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UW-Eau Claire alumni Tom and Jeannie Flesch posed with members of the Blugold Marching Band during a campus visit in fall 2007.

For more information about the Campus Campaign and how to contribute, contact Diane Doudna at 836-3819 or doudnadn@uwec.edu. • Reminder: The UW-Eau Claire Foundation will host its annual Faculty/Staff Appreciation Luncheon Thursday, Feb. 29, from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. in the Council Fire Room-Willow Lounge, Davies Center. Come when you can and stay as long as you are able!

Leap at the Chance:
Campus campaign offers way to support extraordinary efforts
by faculty, staff

Funds from the UW-Eau Claire Foundation often help enhance extraordinary efforts put forth by faculty and staff.

For example, the Foundation helped Dr. Randal Dickerson, associate professor of music and director of the Blugold Marching Band, take a band of 60 students and grow it to 202 students in just seven years. The Blugold Marching Band is now the largest marching band of any NCAA Division III school in the nation. 

Dickerson increased the size of the color guard and the horn line, and gave the band a bigger sound with more of what Dickerson calls "move and groove." All that effort paid off with an invitation to play in St. Peter’s Square for Pope Benedict XVI and a crowd of approximately 100,000 on New Year's Day 2008.

The band's substantial growth and development created needs for new uniforms, instruments and travel funds. An alumni couple, Ohio businessman Tom Flesch '74 and his wife, Jeannie Flesch '73, made a $50,000 gift to the UW-Eau Claire Foundation for the band.

"The Flesches' generous gift is a landmark in the growth and development of the Blugold Marching Band," Dickerson said. “This gift will help us sustain our growth and continue to provide expanded opportunities for all of our members. We are so grateful.”

While the success and growth of the band created needs, it is nice to have challenges that grow out of a program's success, said Diane Doudna, director of annual giving and major gifts officer.

"Dickerson's efforts are yielding tangible results for the marching band," Doudna said. "The Flesches' generous response is one of the many ways private resources benefit the university."

Through participation in the UW-Eau Claire Foundation's 2007-08 "Leap at the Chance" campus campaign, faculty and staff can similarly support extraordinary efforts by their colleagues and benefit the university's people and programs.

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