The Bradley-Bourbonnais Community High School Academic Foundation’s Annual Recognition Dinner will be held at 5:30 p.m. Nov. 6 at the Kankakee Country Club. The Foundation is proud to be honoring two BBCHS alums.
<strong>2024 BBCHS Academic Foundation Alumnus of the Year</strong>
After graduating from BBCHS in 1966, Jaymie Strand Simmon took the stage in 1970 when she was named outstanding senior at NIU. After graduation, she made the world her stage — one that keeps her family, alma mater, and community in the spotlight.
Simmon has 25 years of experience as a small business owner specializing in corporate and organizational communications, marketing, copywriting, and video production. She is an award-winning producer, having hosted the Emmy-nominated local TV show, “Kankakee Valley Prime Time.” Her novel, “The God Gene,” has won similar acclaim, earning the prestigious National Indie Excellence Book Award for literary fiction in 2013..
Simmon’s community involvement includes serving on several boards, including the Riverside Healthcare Foundation, the Kankakee Area YMCA, and the United Way of Kankakee & Iroquois Counties.
She currently serves as vice chair of the NIU Foundation board and is on its Executive and Red and Black committees. For her tremendous community service, Simmon was named Citizen of the Year by the Kankakee River Valley Chamber of Commerce in 1998.
2024 BBCHS Academic Foundation Outstanding Achievement Award
After graduating from BBCHS in 1988, Dr. Gregg Montalto attended the US Naval Academy, received his medical degree and served over 17 years in the US Navy. Under his leadership multi-national disaster and humanitarian relief was under the Pacific Partnership in 2015. Montalto is a practicing pediatrician and professor who continues to improve health care.
Currently, he is the Associate Division Head for Clinical Practice and an Associate Professor of Pediatrics at Ann and Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital in Chicago.
Greg’s brother, a 1991 BBCHS grad, shared the following:
<em>”I cannot remember a time without my brother Gregg, born 17 months after me. Gregg and I never competed with each other (luckily for me) but have always been a steady presence in each other’s lives. There has never been one day of his life I haven’t been proud of him, honored to call him my brother.</em>
<em>”I could list all of his accomplishments here but you already know those. What you don’t know are the memories we share of BBCHS, one year apart. I cannot recall a family gathering when we didn’t talk about the teachers who influenced us (Mlle Barnes, Mr. Porter, Ms. Blanchette, Mrs. Gardner, Miss Hakes, Ms. Schniffer, Mr. Wall, Coaches Mulligan and Carley, and more; Mr. Lingle in the chemistry class we took together in which he proclaimed us the Loud Family).</em>
<em>”Each of his teachers at BBCHS had a part in instructing, in motivating Gregg to be his best, not only as a student but as a person willing to go out into the world and bring his knowledge and his care. He is unselfish with his time for his patients as well as his family and we love him. This honor is certainly for him but also the people who made him who he is, our parents and his teachers.”</em>
BBCHS said it is proud to be honoring Jaymie Strand Simmon and Dr. Gregg Montalto, graduates who exemplify BB’s six C’s: critical thinking, creativity, communication, collaboration, character and citizenship. Tickets are $45 for the awards dinner. The evening will begin with a social hour at 5:30 p.m. followed by the dinner and program beginning at 6 p.m.
Contact Laurie Blake, in the alumni office, for more information about the BBCHS Academic Foundation. To make a reservation for the annual dinner call Laurie at 815-937-3707 ext. 6003 or email her at <a href="mailto:lblake@bbchs.org" target="_blank">lblake@bbchs.org</a>.
The BBCHS Academic Foundation awards over $30,000 in classroom grants annually and provided 31 scholarships last year under the Foundation umbrella. The Foundation’s mission is to enhance the excellent academic programs at BBCHS through classroom grants. Grants are awarded for classroom projects that are not in the regular school budget. The grants are made possible through financial support from alumni, parents and community members combined with other fundraising efforts.