Mark Tarner was born in Warsaw, Indiana, but moved to South Bend when he was little. When he was younger, he had a paper route. He attended Clay High School and then went on to earn a master’s at Eastern Illinois University, which is where he also...
Sinéad Aherne is a massage therapist working at Mamabear Massage in Valparaiso. She’s been employed there for a little over a month. No stranger to the inherent art in her profession, she’s worked in roles similar to the one she’s in now for...
Donald A. Girouard was raised in southern Louisiana. His family’s spread out between there and Arkansas. His father was a truck driver, so he moved from place to place as a kid. He did wind up going to high school in Alexandria, joining the United...
Kevin Wallace grew up just an hour north of Columbus in Mansfield, Ohio. His undergraduate studies were completed at Grace College in Winona Lake, Indiana, near Warsaw. Currently, he is the fourth-grade teacher at Central Elementary School in...
Ashleigh Jett was born and raised in the small community of Lothian in Maryland. She came to Indiana after moving to Hammond around the time of her early teenage years. She graduated from Carmel High School near Indianapolis. She’s been a homemaker...
Jeffrey Hellmers used to live in Lincoln City down in Southern Indiana, hailing from the same region as Abraham Lincoln. He attended Heritage Hills High School. He was part of a play there that helped him understand his liking for working with the...
James Solarek and his wife have been heavily involved with foster care affairs since 2012. In 2019, they launched Michiana Family Center, a nonprofit dedicated to providing assistance and support to foster children and adoptive families. Solarek...
Dustin Nelson is the principal at Northview Elementary School, part of Valparaiso Community School corporation. He graduated from Portage High School in 1994, when he began carving his own path in the world of education. In December of 1998, he went...
Kasey Hoag is the owner of Six Cypress Boutique in downtown Valparaiso. She hasn’t always held that title, however, because she used to work for Ford Motor Company. Moving to the Region and then spending six months as a stay-at-home mother...
Carol Haller is a sixth-grade teacher in Valparaiso. She’s been teaching for almost 40 years at Thomas Jefferson Middle School. Her lasting effect as an educator has been felt for decades. Haller grew up in Michigan City and attended Rogers...