Grove City award recipients announced
GROVE CITY — Vincent F. DiStasi, Grove City College vice president-chief information officer, and Lisa L. Pritchard, manager of Olde Town Grove City, have been named the recipients of this year's Florence E. MacKenzie Campus-Community Awards.
Beginning in 1971 until her death 10 years later, Florence E. MacKenzie served the college and the community. As wife of former college President Charles S. MacKenzie, she sought to establish strong town-gown relationships.
Each year a campus person and a community person are honored.
Campus honoree DiStasi, a member of the Grove City College Class of 1988, serves his alma mater as vice president-chief information officer and as a professor of chemistry. He joined the staff in 1998 and is responsible for the college's networking and data administration needs and coordinating the tablet PCs provided to all freshmen. He has helped agencies by donating computer equipment and support.
He represents the college on the Grove City Area United Way board, and he helps Cub Scouts as a co-den leader for Pack 76.
At the Church of the Beloved Disciple, DiStasi is a lector, and he is the deputy grand knight in the Knights of Columbus. He also volunteered as an adviser for technology as the parish recently completed a new wing on the church building.
Community honoree Pritchard was hired as the first Olde Town Grove City manager in August 2006. Since then, she has worked to connect the college and its students with the activities and merchants in downtown.
For two recent years, she had college students partner with downtown businesses at Homecoming to decorate store windows in the Homecoming theme. She also offered support for the college's downtown bookstore, the Crimson Connection.This fall, Pritchard and Olde Town provided refrigerator magnets to the student residents of Colonial Hall Apartments. The magnets list the phone numbers of downtown shops and restaurants. Pritchard also supervises the college interns every semester in the Olde Town office.In her work with Olde Town Grove City, Pritchard has helped direct projects including the Farmers Market, mural projects, Christmas Extravaganza, the Joseph D. Monteleone Youth Festival Park and the Olde Town Gala.Before moving to Grove City, Pritchard was in corporate education and worked in higher education as an associate professor. She and her husband, Bill, have two children, Kathleen and Morgan. Bill is a native of Grove City.The two winners will be honored Nov. 17 at a ceremony on campus.
