Leadership Butler County project has been selected for 2024
The 2024 Leadership Butler County class is officially underway and, according to Mark Buchek, chairman of the program’s board of directors, the group is “very gung-ho” about its class project.
Buchek said each class is defined by its class project, and for the 2024 class, it chose to raise funds to aid the revitalization of the Prospect Boys and Girls Club baseball field in Butler.
“The goal of the project is to find something that is beneficial to some part of the community,” Buchek said. “We want it to have some longevity and sustainability to it.”
Ian Hunter and Jamie Conrad are members and co-chairs of the 2024 class and they already are looking at fundraising opportunities, but little is set in stone as the class is just getting started.
"We are going to talk more about that today,” Hunter said on fundraising opportunities. “We are going to set a date for our Murder Mystery Dinner event. We also have a number of other initiatives we are looking at.”
Hunter said Prospect is currently trying to revitalize its entire field, including fences, dugouts and the concession stand, which will be the main focus for Leadership Butler County.
"The concession stand will help them fund all their projects moving forward,” Hunter said. “One small, little thing is like a jump start.”
This year’s class has 36 people Buchek said, which is the largest class the program has seen in its 31-year history.
Conrad said she works at Concordia in the human resources department and Hunter said he works at Community Care Connections as the director of development and community outreach.
With so many people in this year’s class, Conrad said she believes it will provide her and others in the program a way to learn things that are outside their normal areas of expertise.
"Our group is so diverse and there are so many things that I'm not good at,” Conrad said. “We were talking about fundraising and being that sales person and that is not me at all. Maybe at the end of this I will be better at that. I want to meet people not like me who I can learn from.”
Buchek said with a larger class it presents a new set of challenges compared to when he graduated with about 20 people.
"With 36 people it creates a different dynamic with more people,” Buchek said. “Part of the program is figuring all that out. They have the built-in fundraiser of the Murder Mystery Dinner every year. It’s up to them if that's going to produce enough funding to get the project done.”
The group paid a visit Friday morning to the Butler Eagle to hear from a panel of local government officials, followed by a tour of the newsroom and press room.
“The takeaway is I want them to see the folks who are in government positions are humans,” Buchek said. “Their jobs are different, but they have concerns like everybody else.”
Buchek said the group will later visit different businesses across many industries in order to diversify their knowledge.
“Once they get out of this class and graduate, we are looking at how they can impact Butler County,” Buchek said. “That's what we hope they take away out of being in this program.”
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