2011 Honorees

Betty Schelling and Mel Schuman

Ray Nichols

Crystal Meadows

2010 Charlotte Robling Honoree Biographical Sketches

Carroll Zimmerman Volpe, a lifelong county resident, was born at home on the Platte River near the Village of Honor, where she now lives. Coming from what she calls “a good Democratic family,” one of her earliest political memories is, at age six or seven, going along with her dad as he searched for and interviewed possible candidates to run as a Democrat for county sheriff.

Carroll said she’s Democrat because it’s “the party that gives everyday workers and everyday people better opportunities.” Like her father, she is a union member, which she said has allowed her to earn a good living wage to raise her family. At age 10, Volpe worked at babysitting and cherry picking. At 13, she worked at Money’s restaurant in Honor where she had a lot of responsibility, sometimes overseeing the restaurant when the owners vacationed. She held jobs at most of the canning facility in the area, and eventually worked for the Petritz pie company in Beulah. There, she and others fought a long battle, eventually winning representation for workers with the Bakery Workers Union in 1968. Carroll is a member of the AFL/CIO.

From 1973–1998 Volpe was secretary-treasurer for the Bakery Confection and Tobacco Local 81 and was secretary-treasurer for the Traverse Bay Central Labor Council 1975–2000. Volpe retired from the Michigan Works program, where she helped jobseekers find work and educational opportunities. For many years, she represented labor interests on the Workforce Development Board, which oversees Michigan Works for a ten-county region in northwest lower Michigan.

Since joining the Benzie Democrats in 1970, Volpe has been a leader, organizer, and mentor. She was party secretary for 39 years, and has led many campaign committees for individuals, as well as serving as campaign office manager and county campaign coordinator. She is now on the executive board and chairs the membership committee. For 12 years, she was a delegate to the Michigan Democratic State Central Committee and was a National Convention Delegate in 1984. For 8 years she chaired the 1st and 9th Congressional District Committees.

Along with work, community volunteerism, and labor organizing, Carroll has raised six children: Susan Lemon, Stephanie Sutherland, Vanessa Mills, and James, Robert, and Michael Volpe; at 72, she has seven grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren.

Joyce Skinner, a self-described “child of the Great Depression and poverty” was born in a farming community in upstate New York, one of five children. She said hard work was the example set by her young parents as they struggled to make ends meet in an area similar to Benzie County: a fruit-growing region with hardworking people, mainly of European descent, where family life centered on church and school. When she was a child, there were few Democrats there. She remembers a classmate whispering to her: “Our family is Democratic too, but don’t tell anyone.”

Joyce said her father “held a deep belief that President Roosevelt was somehow going to make life better for ‘people like us.’” Skinner credits the teacher who taught her to read with setting her on a path to academic achievement, as well as a high school teacher who encouraged her, the class valedictorian, to attend college. With his assistance, she was accepted and offered a full tuition scholarship at Syracuse University, where she earned a degree in journalism and sociology. After a brief stint writing and editing, she worked for the county Foster Care Program in Rochester, New York, and found her calling as a social worker.

After earning a master’s of social work at Smith College, Joyce moved to Detroit, where she was a psychiatric social worker. In the 1970s, she worked for the Michigan Department of Mental Health and in the 1980s she became Director of Social Service at the Walter P. Reuther Psychiatric Hospital in Westland, Michigan.

Retiring to Benzie County in the late 1990s, Skinner built a home near Lake Ann and started looking around for people “who believe as I do in Democratic principals.” She joined a small group of local activists and began to contribute to the development of the local party, which she chaired 2000–2004. Together with Carroll Volpe, she revised and expanded the newsletter and worked on raising funds and reaching out to new people.

Both Marcia Mattson Curran and Ted Curran have long-standing ties to Benzie County, where they’ve summered since 1956 and now reside. Marcia’s mother, now 105 years old and living in Jackson, Michigan, graduated from Frankfort High school; her mother’s father was the marine superintendent of the car ferries; and her grandmother started the Girls Camp on Crystal Lake. Ted’s grandfather was sent to Beulah by the YMCA to “civilize” the loggers, but “he didn’t last very long.”

Marcia Curran, born in Hillsdale, Michigan, graduated from Oberlin College with a BA in political science. Ted Curran, born in Brooklyn, New York, graduated from Haverford College. Both attended graduate school at Columbia University, where they met. During the first half of their marriage, Ted worked for the American foreign service, starting in Germany and moving on to the Middle East. He retired in 1984 after serving as Deputy Ambassador in Rabat, Morocco; he then worked in higher education and for a British foundation promoting international studies for young Americans.

After Ted Curran left the foreign service, Marcia was a senior inspector with the U.S. State Department for 12 years. In previous years, in addition to raising daughters Diana and Sarah and traveling with Ted, she earned a master’s degree in German politics, translated two books, and worked on Capitol Hill with Common Cause and the Environmental Protection Agency.

When they both retired, the Curran’s moved to Benzie County, where they have become involved with the local community and hope to act meaningfully on their mutual “commitment to good governance of both private and public organizations,” Susan Koenig said when introducing the Currans at the honoree dinner. “Marcia and Ted believe that the Benzie Democrats as an organization and our district representative Dan Scripps personify in the finest way this goal of improving the way Michigan is governed.”

Dick Robb received a “Gratitude and Appreciation” award for his efforts to organize party activities at the precinct level and identify voters. Born and raised in Schenectady, New York, he began early to develop a work ethic. Between the ages of 12 and 18 he worked as a paperboy, pot-washer at a local hotel (where he rose to soup cook), short order cook at a local golf club, and a laborer for local construction firm.

After starting college University of Colorado, where he joined the freshman ski team and met his future wife, then known as Janet (Jan) Leone Brownlee, Dick enlisted in the US Army at age 19. He spent the next three years in the Army Security Agency, where he received a Top Secret Crypto Security Clearance. He was posted in Germany for over two years and learned to speak German there.

Returning home in 1959, Dick entered night school at Union College. To complete his undergraduate studies, he attended Syracuse University and with the support of Jan, who was by then a teacher, earned a degree in international economics, specializing in economic development and learning Spanish. Dick and Jan were married in December of 1959. They have three children: Kristen, Margot, and Eric, “all of whom are happily married” and seven “smart, beautiful and great” grandchildren,” Robb said. “Many of our happiest moments have been skiing ,and now some boarding, as all of the three generations of Robb are best at ease on snow.” Robb credits his wife Jan for being “a beautiful woman who became my lifetime time partner” and an extraordinary one. “First she financially helped me gain my degree, then went back to work so I could launch my first company. She raised our family while I traveled extensively overseas developing business, and she has provided me with a moral compass to guide my life.”

Sarah A. Meachum, recipient of the “Rising Star” award, grew up in the Benzie area and graduated from Benzie Central High School. After attending college, she began to raise a family and is now the proud mother of three children, ages 12, 10, and 3. In 2001, barely 20, she became the youngest person ever to receive the Munson Medical Center Quality Achievement Award. This honor was historically bestowed only on older employees in management. Sarah was the first to be honored in the area of finance.  Now working for Webber Insurance, Sarah is bringing the Benzie County Democratic Party into the 21st century world of technology. “I like seeing the big picture,” she said, “and looking towards the future.” “Sarah is one of the those few who loves probability and statistics! Lucky for us, she is now our treasurer, said Koenig in her introduction.”
 An admirer of Barack Obama, and wanting to be “a part of something” at that time, Sarah walked into Benzie Democrats headquarters two years ago. The first person she met was Dick Robb, who immediately put her to work. Later she agreed to serve as the party treasurer. Along with her work and community activities, Meachum and her children recently moved into a Habitat for Humanity green home, in Thompsonville. She said they are thrilled with their house, for which she and the children contributed “lots of time and sweat equity.”