This year, we are pleased to announce Jeff and Holly Rose as the recipients of this award. 

        Mr. and Mrs. Rose have provided decades of service and support to the East Greenbush Central School District and the entire East Greenbush community.  Mr. Rose is a member of the leadership team at Walter Pratt & Sons, a local heavy equipment rental business that has been in the community for over 70 years.  Mrs. Rose is well known for teaching various group exercise classes throughout the community.

        The Roses have been an integral part of the Columbia baseball program.  Mrs. Rose has been president of the Booster Club for over 20 years.  During these years, Mr. Rose served as a volunteer coach for the program while helping out with the Booster Club.  They donated countless hours of their time, and equipment used for field upgrades and maintenance.  The Roses organized and contributed to many fundraising efforts. Varsity Head Coach Chris Dedrick estimated that the Roses have donated approximately $100,000 in financial donations, athletic equipment, building materials, and maintenance and construction machinery. Coach Dedrick went on to say that “over the past 20 years, Jeff Rose has helped Columbia Baseball become the blueprint for building a successful athletic program.  Jeff’s work ethic, determination and selflessness have strongly contributed to building a program that nurtures player’s development both on and off the diamond.  During Coach Rose’s time, he has served many roles with the Columbia program.   He shows up to practice every day with a positive attitude and knows how to get the best out of our players.  He truly enjoys coaching kids and understands how to handle players after a bad at bat, error on the field or a base running mistake. With all his hard work he was doing he still found time to work with his own children helping three of them move on to play college baseball.  Columbia has become known as a powerhouse in baseball and Jeff has been a huge part of that process. Coach Rose has given 20+ years to the Columbia Baseball program and we can only hope that he volunteers for another 20.”  In addition to helping Columbia, Mr. Rose has served on the board and as a coach in the East Greenbush Little League organization for 15 years.

Mr. Rose has served many roles in the East Greenbush Basketball Association for the past 25 years.  He has been president of this local youth development league for much of that time, while serving as a coach at many levels from elementary grades to the CYO high school program. Mr. Rose was involved in the initiation of the CYO high school program, which provides the opportunity for male students to play basketball who are not participating in the Columbia program.

During this time, Mrs. Rose was equally busy with the District’s Theater program, both at Goff Middle School and with the Columbia Players.  She began working on the Goff shows in 1993, as the choreographer of “Joseph And The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat”.  From 2007-2012, Mrs. Rose served as the Assistant Director for the Columbia Players.  In this role, she assisted in stage direction and also did the choreography for all shows during this time.  While Mrs. Rose was paid for these positions, the amount paid was likely less than minimum wage in light of the long hours involved in these productions. Scott Halliday, District Music Chairperson, reflected that “As a colleague of Holly's for fifteen shows, I can say that she was a pleasure to work with.  She had a very positive attitude all of the time.  Even when we were getting close to the show opening and things were not running as smoothly as we would like she stayed positive.  She always brought a lot of energy to our productions and had creative ideas with regard to staging and choreography.”

In addition, Mrs. Rose serves as a fitness instructor and has hosted many Zumba class fundraisers in the local community over the years.