Dorothy & Michael Kane

We would like to share with all of our members, the recipients of the prestigious “Volunteer of the Year” for 2010 - 2011 are: Dorothy and Michael Kane.

This year at the Volunteer Luncheon at Tom Ham’s Lighthouse, we surprised two of our long-time volunteers - Dorothy and Michael Kane - with the news that they were the co-recipients of the UCSD Retirement Association’s Volunteer of the Year Award. We would like to introduce these two super-volunteers to the rest of our members. Here’s their story:

We came to San Diego from the New Jersey shore in 1969. In January 1976, Dorothy was hired by Margaret Sullivan at the Registrar's Office while Michael attended Revelle College. In January 1979, Dorothy was hired by Gwen Cooper as an Evaluator for the Undergraduate Admissions Office. In 1995 she became Assistant Director of Admissions for about ten years. Because of the stresses of Multiple Sclerosis she stepped down from that position and became an in-house admissions counselor until 2006 when she retired.

Michael graduated from Revelle College in 1978 with a degree in Anthropology. He then attended UCSD graduate school for a while until he was hired by Mae Brown in 1980 as an Academic Advisor at what was then Third College (now Thurgood Marshall College). Michael loved working at TMC, but decided to retire with Dorothy in early 2006.

They married (in Las Vegas) in 1970; their son was born at Scripps Hospital on 1981. They travel back to their old home town in New Jersey every year to see relatives and friends and enjoy the beach there.

Retirement is very good. Dorothy loves her monthly library book club, doing daily yoga and weekly MS yoga classes. Michael enjoys walking the neighborhood several times a day, and is the neighborhood watch man as well as one of the fire-watch people for our community in Rancho Penasquitos. His hobby of making canes from found tree branches means that everyone he knows will get a cane if they need or want one. Michael needs to use a cane because of his accident several years ago when he fell off of a ladder and crushed his heel. Monthly lunches with a group of our UCSD friends/retirees is always fun.

Both Dorothy and Michael thoroughly enjoy volunteering as Gazette Groupies for the Retirement Association and feel that being considered Volunteers of the Year is just icing on the cake.