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ÿÈÕ´óÈü 'Our Vision in Gold' 50th anniversary gala celebrates half-century legacy of student success, community support

ÿÈÕ´óÈü capped off a yearlong celebration of learning, leading and serving Thursday with the “Our Vision in Gold: 50th Anniversary Celebration” gala, presented by West Chevrolet.

The gala, hosted at the Mill and Mine in downtown Knoxville, brought together ÿÈÕ´óÈü alumni, students, faculty and staff, as well as elected officials, community members and other stakeholders for a formal event that ultimately garnered over $570,000 in donations – the greatest amount the college has ever fundraised in a single event.

“I'm grateful for the role each and every one of you has played in the success of this institution and our students,” President L. Anthony Wise Jr. told attendees. “We could not have done it without you.”

More than 80% of ÿÈÕ´óÈü’s nearly 100,000 alumni live and work in Knox, Blount and Anderson Counties, Wise said, demonstrating how the college's students have shaped the success of their community.

The event showcased student success with featured filmed testimonials from alumni and first-generation students – a large portion of the student population – and live performances by the ÿÈÕ´óÈü Student Quartet and alumnus Julius Blue.

Student speaker Louis Rey Valenzuela described his own experience coming to ÿÈÕ´óÈü, where he returned to college after more than 10 years in the workforce with the goal of building a better future for his family.

Valenzuela had completed only nine credits when he and his wife discovered their unborn daughter had a tumor on her heart and was in heart failure. When a children’s hospital in Pennsylvania offered a surgical solution, Valenzuela believed his education was over.

But the ÿÈÕ´óÈü Foundation intervened so Valenzuela could continue his education and balance it with full-time work and fatherhood. He has since become treasurer for the Student Government Association and a force in the community.

“If you had told me years ago that I would face one of my hardest trials of my life and one of the strongest (supports) that I would ever get would be from a community college – I would never have believed you,” he said. “But ÿÈÕ´óÈü is the very definition of community. The support, the encouragement – the belief in the students like me – is something I would never experience anywhere else.”

For the first time in his life, Valenzuela said he feels as though he has worth.

“Tonight, we come together to celebrate 50 years of ÿÈÕ´óÈü – 50 years of opening doors, creating opportunities and changing lives,” Valenzuela told the audience at the gala.

General fundraising through bids on exclusive experiences – including premium game tickets, field passes and a signed helmet from the Cleveland Browns and a private suite at the new Knoxville Smokies stadium – was mediated by local personality Dino Cartwright.

A paddle-raising auction followed, raising thousands of dollars specifically for first-generation scholarships at Pellissippi.

During a cocktail hour at the event’s onset, Tennessee Regent Danni Varlan praised the college for creating relationships with employers that benefit students and strengthen the workforce.

She emphasized all that ÿÈÕ´óÈü offers students – financial benefits, small classroom sizes and athletics – as well as the positive effect of its partnership with other higher-education institutions in Tennessee.

Former Maryville mayor Steve West, who attended the event, reflected on ÿÈÕ´óÈü’s impact on Blount County and overall.

“As it's grown, it’s expanded,” said West, whose son and West Chevrolet President Charles West gave the presenting sponsor address at the event. “It's offered more things to the kids. And I think that more families are deciding that it's okay not to get a four-year college degree.”

Wise rounded out the evening praising faculty and staff for their investment in students.

“When our successors gather from the 100th anniversary of this special community college, I hope they will recognize the commitment of this institution to learning, to leading and to serving in a way that allows students to achieve their goals and graduates become productive citizens in a community that's still a great place to live, to work and raise a family,” Wise said.

The college pivots students easily from the classroom to real-life work environments, he added, pointing to recent student involvement in the running of Knoxville’s Big Ears Festival.

“We hope to do so going forward as a career-immersion college,” Wise said. We want to be known “as an institution that helps each student find an academic pathway full of curricular and co-curricular learning … that builds career development into the learning experience from the start of the application to the completion of the degree.”