Velma Russ Reichenbach and classmates, 1954.
Paying it
T
his is a story about giving back, and paying forward.
It’s the story of a student encouraged by her mentor to follow a career she loved. The student became a
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AHS MAGAZINE
WINTER 2019
Endowed lectureship honors alumna’s devotion to mentor, profession and family successful practitioner and, years later, used that training to help her former teacher.
And it’s the story of a family whose respect for the life’s work of their beloved wife and mother led to an endowment in her memory.
In 1951, Velma Russ left her family farm in Hamilton County to study occupational therapy at the University of Illinois. In those days, the program began with two years on the Urbana-Champaign campus, followed by two years at the U of I Chicago Medical Center. Velma fell in love with an industrial arts student she met on campus from Chicago named Richard Reichenbach. They married in
