Lichtie and Jolivette receive Iverson-Freking honor for community service

A local clergyman and a community volunteer have been recognized with the yearly Iverson-Freking Award by the Bethany-St. Joseph nursing homes of La Crosse, an award announced just before Christmas every year.

Reverend Mark Jolivette and Mary Lichtie are being honored for their work to help the community, and for their spiritual example. Jolivette is a member of English Lutheran Church in La Crosse, and a former Navy chaplain. And he’s active in many groups that serve the La Crosse area.

“Right now, I’m president of downtown Rotary,” said Jolivette, “and we have a huge string of service projects in the community that I love being part of, and I love being part of people who want to make positive change in the world, and the community, and themselves.”

Jolivette recalls an experience working at Our Saviors Lutheran Church, making sure his office door was open so people could come in if they needed to talk to someone.

Lichtie has worked as a nurse’s aide, and a receptionist, and retired a few years ago from a post at the Gundersen Medical Foundation. She also has been active with the Steppin’ Out in Pink fundraiser to fight breast cancer.

“Our dream for that, is that the research we do right here in La Crosse, Wisconsin, there’s a lot of research going on for breast cancer, that we will come up with a big blast of, hey, we’ve got something goin’ on here and we think we’re gonna cure breast cancer,” said Lichtie, after Thursday’s ceremony at Bethany-St. Joseph.

Lichtie and Jolivette will be honored officially at a luncheon in January. It’s the 38th year of the awards, named after Lutheran businessman Carl Iverson and former Catholic Bishop Frederick Freking. Eighty-six awards have been presented during the nearly four decades of the local program.