JEN KRACHER
Honored in 2022
|
Jen was honored with the Volunteer Award at the SHSAA Hall of Fame in 2022.
While not a South alum, Jen has been involved with the South High Alumni Association for as long as it has been an association. Her dad, Paul Kracher-1961, is one of the founding members and put her to work early on searching for South alums in the phonebook in the early 1990s when she was in middle school. She has helped at more spaghetti dinners than she can remember, usually selling split the pot tickets with her mom and sister. You’ll also see her at all the other events, usually behind a camera. In 2012 she started helping with our marketing, including designing our association’s logo. She was also an integral part of programing an informational kiosk we received through a grant. Jen has helped push us into the 21st century of technology, including upping our presence on social media, getting us set up on a program to stay in touch with our supporters via mass email communications, as well as little things like setting up an alumni office email address that is easy to remember! Ten years ago, she redesigned our website and has maintained it since. The site has a class page for every graduating class as well as a dedicated page for every Hall of Fame and Packer Sports Great inductee. She just did another re-design of all 500 pages last year for our 30th anniversary. In 2016, when our long-time Alumni Tooter editor, Judi Koubsky-1961, stepped down, Jen took over and has designed and edited the last 13, now 14 issues. Two years ago, she proposed a project to digitize all our SHS yearbooks that included book sponsorships, and once approved by the board, ran with it, scanning and prepping all 99 yearbooks herself so we could make them available online. When it was announced in 2020 that a community fundraiser, Omaha Gives, was not continuing, Jen suggested we do a similar in-house campaign as Packers Give, and with the board’s approval, has worked to get even more alumni involved with an annual class challenge. Additionally, Jen also handles all the marketing materials for all SHSAA events, advertising and fundraising campaigns. She is always thinking of new ways to bring awareness for the association to alumni as well as bring in donations to keep the association going for many years to come. |