The Distinguished Alumni Awards
This award recognizes graduates whose achievements, strength of character, and citizenship serve as
role models to inspire and challenge today’s youth.
Dr. Ken Rowland
Urbana High School
Class of 1972
Dr. Ken Rowland
Ken Rowland’s career at Carle started long before his name became a synonym for great cancer care in East Central Illinois. His experiences in the linen room and eventually as a housekeeper at Carle provided an insider’s view to life in a hospital during his high school and college summers. This up-close experience with “hospital life” prompted his interest in pursuing medicine and eventually returning to Urbana to establish a clinical cancer research program at Carle.
At his Urbana High School 50th reunion Rowland notes “I was amazed at the mutual great memories shared with others. After spending 13 years in metropolitan areas, it was the closeness of the CU community that inspired us to return. It was a good place to be a kid and to raise a family. I am also proud of how our public schools nurtured and fostered the care of my younger autistic brother. He was so proud to graduate from UHS with all the support he received from family and exceptional teachers. This would not have been accomplished in many other communities in the 60’s and 70’s.”
After graduation from Lawrence University, University of Illinois, College of Medicine, and various residencies and fellowships in Chicago, Dr. Rowland joined Carle Clinic in 1985. Soon after his start, he initiated a clinical cancer research program and gained full support from the National Cancer Institute (NCI) to establish a National Community Oncology Research Program (NCORP) at Carle. This program brought state-of-the-art cancer clinical trials to East Central Illinois.
Until recently, Dr. Rowland served as a member of the NCI Breast Cancer Steering Committee. In this role, he was involved in “designing breast cancer clinical trials which have helped advance breast cancer care throughout the world,” according to his nominator and colleague at Carle, Dr. Sinisa Stanic. Stanic continues, “in addition to his outstanding contribution to cancer research, Dr. Rowland is an author, or co-author of more than 90 publications in peer reviewed medical journals. He has successfully established high quality oncology clinics in both Danville and C-U, supporting hundreds of patients over the years. Dr. Rowland is highly respected by both his patients and his colleagues in the region. Carle and the C-U community are fortunate to have Dr. Rowland.”
Dr. Ken Rowland
Nichole Millage
Centennial High School
Class of 1995
Nichole Millage
A product of Kenwood, Jefferson and Centennial, Nichole honed her athletic skills through the Champaign Park District’s recreational softball, volleyball, and summer camps. “I also spent a lot of time at Sholem pools since I lived just down the street from it.” At Centennial, she was an accomplished middle hitter and pitcher for the Charger softball team. It would be this competitive spirit she honed on the playgrounds and gymnasiums that helped her manage one of the most challenging times in her life.
In 1998, Nichole lost her left leg below the knee in a boating accident at Clinton Lake. Through her rehab, she discovered sitting volleyball while volunteering at a camp for children with disabilities. Upon invitation to join the USA National sitting volleyball team in March of 2005, she moved to Edmond, Oklahoma to train full-time in the Paralympic facility at the University of Central Oklahoma (UCO). After starting at Parkland, Nichole earned both her bachelors and masters’ degrees from UCO while training and competing for Team USA. Over the next 15 years Nichole and her sitting volleyball teammates would earn four (4) Paralympic medals including; silver medals in Beijing and London; followed by two gold medals in 2016 (Rio de Janeiro) and 2021 (Tokyo). Nichole officially retired from sitting volleyball in 2021, but continues to share her story and speak to young people about her experiences and challenges.
Nichole says, “after my accident, one of my proudest personal moments was when I learned how to walk on my prosthetic leg. Now almost 25 years later, I have three different legs, so I guess you can say I have finally mastered that. My amputation makes me a little unique, but it has also provided me with so many unimaginable opportunities.”
Since returning to Champaign in 2012 Nichole has worked as an Environmental Sustainability Specialist who manages the City of Champaign’s recycling programs. Those programs include household hazardous waste collections, and the residential electronics collection events. Her nominator and boss, Kris Koester at the City of Champaign says, “credit Nichole for elevating the efficiency of these events to now include online reservations which make the experience much more streamlined and user friendly.”
Nichole Millage
Avra Jain
Central High School
Class of 1979
Avra Jain
Avra Jain and her sister learned how to play tennis at Hessel Park through the Champaign Park District. By the time they finished high school they were IHSA doubles State Champions, and Avra- Valedictorian for the Class of 1979. Both enrolled at Purdue on tennis scholarships to pursue industrial engineering. After graduation, Avra headed to New York and soon landed a job on Wall Street at Solomon Brothers where she worked as a trader for the next 15 years.
In her spare time, real estate became her hobby as she began investing in renovating and upgrading her living spaces in New York City. “I realized I really liked building things, and I found myself checking out neighborhoods, and learning how to identify emerging neighborhoods.” She also attended film school in New York, and eventually helped produce “Dark Days” a documentary about homelessness in New York City that won three awards at the Sundance Film Festival.
After spending time in Miami throughout the mid-90’s Avra fell in love with the city and saw opportunities that she did not see in the saturated New York real-estate market. She moved to Miami and shortly joined a group of investors who were buying vacant buildings and renovating them near a performing arts center. Her historic preservation work and investment in the adaptive re-use and repurposing of previously abandoned or underutilized historic properties has transformed a stretch of Miami’s Biscayne Boulevard into a vibrant and thriving neighborhood.
As the founder of Vagabond Group, a real estate investment and development firm with focus on historical preservation and affordable housing, Avra says, “we don’t invest in buildings, we invest in neighborhoods. Creating ecosystems is a part of our sustainable development story.”
Avra’s latest endeavor and her “most proud professional achievement will be a creative collaboration in developing a music centric entertainment neighborhood in East Hialeah, near Miami. Factory Town is a 5–10 year project that represents the culmination of all I have learned professionally and as a human. This effort is centered around adaptive reuse of a 6-acre 1940’s mattress factory, that will bring community together in a creative environment with sustainable best practices grounded in historical relevance.”
Avra Jain
Anna Jain Bakst
Central High School
Class of 1979
Anna Jain Bakst
From News Gazette “paper girl” and City-wide Flag Football Champion, Anna Jain Bakst has come a long way in making her mark on the world through the American fashion industry.
After moving to Champaign from California and attending Bottenfield, Edison and Central, Anna and her sister Avra, captured the 1978 IHSA Girls doubles championship while leading their Central Maroons to a second-place team finish. She credits her childhood experiences; participating in the Eddie Albert Farm Program, student council, band and high school sports (tennis and basketball) as opportunities that shaped her drive and focus for the years ahead.
Anna and her twin Avra headed off for Purdue University to play tennis and pursue industrial engineering degrees. After college, Anna began her career with IBM as a marketing representative and then with Baxter Travel focusing on engineering and manufacturing applications before attending Stanford University and receiving her MBA in 1987.
Her next opportunities led her into the fashion industry where her career spanned over 25 years–managing and cultivating businesses for American fashion houses. Anna spent 12 years at Donna Karan, eventually named President /General Manager of the footwear division where she launched and developed the Donna Karan global fashion footwear business which ultimately earned $130 million in annual revenues.
In 2003 Anna began with Michael Kors where she was the Group President of Accessories and Footwear leading the global design, production, and merchandising teams as well as overseas domestic wholesale distribution. In 2018 she served as Brand President and CEO of Kate Spade and most recently has served as interim CEO and Board Chair of Modern Meadow, a privately held American biotechnology company that uses biofabrication to create sustainable materials for the wellness of people and the planet.
Currently, Anna is co-founder of We-AR4, a New York-based responsible fashion brand focused on immediate sustainable impact based on her decades of experiences in the traditional fashion industry. We-AR4 crafts designs from existing luxury deadstock and upcycled materials. In so doing, We-AR4 creates a direct path to finding a new life for materials that would otherwise become waste.
Anna Jain Bakst
Local Business Community Impact
Ragle Dental Labs
Jerry Ragle
Urbana High School
Class of 1972
Jerry Ragle
Ragle Dental Labs, founded in 1979 by Urbana High School graduate Jerry Ragle, will be awarded the Local Business Community Impact Award. This award recognizes a local business owner with their business located in Champaign Unit 4 or Urbana District 116 boundaries, who graduated from high school no less than ten (10) years prior to that nomination year and has demonstrated an impact on the community and/or our public schools through their commitment to philanthropy, service, and volunteerism, or by employing local high school graduates. Jerry Ragle has been the owner at Ragle Dental Labs for 40 years. His successful family business has employed numerous Urbana High School graduates, and in 2004, the Champaign Chamber of Commerce named Ragle Dental Labs their Small Business of the Year. As a member and executive officer for the Urbana Alumni Association (UAA) for over 20 years, Jerry managed UAA financials which included fundraising for alumni and student honorary bricks at the Urbana High School athletic complex, and for Greg Chew Memorial auditorium chairs in the UHS theater. His nominator notes, “in 2018, Jerry coordinated UAA’s efforts to provide IDEA Store gift certificates to EVERY Urbana School District teacher. This was a win-win for the Urbana teachers and for the solid financial beginnings of the new IDEA Store. Through his business and volunteer activities Jerry has always been an ardent supporter of our public schools.”
Jerry Ragle
The Local Business Community Impact Award
These recipients have demonstrated an impact on the community through their commitment to philanthropy, service, and volunteerism, or employing local high school graduates.
The Local Hero Award
This award recognizes graduates who have demonstrated their commitment to benefiting the Champaign-Urbana community through their volunteer time and efforts.
Local Hero
Kanittha Fay
Kanittha Fay
Kanittha Fay will be honored with the Local Hero Award which recognizes individuals who have demonstrated their commitment to benefiting the Champaign-Urbana school community and/or public schools through their volunteer time and efforts. Local Hero recipients volunteer activities must occur within the district boundaries of Unit 4 and District 116. A native of Thailand, Kanittha moved to the states, to attend the University of Illinois where she graduated in 1999. While raising her daughter in the Urbana schools, Kanittha jumped in with both feet to serve and support the Urbana community and District 116. She volunteers on the Urbana High School PTSA Executive team which has created initiatives including Teach for Urbana, a teacher and staff appreciation program, and a Student Ambassador Program, promoting budding leaders in Urbana schools. Kanittha is a board member for the League of Women Voters of Champaign County, a committee member of the Mayoral Recognition Program, member of Urbana Parks advisory committee, and co-founder of We Love Urbana community building initiative. Her nominator says “Kanittha has used her expertise in voter education and civic engagement to support student led voter education events and brought attention to Champaign County’s first HBCU college fair at Urbana High School. She believes schools are the heart of the community and always helps to build bridges between people and organizations.”
Kanittha Fay
Thank you to Tori Beach for our 2022 Distinguished Alumni videos.
Join us for the Distinguished Alumni Reception
Friday, April 14th at the I Hotel (Heritage Room)
Reservations are only available in advance:
2023 Distinguished Alumni Reception Photo Gallery
