Penny Duncan Named 2007 Outstanding Alumna

Penny Duncan of Sterling has been named Sauk Valley Community College’s 2007 Outstanding Alumna. She was honored with a plaque from Sauk Foundation Board President John Thompson at Commencement exercises on Friday, May 11, in the SVCC Gymnasium.

Duncan earned an Associate in Arts in 1982, and returned to Sauk earn an Associate Degree in Nursing in 1991. Since then, she has built an impressive professional career as well as an outstanding record of community service.

Duncan says her experience at Sauk laid a foundation for success in her academic and professional life. She worked at a registered nurse at CGH Medical Center from 1990 to 2005. While working, and raising a family, she earned a Bachelor of Science in Nursing from Clark College in Dubuque, Iowa. Not resting on her laurels, Duncan went on and earned a Master's in Nursing from North Park University in Chicago in 2003. It was while pursuing her master’s degree that she undertook a project that would impact the lives of many in Whiteside County. She made a formal request to North Park University's Administrative Board to do a community-based project rather than a research project. Her request was accepted. That request was to bring a federally-qualified health clinic to Whiteside County.

For the next two-and-one-half years, Duncan worked with other key individuals on a $650,000 federal grant to start a community health clinic. The grant was awarded in February 2005 with the doors opening to the Whiteside County Community Health Clinic on May 1, 2005. She served as executive director of the clinic until 2007 when she decided to return to teaching. She is now an instructor of nursing at Saint Anthony College of Nursing in Rockford.

Her community involvement is equally as impressive. Duncan has served on the board of the Hospice of the Rock River Valley and the Rock River Alzheimer’s Association. She has been active with the Whiteside County Relay for Life, the YWCA of the Sauk Valley, the Sterling Lion’s Club, the March of Dimes, American Lung Association, and other organizations.

Duncan says the number one thing Sauk did for her was provide an educational foundation that made her believe that she could go on to the next level.  She added that people are truly fortunate to have a community college of Sauk's magnitude with the quality of instructors that they have in the community. Her children have taken that to heart as two of her three children have gone to Sauk for their associate degrees.

Duncan has never forgotten her alma mater or the words of an instructor who said that she (and other students) was taking the first small step onto a path of larger steps and that Sauk didn’t provide the dream in their lives but provided the possibility of that dream. Duncan took those words of how little steps make big steps to heart, and formed a mantra that she lives by today.

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