrari presented LeClere with an original painting by a local artist of the Broadway Avenue streetscape with Betty’s Flowers as its focus.
Garvey also read a proclamation designating the 9100 block of Broadway Avenue as Honorary Betty LeClere Avenue.
Welcome aboard
Disparti Law Group in December announced that Brookfield resident Jason Baumann, a veteran marketing and communications professional, had joined the firm as its new director of marketing and communications.
Baumann previously operated Boxless Media, a boutique marketing agency, in Brookfield and has managed communications for municipalities, political campaigns and businesses.
Disparti Law Group, headquartered in Chicago, specializes in disability, workers’ compensation and employment law.
Appointed
Late last year former Riverside Police Chief Thomas Weitzel was appointed by Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker as a law enforcement agency representative to the Domestic Violence (Colton’s) Task Force, formed to review the enforcement of domestic violence laws across the state, identify gaps and recommend ways to close them to establish protective networks for victims, treatment options and more.
Weitzel already serves on the state’s Domestic Violence Fatality Review Commission.
On campus
Riverside-Brookfield High School student and North Riverside resident Max Kowal was one of 70 Chicago area high school seniors recently awarded the Western Golf Association’s Chick Evans Scholarship, a full, four-year housing and tuition scholarship offered to golf caddies.
Selection is based on criteria including a strong caddie record, excellent academics, demonstrated financial need and outstanding character. Kowal is a caddie at the Riverside Golf Club in North Riverside.
Victor Janusz, of Brookfield, was named to the 2022 fall semester president’s list at Southern New Hampshire University for attaining a semester grade-point average of at least 3.7 on a 4-point scale.
Brookfield resident Zachary McLean, a freshman engineering student, was named to the 2022 fall semester dean’s list at the University of Missouri.
Among the more than 1,800 students named to the 2022 fall semester dean’s list at Bradley University in Peoria were Brookfield resident Alec Baltazar (mechanical engineering) and Riverside residents Victor Tierrafria-Marte (MIS cybersecurity) and Nathan Hutchings (business exploration).
Louie Marcou, of Riverside, was named to the 2022 fall semester dean’s list at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater by receiving a semester GPA of at least 3.4.
North Riverside resident Mia Giurini, who is majoring in exercise science, was named to the 2022 fall semester president’s list at Trine University in Angola, Indiana, for attaining a semester GPA of at least 3.75.
Riverside resident Anthony Perry (computer science) was named to the 2022 fall quarter honors list and Riverside resident Luka Malovic (software engineering) and Brookfield resident Clayton Stewart (mechanical engineering) were named to the 2022 fall quarter dean’s list at the Milwaukee School of Engineering for attaining a cumulative GPA of at least 3.2.
Gianina Montoro, of North Riverside, was one of 28 juniors and seniors at Nazareth Academy in LaGrange Park chosen to represent the school at the Young Changemakers (YC2) program, sponsored by the Community Memorial Foundation and designed to educate and empower local youths to become the next generation of philanthropists.
