The School District of Washington’s WINGS Educational Foundation inducted its 12th class into the Hall of Honor on Saturday, September 25, at the Washington Elks.
The Hall of Honor was initiated in 2009 to recognize alumni, former educators, and community contributors who have shown exceptional personal, community or professional achievement.
The 2020-2021 honorees were Mark Wessels (Educator Award), Frank Saucier (Alumni Award) and Bob Zick (Community Contributor Award).
Additionally, Melissa Ziegler was recognized as the 2020 WINGS Teacher of the Year.
Ziegler, Medical Interventions and Biomedical Innovations instructor in the Biomedical Science program at Four Rivers Career Center, also was named a Missouri Regional Teacher of the Year in the South Central region, and a State Finalist Teacher of the Year, as announced by the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE).
The recipient of the WINGS Hall of Honor Educator Award was Mark Wessels.
Born and raised in St. Louis, Wessels grew up in a large family of two boys and eight girls. After graduating from high school, he attended the University of Missouri where he received a Bachelor’s degree in mathematics. Not long after, Uncle Sam came knocking.
“One week after graduating,” he recalls, “I received a draft notice.”
Wessels served as a member of the United States Army from 1968-1969, where he served in Vietnam.
Upon his return, he began his career in education with the Ferguson-Florissant School District as a math teacher at McCluer High School.
Wessels went on to earn two post-graduate degrees at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. He earned both a Master of Special Education and a Master of Administration.
He came to the Washington School District in 1980 as the Director of Special Education, where he worked for 11 years. Wessels said at that time there were few special education teachers and limited services. Special education programs were just starting.
“There were a lot of good teachers carrying a heavy load,” Wessels said. “We scrambled to put programs together to give them the support they deserved.”
In 1991, Wessels moved to the Washington Junior High School where he worked as an assistant principal. After only a year, he was promoted to principal, where he implemented many impactful and lasting changes. Wessels was instrumental in the transition of the junior high school to Washington Middle School in 1994. He credits its success to “a great staff” and says he “arrived at an opportune moment.”
Ron Millheiser, a former principal at Washington Middle School said, “instead of a building that simply mirrored a miniature version of a departmentalized high school, Mark’s middle school approach, along with formation of core academic teams (White, Blue and Jay) for each grade level, created a more student-centered school that provided a system of on-going support for all students. The middle school model that Mark adopted for our district is a model that is still widely employed by the finest middle schools in our region.”
During Wessel’s tenure at Washington Middle School, he was responsible for the development and integration of many other changes that are still widely used today. These include the implementation of grade level “teams,” the development of a system of exploratory classes to expose students to new areas of interest, as well as the introduction of block scheduling.
“As an educator, Mark Wessels was a visionary,” Millheiser said. “But more importantly, he was an agent for lasting and profound change for the School District of Washington. Many of the impactful changes he made in the mid-1990s still effect our students in powerful and positive ways each and every day they attend Washington Middle School.”
After 30 years in education, Wessels retired from the School District of Washington in 2000. Since his retirement, he has worked for Lindenwood University at the Daniel Boone Home, the Washington Chamber of Commerce as the Director of Tourism as well as serving as president.
Wessels has been involved with Meals on Wheels, volunteered with the YMCA Community Literacy Program, taught GED math classes, coached little league and has been an active member of the Washington Lion’s Club.
In 2019, Wessels ran for Washington City Council and was elected as councilman for Ward 2, where he continues to serve the city of Washington today.
He and his wife Joyce, who is a retired nurse, have been married for 51 years. They have two children and three grandchildren. Their daughter Ann works as a Special Education teacher for the School District of Washington and their son Pete is a professor at the Miami University-Ohio.
The recipient for the WINGS Hall of Honor Alumni Award was Frank Saucier.
Frank Saucier (pronounced SO-shay) has been called one of the best athletes, if not the greatest, ever to attend Washington High School. Saucier says the best thing that ever happened to him was growing up in Washington. He was the youngest of eight children, raised in an athletic family. They lived on a farm just outside the city limits. He recalls his first toy was a rubber ball painted like a baseball.
“My mother and father were both athletes, ballplayers,” Saucier said, “my sister and all four older brothers were also athletes, so it kind of ran in the genes.”
Saucier attended the one room Hillsboro School for grades 1-8. He went on to attend Washington High School where he played both baseball and basketball.
In 1943, at the age of 16, he graduated from WHS as the salutatorian. A few weeks later when he turned 17, he volunteered to join the Navy as part of the “V-12 Program.”
This was a program developed by the Navy and Marine Corps in association with colleges and universities to produce college graduates to go immediately into military service. He was commissioned as a Naval Officer at the age of 18, which was one of the youngest in World War II.
“You had to be 19, but the Capitan made an exception,” he remembers. He served in Hawaii, the Philippines, Japan and China.
Saucier attended Westminster College and graduated with degrees in mathematics and physics. During his time there, he played basketball (where he was co-captain of the team) and baseball. Saucier left his mark in every program he participated in. The baseball field at Westminster is named after him to this day.
After graduating college, Saucier played minor league baseball in Wichita Falls, Texas, in 1949 and with the San Antonio Missions in 1950. According to a Missourian article published in 2020, when Saucier was in Wichita Falls “he led all professional baseball in hitting with a .446 average. With San Antonio the next year he hit .343 and was named the 1950 Minor League Player of the Year. San Antonio was the Texas League champions that year.
Frank was called up to the big leagues and played 18 games with the St. Louis Browns during the 1951 season. It was during spring training of 1952 that he would be called back to the Navy for two years to serve in the Korean War. After he finished his military service, he returned to the United States, but not to professional baseball.
In 1954, Saucier and his wife settled in Texas where Frank went on to have a successful business career.
Saucier is an active member of his church, having served as an elder, deacon, Sunday school teacher, Chairman of the Board & Congregation. Frank has volunteered for the United Way, served as Chairman of the Salvation Army Advisory Board and served as President of his Rotary Club.
Saucier lives in Amarillo, Texas with his daughter Sara.
The recipient for WINGS Hall of Honor Community Contributor Award was Bob Zick.
Originally from South St. Louis, Zick was raised in Affton, Missouri. His family later moved to Chesterfield where he graduated from Parkway Central High School.
Zick attended the University of Missouri, where he earned an undergraduate degree in finance, with an emphasis in accounting, an MBA in finance as well as a law degree. It is also where he met wife, Wendy Wood, who is a native of Washington.
Upon graduating law school in 1981, Bob and Wendy moved to Washington.
“Moving to Washington to live and raise my family was the second-best decision I ever made,” Zick says, “marrying Wendy was the first.” He worked for a law firm in Union for only a year when, in 1983, he decided to open his own firm in Washington.
“It began with a card table and two folding chairs,” recalls Zick. The successful firm, now known as Zick, Voss, Politte & Richardson, P.C., is now in its 38th year.
Zick has spent countless hours volunteering and serving on various boards and committees in the community. He served many years on the board of the Four Rivers YMCA, and was involved in getting the Y started in Washington. He has also served the Y as Past Director and Officer for the Endowment Committee.
The School District of Washington has benefitted tremendously from Zick’s determination and leadership. As a past Board Member and President of the Board of Education, Zick volunteered his time and talents to grow and strengthen the District.
A highlight of his tenure with the Board of Education was working to get a bond issue passed which resulted in the construction of the current Washington Middle School gym.
Zick spent six years serving on the Washington School Board.
As chairman of the Missouri Highway 47 Bridge Committee, Zick led local efforts to get a new Washington bridge. This was the culmination of more than a decade of vision and determination.
Zick and the committee held monthly strategy meetings, raised local support and funding, traveled to Washington D.C. to lobby Missouri lawmakers, attended meetings of the Missouri Highway and Transportation Commission, and secured a $10 million dollar Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (or TIGER) grant.
The efforts of Zick and the committee came to fruition on Monday Dec. 3, 2018, when the new bridge was officially opened to traffic.
Zick is the Director and Chairman of the Executive Committee for Heritage Community Bank, a member of St. Peters United Church of Christ, an Advisory Board Member for HTH Companies, Inc., and is involved with Leadership St. Louis (now called Focus St. Louis.)
On most weekends, you can find Bob working on his farm outside Paris, Mo.
Bob and Wendy celebrated 40 years of marriage in August of 2020. They have two children, Alison (Jeff) and Kyle (Maggie), and seven grandchildren, all who live in Washington.
WINGS Hall of Honor Inductees
The 2020-2021 honorees, from left, were Mark Wessels (Educator Award), Bob Zick (Community Contributor Award) and Frank Saucier (Alumni Award - accepting the award is Frank’s cousin, Tom Saucier.) Also pictured is School District of Washington Superintendent Dr. Jennifer Kephart.
WINGS Teacher of the Year
Melissa Ziegler, Medical Interventions and Biomedical Innovations instructor in the Biomedical Science program at Four Rivers Career Center, was recognized as the 2020 WINGS Teacher of the Year. She is pictured with her husband, Cary Ziegler, and daughters Zoey, left, and Hannah, right.
