Page 18 - Fall 2019 Newsletter

Meet Your Board

Nancy Ketch '82 - Past Secretary and Vice President/Current president/Class Rep
By Rachel Fitzpatrick ‘93

As the second article in the “Meet Your Board” series to honor and thank a special group of individuals who have been, or are
currently, members of the HHSAA board, I felt it fitting to highlight our current President and past Vice President, Nancy
Ketch ‘82.

Nancy Ketch graduated in 1982 from HHS and received her bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from the University
of Southern Maine. Nancy returned to Houlton and worked at the Greater Houlton Chamber of Commerce for 13 years, then
15 years with the State of Maine and currently five 5 years with the Town of Houlton.

Nancy has a long family history with HHS dating back to her maternal grandmother, Leah Bamford Holden, Class of 1914,
and her paternal grandmother, Marjorie Logan Ketch, Class of 1917. Nancy’s mother, Georgia Holden Ketch ’46 and sister
,Jacqueline “Ginny” Ketch ’80, are also HHS alum.

When asked about a special memory from HHS, Nancy replied, “There are so many great memories of Houlton High and
High School in general.” Specifically, Nancy went on to talk about HHS friends who are still part of her life, attending
basketball games and going out together. She mentioned “Senior Year Bowling”; her extra-curricular activities included:
Student Council, Chorus, Cheering, and hanging out in the Senior Lobby. One of her favorite faculty members in High
School was Arthur Greaney, who was Assistant Principal at the time. He was the advisor for Student Council, so Nancy
worked with Greaney a lot. He was very relatable, and Nancy would often visit his office just to talk. Greaney was a great guy
and Nancy’s class dedicate their yearbook to Mr. Greaney. Some of the teachers Nancy made comments about included: Ervin
Stone, Alison Wiggin, Gary Bossie and Scott Emack; which were also teachers I had at HHS. Nancy also commented that
Elwood Scott was a wonderful Principal.

Nancy Ketch ’82 was the first- person Lauren Peabody Fitzpatrick ’86 called with the idea for Alumni Association. At the
time, Nancy was working for the Greater Houlton Chamber of Commerce as Executive Director. Nancy became part of the
founding board and helped Lauren to fulfill her goals. Nancy served as the board’s first 1st secretary from 1997 through 2000 Thank You!
when the board added a vice president role which Nancy filled. Nancy assisted Lauren with the newsletter and fundraising
until 2004 when Lauren decided to step down as president and Nancy smoothly stepped into the President role.

Activities Nancy has been involved with through HHSAA are numerous, and she loves connecting with people she might not
otherwise have had an opportunity to talk/work with. She speaks of the newsletter and how it has evolved over 20 years, in
fact, later, I will tell you her story about the very first newsletter. Nancy also considers the multi-year reunions very special as
it brings all the generations together, including many multi-generational families. Last but not least, Nancy spoke about her
pride in the HHSAA scholarship giving. Nancy looks forward to Last Chapel every year as “one of her favorite nights of the
year” to be able to make the presentations and see the reactions of the students, and their families and friends. Nancy states,
“It has been an honor to be involved in such a worthwhile organization and I’m very appreciative to all of our volunteers and
contributors that make the magic happen!”

In 2017, Nancy assisted the fundraising committee with creating the HoultonOpoly game which has been a large undertaking.
The group created a monopoly style game using Houlton as the focus. Sponsorships were collected to help pay for this
project, with spaces on the game board being “sold” for these sponsorships. By the time the game went to printing/creation,
the committee found that each game sold would be a profit for HHSAA, which was wonderful news. There are still some
just under 500 games available, so if you haven’t ordered your game, please think about it, as it is a legacy for HHSAA to be
remembered for, but we are getting off topic here.

Time for Nancy’s story about the first HHSAA newsletter! Nancy says, “Our first newsletter was an adventure! After we
decided to start this organization, we went about getting people involved and gathering names and addresses. We would seek
out someone in a given class and ask them for a class mailing list. If we didn’t know someone from a certain class, we might
try to find someone from a class near that one and ask if they knew someone from the class we were trying to reach.” The
grassroots way to start an organization. Nancy continues, “After months and months of phone calls and contacts we had about
4,000 addresses.” Impressive; as this was all done in less than a year. They also had volunteers to write articles and collect
news to create a 16-page newsletter. Nancy continues her story, “We got the newsletter printed and had a group of volunteers

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