ISU Alumni Recognize Three Achievers

Recognition set At Homecoming POCATELLO - The winners Of the three awards given traditionally at Homecoming by the Idaho State University Alumni Association will be honored Oct. 16. Distinguished Alumnus: Peter C Kole, William J. Bartz Service Award: Donald L. "Pappy" Papenberg, ISU Janet C. Anderson, Pocatello. The presentations are a highlight of the President's Alumni Recognition Dinner. It is scheduled Oct. 15 at 7:30 p.m. at Cavanaughs Hotel. For tickets, call 208---6-3755 before Oct. 5. The cost is $23. Distinguished Alumnus spearheads creation of library in Albania By Glenn Alford POCATELLO- A plaque in the Hall of Fame at West Technical High School in Cleveland, Ohio, Reads, "Peter C. Kole, Class of January, 1955 Industrialist- CEO_ Humanitarian." For all those reasons, Kole is the 1998 winner of the Idaho State University Distinguished Alumnus Award. The Distinguished Alumnus Award is ISU's highest award. It recognizes exemplary professional and/or personal contributions resulting in national or international visibility, including contributions to chosen career/profession, awards and special recognition received, and community and civic involvement. A '63 graduate of Idaho State University with a BBA degree in business and finance, Kole is president and owner of one of the largest manufacturing firms in Cleveland, but that is only part of the reason he is being honored. In large part through his efforts as chair of book collections for the New England Albanian Relief Organization (NEARO), his hometown of Pogradec (pronounced Pogradetz), Albania, has a library with more than 300,00 volumes. Pogradec has a population of only 30,000 but people from throughout Albania travel there to study and check out books in what has been described as the only American open-stack library in Europe. NEARO is the only U. S. humanitarian organization to establish a library and learning center in a former communist country. The library was dedicated on June 17, 1995. Kole was one of the speakers at the dedication. Kole also has had books shipped to Albania's elementary and high schools and universities, and he has collected hospital and dental equipment for Albania. Before 1985, owning books or magazines in a foreign language could be a capital crime under Albania's totalitarian government. The Cleveland, Ohio, Public Library tore down an annex to make space for a new building, and all of its books could not be stored. Kole got the 100,000 discards, plus 100,000 from Cleveland's Cuyahoga County Public Library. In addition, 50,000 books were collected in Worcester, Mass., and 50,000 came from other sources. Rand McNally contributed 7,000 atlases. His company, Paramount Metal Products (PMP), employs 300 and has five divisions: Paramount Seating, Paramount Stamping and Welding, Anchor Special Machines, Anchor Paramount Seating, Paramount Stamping and Welding, Anchor Special Machines, Anchor Template/Dye, and Vanco Products. PMP won Cleveland's 1992 Community Improvement Award for it efforts "to enhance local neighborhoods through reinvestment, job creation, and other improvements to the community." Kola elected to attend ISU through a freak circumstance. Most of his high school friends attended large colleges in Ohio, but he looked through a number of college catalogues and thought ISU looked "interesting". "Peter C. Kole is an outstanding example of a businessman our students can emulate and admire for both his business success and community involvement," Bill Stratton, dean of ISU's College of Business, said. " In addition to his library project in his home country of Albania, Peter is talking to experts in Idaho about the potential for raising trout there as a means of helping his many relatives attain a better livelihood. The College of Business is very proud to claim Peter as one of our graduates. He is most worthy of being name Distinguished Alumnus." Although Kole's home is far from Pocatello, he continues to be a friend of ISU and serve it well. He has endowed three scholarships at ISU with gifts totaling $150,000. In 1994, Kole endowed the Frank Seelye-Peter C. Kole Scholarship with a gift of $50,000. The scholarship honors the memory of Frank Seelye, longtime ISU business professor and dean of the College of Business from 1964 to 1968. It is awarded to a non- traditional student in the College of Business with preference given to children of single parents. The Klime and Athina Kole Memorial Scholarship was created to honor his parents with a gift of $50,000, and it is awarded with the same criteria as the Seelye-Kole Scholarship The Peter Kole Scholarship, also created with a gift of $50,000, is awarded to a student in the College of Business. Glenn Alford is with ISU University Relations.