(FRANKFORT, Ky.) – Henry Vogt Heuser, Jr., CEO and president of UniStar/Vogt in Louisville, is the recipient of the seventh annual Joseph W. Kelly Award.
The award was presented to Heuser today by the Kentucky Board of Education at its regular meeting in Frankfort.
Heuser was nominated by Jefferson County School Superintendent Stephen Daeschner. He has served on the board of the Jefferson County Public Education Foundation, which advances education through support of the school district. Heuser and his father worked to endow a perpetual scholarship fund in 1999 that provides $10,000 scholarships to outstanding Jefferson County high school seniors each year. He also has raised more than $1 million for the Every 1 Reads project in Jefferson County and serves as a volunteer mentor for the program.
In his nomination letter, Daeschner noted that Heuser possesses qualities that are deserving of recognition.
"Henry Heuser is a role-model of selfless service to his community and has applied himself wholeheartedly to the goal of improving educational opportunities for all students of Jefferson County. [He] is a businessman who talks the talk and then walks the walk for public education. I wish that there were a million like him."
The award was created in honor of Joseph W. Kelly, a respected businessman and chair of the Kentucky Board of Education from 1991 to 1998. Kelly's efforts and expertise were crucial to the implementation and nurturing of Kentucky's school improvement efforts.
The annual award is given by the Kentucky Board of Education to businesspeople who have offered outstanding leadership and service toward promoting school improvement and equitable educational opportunities for all Kentucky children.
Previous Winners of the Joseph W. Kelly Award
2005 Wynn Long Radford III, president and co-owner of Higgins Insurance Agency in Hopkinsville
2004 Ann Yager Hamlin, director at Stith Funeral Home in Danville
2003 State Representative Jimmy Higdon, owner of Higdon's Foodtown in Lebanon
2002 Frank and Mattie Justice, founders of the Frank and Mattie Justice Charitable Foundation in Pikeville
2001 Billy Harper, president of Harper Industries, Inc., in Paducah
2000 Vince and Valorie Tanner, owners of the Beaver Dam McDonald's restaurant
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