Salvatore M. Cutrona Sr. ’73, Chair, Board of Trustees

As Board chair, I am pleased to issue each of you a call for celebration. This is an exciting time for Albright, and we have much to celebrate.

Let’s celebrate 150 years of history! As we prepare to launch the celebration of our sesquicentennial year, I have become even more aware of the wonderful foundation, the great achievements and the outstanding scholarship accomplished by so many of you with our excellent faculty. I have also come to realize that it is the caring and warm relationships that make the Albright community so special. It has truly been an extraordinary past on which Albright is building its dynamic future.

Let’s celebrate our future! The “stars are finally aligned” over the Albright we love and cherish, and those “stars” are visible in so many ways. Each one is as important as the next and each one shines brightly on our future.

Our new Shirk Stadium will be completed shortly. The dedication and first football game is scheduled for September 24, 2005.

The recently renovated LifeSports Center with windows on the 13th Street and stadium sides along with the planned Wellness & Fitness Center are “shining stars” you cannot miss.

The quiet phase of Crossing Boundaries: The Campaign for Albright will soon go public in our sesquicentennial year, beginning in Berks County, Pa. The College has been approved for the 2005-2006 Berks County Capital Campaign, an approved 2.5 to 3 million dollar local campaign for Albright that has our new Science Center as its central theme. More monies have been raised to date in the quiet phase of the campaign than have ever been raised before at Albright. This is something to celebrate.

We also have many individual “stars.” Numerous alumni and friends have provided several million dollar gifts to build the new Science Center, Shirk Stadium and Albright’s future. These donor “stars” will be recognized and acknowledged throughout the coming year.

Let’s celebrate our new leadership! We are truly blessed to have the talent and proven leadership of Lex O. McMillan III, our new president. Together with his wife, the charming and warm Dottie McMillan, we have two bright stars in our College’s future.

Those of you who have met Dr. McMillan in his first days as president have told me how very much impressed you are with his knowledge, experience and warm, caring manner. If you have not yet met our new president, I encourage you to come to campus to meet him personally. The Shirk Stadium dedication, Homecoming, or our Sesquicentennial Celebrations, which will include his inauguration, will provide many occasions for you to meet and greet our 14th president. If you can’t make it to campus, just look for Dr. McMillan and Dottie on one of the many visits scheduled with alumni groups across the country beginning this fall.

Dr. McMillan’s experience in management, strategic communications, external relations and development is a perfect fit for Albright’s future advancement and growth. He has established a reputation as a skilled administrator and inspiring leader, a creative strategic thinker and a highly effective fundraiser. As a graduate of a liberal arts college, and having spent much of his career in private liberal arts colleges, Dr. McMillan knows, understands, and is deeply committed to the type of education we offer at Albright. He believes in interdisciplinary education and knows that multiple perspectives have real value for our graduates in the real world. He will be a passionate and articulate advocate for Albright College as we begin our next 150 years.

Our goal now is to make history!

It is my hope that each of you will feel great pride, as I do, as we join with one another to celebrate not just Albright’s past, but also Albright’s future. Never has there been a better time to celebrate Albright.

Thanks in advance for making Albright a shining star among national liberal arts colleges.

Pictured are: (l to r) Coach Ray Mest, Erik Carl ’08, Mike Heller ’08,
Brian Lawshe ’06, Greg Heller ’05 and Brett Lehman ’08.   photo: Doug Linde

The Albright College golf team won its first ever Commonwealth Conference championship on May 1 at the Hershey Country Club. The Lions finished the two-day event with a team score of 647 to defeat runner-up Moravian by a single stroke.

Coach Ray Mest ’62 was named the Commonwealth Conference Coach of the Year. Mest, who retired last year after 42 years of teaching mathematics at the College, has been head coach for 16 years. He has been with the Albright golf program for 31 years.

Elated by the win, he said, “This was a dream come true for me and the team, and it was made really special since it was Albright’s first ever golf championship. I could not have been more proud of this team.”

Albright and Moravian each shot 320 in the opening round, four shots behind first-round leader Susquehanna. Albright ended with a second-day total of 327, bringing the final score to 647. Greg Heller’s ’05 two-day total of 159 was good for third place in the individual competition and First-Team All Conference honors. Brett Lehman ’08 finished seventh with 162 and Mike Heller ’08 came in ninth with 164. Both Lehman and Mike Heller earned Second-Team All-Conference Honors.

“The ice has finally been broken,” Mest said. “As I get close to the end of a coaching career, I wish for a continuation of this success.”