September 19, 2007

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

MCCC TO DEDICATE CAMPUS POND
NAMED IN HONOR OF ELSIE M. LITTLE

During the Antiques and Auto Show on Sunday, September 23, the pond on the Monroe County Community College campus will be officially dedicated as “The Little Pond” in honor of the late Mrs. Elsie M. Little.

The dedication ceremony will take place at 1 p.m. in front of the pond, which is located to the west of the Campbell Learning Resources Center.

On March 26, 2007, the Monroe County Community College Board of Trustees named the pond “The Little Pond” in honor of Mrs. Little’s legacy gift to help create a performing arts center on campus.

A community benefactor and local leader, Mrs. Little (1908-2000) was a 1926 graduate of Monroe High School and received a degree from the Michigan State Normal College in Ypsilanti (the forerunner to Eastern Michigan University).  She taught at the Boyd School in Monroe for seven years, and in 1938, she and her husband, Earle Little, opened the Earle Little Funeral Home on East Elm Ave.  With her husband until his death in 1961, and then on her own, she operated the funeral home for 54 years.

Mrs. Little was a member of St. Paul’s United Methodist Church, the Monroe City-County Fine Arts Council, the Johnson-Phinney House Restoration Committee, the Monroe County Chamber of Commerce (first female member), the Monroe Business and Professional Women’s Club, the Monroe County Family YMCA, the Monroe County Historical Society and Chapter 226, Order of the Eastern Star.  She was a founding member of the Monroe High School Alumni Association (1967 Alumnus of the Year), the Newcomers Club in Monroe, and the Monroe Women’s Center.