Gail Stevens, a past member of the Batavia City School District Board of Education, has been selected to speak at SUNY Empire State College’s commencement event at Rochester.
It will take place at 7 p.m., Thursday, May 31, at the Rochester Riverside Convention Center, 123 E. Main St..
Stevens was a longtime resident of Batavia, now residing in North Port, Fla.
She worked in the Batavia County Sheriff’s Office and then for Troop A of the New York State Police as a clerk for more than 20 years. Stevens remarried in 1998 and, in 2013, returned to Florida to work for Paychex Inc., her current employer.
She is an alumna of Genesee Community College, Class of 1980. The single mother of Michelle and Eric began work on her bachelor’s degree in 1991.
Twenty-seven years later, she has completed her Bachelor of Science in Business Management and Economics, with a 3.80 GPA, and graduates this spring.
As she studied long and hard to complete her degree, Stevens met significant challenges, including the death of both parents, divorce, a career change, a move from Florida to New York, then back to Florida, and a son who became addicted to heroin, and who now has recovered.
Her volunteer leadership experience in Genesee County includes serving as:
- A member, and then president, of the Board of Education of the Batavia City School District from 2004-13;
- President of the City of Batavia Youth Board, 2004-12;
- Treasurer of the Batavia Players Inc., 2005-13;
- Treasurer of the Batavia High School Band Boosters, 2005-13;
- President of the Batavia High School Parent Teacher Group, 2005-12;
- A member of the City of Batavia Consolidation Team, 2010-11;
- A member of the Genesee Valley Educational Leadership Board, 2006-13.
In Florida, she volunteers at San Pedro Catholic Church as an usher, serves on the City of North Port Parks and Recreation Committee and is helping to launch a Celebrate Recovery Group at the New Hope Community Church of North Port, as she continues her career at Paychex.
