Buckeye Career Center Foundation – Alumni of the Year

The Buckeye Career Center Foundation presented awards to two Buckeye Career Center alumni at its 22nd annual recognition ceremony. The banquet was held on May 8, 2024 at Buckeye Career Center.

View Previous Alumnus of the Year Recipients

Alumnus of the Year

Roxanne Dunn is a 2015 graduate of Garaway High School and Buckeye Career Center. Roxanne attended Buckeye's Teaching Professions program during her senior year, and following graduation, began her collegiate athletic and academic careers at the University of Akron. She completed two years of schooling at Akron before transferring to Slippery Rock University, where she graduated in December 2020, with a dual certification in Early Childhood Education and Special Education. On March 21, 2021, Roxanne was the passenger in a vehicle that was driven off the road. As a result, she is now an incomplete paraplegic at the T12-L1 level. Roxanne was life-flighted to UPMC Presbyterian Hospital where she spent 7.5 weeks in the ICU, Neuro-Trauma, and inpatient rehabilitation before returning home to Ohio with her parents in May of 2021. Roxanne immediately entered full-time outpatient rehabilitation therapies at the Ohio Wexner Medical Center in Columbus, Ohio where she completed Physical Therapy, Occupational Therapy, Driving Instruction, Pelvic Floor Therapy, and Aquatic Therapy, while maintaining intensive mental health therapy, and massage therapy locally as well. In August of 2022, she accepted a 2nd grade, long-term substitute position at Midvale Elementary school, and in October of 2022, she accepted a full-time K-2 Title position at Strasburg Elementary. In July of 2023, Roxanne accepted a position at Starlight working with Intermediate level students in a specialized public school setting. This winter, she traveled to Arizona to accept the NCAA Inspiration Award. Roxanne is looking forward to remaining at Starlight for the foreseeable future, and is excited to continue in a position that she had hoped to obtain before the accident. She hopes to continue being a mentor for her students, and students who are in the Teaching Professions program, just as she was mentored by local teachers during her own time in the program.

Buckeye Foundation Alumnus of the Yeart

Kayla Blake is a 2016 Graduate of Buckeye Career Center where she was in the Introduction to Nursing Program. Kayla obtained her STNA through Buckeye and started working in the medical field right away. Starting in a nursing home and then shortly after graduation, working at Cleveland Clinic Union Hospital where she worked for 7 years while going to Kent Tusc for Nursing. Kayla obtained her Associate Degree in Nursing from Kent Tusc in 2019. She worked at both Mercy Medical Center and Cleveland Clinic Union Hospital in the Emergency Department as a nurse until she left and went to Akron Children’s in 2021. She realized her love for pediatric medicine and helping kids motivated her to do more in her role as a nurse to which she became a part of Akron Children’s Critical Care Transport team in March of 2023. Kayla has won a DAISY award for extraordinary nurses and is finishing her bachelor’s degree in the fall of this year while also taking Adult ED EMT classes here at Buckeye. Kayla plans to teach the pediatric clinical for Kent State Tusc in the future with a passion for helping people learn the most they can about nursing and kids and also has future plans to become a paramedic with hopes to obtain a second flight nursing job working with adults as well.