Des Plaines park district employee singled out for excellence

• The Des Plaines Park District has honored Mary Ann Troxell with its Dedicated to Excellence award. Amy Garbacz, the park district's business manager, and Katie Skibbe, superintendent of business, presented Troxell with the award that recognized her willingness to step up and take on additional accounts payable responsibilities during a critical time. Troxell is the Des Plaines Park Districts facility rental coordinator and the accounts receivable clerk. Her responsibilities include cash control procedures and providing the administration with statistical and sales information for the district's revenue facilities.

• Barrington resident Jennifer Dillon Kotz, a partner at Schiller DuCanto & Fleck, has been named to the 2015 Illinois Top 100 Women Consumer Lawyers list by Leading Lawyers Magazine. Kotz has litigation experience in all areas of family law, but is known for handling complex financial litigation cases, which involve business valuations, real estate appraisals, trust and estate plans and executive compensation benefits, as well as cases involving high conflict custody and parenting issues.

• Rolling Meadows High School science teachers Paul Fraser, Lee Ann Haralambakis, Eileen Herbster, Kate Ingemunson, Neil Mott and Stephen Traphagen have been selected to pioneer a national nonprofit's effort to improve STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) education in U.S. high schools. The team will work with four other high schools to form a national network of teachers through the Knowles Science Teaching Foundation Project ASCENT (Achieving STEM Course Effectiveness through Networked Teachers). The Knowles Science Teaching Foundation was established in 1999, to increase the number of high quality high school science and mathematics teachers and improve science and math education in the U.S.

• Send your 'Neighbor in the News' items to Norrine Twohey at ntwohey@dailyherald.com.