Karen Welliever named to Chamber Hall of Fame

When Karen Welliever was named Holton High School’s Alumna of the Year in 2019, she had this to say about her service to the Holton community: “I just do things. I don’t do them for the glory. I do them because I want to, and because I enjoy doing it.”

Welliever, who’s been named to the 20th round of Holton/Jackson County Chamber of Commerce inductees, says that’s still true today, whether she’s doing things for the Jackson County Historical Society, Jackson County Friends of Hospice, the Holton High School Alumni Association, Holton’s First United Methodist Church or the myriad other organizations she’s been a part of through the years.

“I still don’t do things for the glory,” said Welliever, who called the Chamber Hall of Fame honor “a very humbling experience.”

She’ll be joining Aaron and Erika Allen, Brett and Carly Fletcher, Ginger Lloyd and Rosa Thomas at the upcoming Hall of Fame banquet, to be held Saturday, Feb. 1 at Prairie Band Casino and Resort.

Welliever, a lifelong resident of Holton, said she remembers her first volunteering work.

“I was going door to door in my neighborhood when I was 10 years old, collecting for the March of Dimes,” she said. “You have to keep in mind, I’ve been around a long time! I’ve been doing some volunteering since then.”

She graduated from Holton High School in 1959, and shortly thereafter, she married her classmate and high school sweetheart, Bruce Welliever; they celebrated their 65th wedding anniversary earlier this year. The Wellievers moved to Manhattan, where they took classes at Kansas State University, but while Karen didn’t stay a student for long, Bruce continued to take classes, graduating in 1964.

“The only regret I have, ever, is that I didn’t take advantage of being out at K-State, because we were out there for four years and I just took a few classes,” Karen said. “I had babies, and college wasn’t what I wanted to do, even though I have taken classes through the years.”

After Bruce graduated, the Wellievers returned to Holton, and Bruce went to work for his father’s construction company, eventually taking it over. Karen, meanwhile, worked with her husband as a bookkeeper, a dispatcher and in other capacities, but never felt constrained in doing so. It also gave her the freedom to give their three children a good upbringing.

“I was able to go and do what I wanted to do,” she said. “I wasn’t tied down to it.”

For more on this and other stories, please log in to your holtonrecorder.net account and select “Dec. 18, 2024” under “E-Editions.”