Award honors HHI journalist — First 4 winners selected
In a distinguished journalism career that included leading newspapers in five states and being part of a Pulitzer prize-winning team, Joe Distelheim of Hilton Head Island was best remembered for the impact he had on those he led. As colleague Mark McCarter wrote in an obituary marking Joe’s death in December 2020, “he was most proud of the people he hired, the people he cultivated, the lives that were changed.”
For someone who spent a good part of his career mentoring others, it wasn’t a great leap for Joe to
become a literacy tutor in retirement. With his teaching partner Rob Arnold, Joe taught two two-hour classes per week at The Literacy Center for each nine-month school year. For more than a decade, Joe used his special brand of dedication and hope and caring (plus a gentle sense of humor) to guide adults toward mastering English and becoming full participants in the local community.
Volunteer Coordinator Ann Skinner recalls, “Joe brought kindness and compassion to his classroom while providing his adult students with a safe environment to practice and improve their English skills. His lessons and encouragement enabled students to gain confidence and become more engaged with the Bluffton and Hilton Head Island communities.”
Following Joe’s death, several of his former colleagues sought an appropriate way to honor his memory. Thus was born the Joe Distelheim Award for Literacy, an annual award for deserving literacy students of Bluffton Self Help, the organization that The Literacy Center merged with in 2021. More than 100 former colleagues and friends of Joe contributed to the award’s endowment fund, raising more than $40,000—enough to fund awards into the foreseeable future.
According to Joe’s wife, Dottie Distelheim, “Everyone who knew Joe knows that he didn’t have an ego and never sought praise or compliments, but when he saw his students making progress with their English skills, he couldn’t wait to tell me about it. He would be uncomfortable with all this attention being paid to him right now, but I know he would be thrilled that these deserving students are being honored for their hard work.”
The first four awards of $500 each will be presented to students selected from nominations made by their tutors. The winning students have been selected on the basis of their measurable gains in English- language fluency, community involvement, and classroom interaction. There will be an awards dinner honoring students and their families from 6:30 to 8 p.m. on April 27 at the Hilton Head campus of the University of South Carolina Beaufort.
This year’s winners are Kathia Salinas, tutored by Marlene Cathcart; Maria Medina, tutored by Mary Lee Stephens and Jeff Fahmer; Gerardo Rivera, tutored by Carolyn McClurg, and Zohra Tebbakh, tutored by Kathy Stutesman and Jackie DeCecco.
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