Club's 67th award for volunteerism goes to Elgin woman

Murna Hansemann has been chosen as the recipient of the 67th Elgin Cosmopolitan Club Distinguished Service Award, based on outstanding contributions to the Elgin community. A dinner will be held in her honor Tuesday, May 26, at the Elgin Country Club, off Weld Road.

She and her husband, Bruce, longtime Elginites, are the parents of two married children, Aaron and Lisa, and have eight grandchildren. Hansemann spent 31 years in the Elgin Area School District U-46 as a teacher of Family and Consumer Sciences.

A gifted musician and accompanist for the past 30 years, she crisscrossed the United States and the globe as an invited musician.

She gives so much of her time, talent and treasure to the community she loves. She may not have invented the words volunteerism and community participation; however, certainly lives by them.

Hansemann has devoted many hours serving, participating and volunteering in organizations, institutions and service clubs which include, but not limited to: Hamilton Wings, Jayne Shover Easter Seals, Elgin Community College, Fideliters Club, Fox Valley Beaux Arts Women's Club, Salvation Army, YWCA of Elgin, St. James AME Church Mad Hatter Luncheon, Judson University, National Ms. Senior Citizens Pageant, Elgin Academy, Ecker Mental Health Center, Elgin Chapter Hadassah, Altrusa Club, Senior Services of Elgin, Bartlett Rotary Club, Cosmopolitan Club of Elgin, League of Women Voters, Elgin Human Relations Commission Martin Luther King Celebration, Elgin Symphony, Provena Saint Joseph Hospital and Larkin Center.

She has also held numerous leadership positions, including board president of the Elgin YWCA, board president of the Family and Consumer Sciences Northern Illinois, nutritional consultant for nutrition for the Elderly of Kane County, scholarship chairman for the Fox Valley Beaux Arts Woman's Club, Evangelical Covenant Church board of directors, and president of the Elgin Altrusia International Club.

Hansemann is the recipient of the Judson University D. Ray Wilson Community Service Award, YWCA Leader Luncheon Margaret Hillis Award for the Arts, Member of the Year Award at the Restaurant Women's Club of Chicago, America's most outstanding Home Economics Teacher Award, Altrusa International Club of Elgin woman of the Year and the State of Illinois Home Economics Teacher of the Year Award.

The Elgin Cosmopolitan Club is a not-for-profit organization serving the Elgin area for more than 75 years and is dedicated to community well being through charitable donations and volunteer service with an emphasis on preventing diabetes.

For more information, call Cecelia Silber at (847) 841-7901.