For most students, Academic Awards Night is a time to honor their academic success throughout the year. Though, many students are not aware that the spotlight is also shared with the Wall of Honor recipient.
The process of selecting an honoree requires a group of faculty members at the high school, along with a few members of the community to bring choose from a pool of submissions.
There are several different categories that the candidate must satisfy in order to be chosen: academic excellence, outstanding success in their career, significant contribution to the community or society, demonstrated significant accomplishments in business or professional life, distinguished human service and must have graduated 10 years or more prior to induction.
Principal Mike Zimmer is a key member of the faculty board who helps pick a PV alum to receive the honor. Zimmer commented on the importance of exhibiting honorees in different occupations of importance every year.
This year’s recipient is 1976 graduate, Michele Connelly Lynberg. In high school, Lynberg was actively involved in many activities such as band, Spartan Assembly, and a talented athlete. Lynberg also had the honor to be the commencement speaker for her class.
After graduating from Pleasant Valley, Lynberg pursed an undergraduate degree in Microbiology at the University of Iowa, a masters in Public Health at UCLA finally returned to her home state to obtain a masters in Epidemiology at the University of Iowa.
With an impressive amount of schooling, Lynberg received honors for her 25 years of service to the U.S. Department of Health and Services, Special Service Act Award recognizing the development of the first CDC National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Surveillance System, and awarded for her efforts in public health in New York City after the Sept. 11 attacks.
Zimmer commented upon the selection of Lynberg as the 2019 recipient. “She just had a unique background in which she started off in one profession [medical] and changed to another within there. Then the work she’s been doing with her non profit… that’s what drew us,” said Zimmer.
Lynberg, now living out east, runs her own non profit. She utilizes the art and textiles as a medium to give back to her community, and more specifically those who are affected by hunger, poverty and violence.
Her pivot from a focus on public health, to her efforts in data collection in intimate partner violence and sexual assault, then finally to starting her own non-profit is sure to leave a lasting impact on the students on Academic Awards Night, when Lynberg speaks to the students.
The members of the faculty board hope that Lynberg can inspire Pleasant Valley students to make strides to improve the world as this year’s Wall of Honor recipient. “We want to select candidates that students that go down the hallway and look at them can say ‘I could see myself being up there one day’. In other words that they can picture themselves or relate to male, female, different ethnicities, and different professions,” Zimmer said.
