The Junior Board of Rock Island held its 83rd Annual Junior Board Mardi Gras Charity Ball on February 26 at the Waterfront Convention Center in Bettendorf.
This year’s Mardi Gras King is Gary Rowe and Queen is Nancy Hultquist.
Rowe was born in Chicago, and is a 1965 graduate of Alleman High School. He earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Illinois, and a master’s degree in journalism from the University of Iowa.
Rowe serves as executive director of the Rock Island Community Foundation and the director of development for the Genesius Theater Foundation.
Rowe has worked for many organizations, including Modern Woodmen of America as an associate editor, United Way of the Quad-Cities, Illowa Health Systems Agency, Girl Scouts of the Mississippi Valley, Visiting Nurse & Homemaker Association of Rock Island County, Bethany for Children and Families, Western Illinois University-Quad Cities where he was a major player in initiating and funding the engineering program.
People are also reading…
Rowe has served on the Rock Island-Milan Board of Education since 2017, Community Health Care Inc. board of directors from 1998-1997 and Autism Society of the Quad Cities from 2012-2020. He has served a term as president with all three organizations.
He also is a founding member of the Rock Island-Milan Education Foundation and served as the board president for seven years. He was a member of the WVIK: Community Advisory Board from 2014-2021, and served on the Norma-Leah Ovarian Cancer initiative board from 2015-2020.
Rowe has been married to his wife, Linda, for 36 years.
Hultquist was born and raised in Muscatine. She is a 1973 graduate of Muscatine High School and a 1977 graduate of Augustana College where she earned a degree in elementary education.
She began her career as a 5th grade teacher at C.R. Hanna Elementary School in Orion. She later taught 2nd grade at Jefferson Elementary in Moline for five years after which she retired in 1983 to focus on raising her daughters.
Nancy met her future husband, Doug, in kindergarten. The couple will celebrate their 45th wedding anniversary this June and they plan to celebrate with a family trip.
Hultquist has given generously to the community through volunteering with service organizations. She is a former member of the Junior Board of Rock Island. She has volunteered her time through Junior Achievement and Big Brothers Big Sisters. She has also served on the United Way’s Success by Six board and has participated in the after-school program, Operation Read.
She served as the director of the Student Hunger Drive in 2007 that included 23 high schools. She also was a board member for the Quad City Symphony. She was a befriender at Genesis West where she ministered to patients on the neurology floor after she survived a brain tumor in 2000.
Hultquist is a member of the PEO Sisterhood. She served as president of Chapter LC in Rock Island and is now a member of Chapter BL in Moline.
Hultquist and her family were members of Trinity Lutheran Church in Moline from 1978 through 2011 and she served on Trinity’s church council, pastoral search committee, the WELCA group and Altar Care and she served as chair of the Member Care Committee.
They are now members of St. Paul Lutheran Church in Davenport.
Hultquist has extensive involvement with Augustana College, where she was the president of the Phi Rho sorority and crowned homecoming queen in 1976. She has supported Augustana since 1960, she has supervised clinicals for elementary education students, and she also served on the Augustana Alumni Board, Augustana Research Foundation Board, and Augustana’s Camp Kesem program that provides a camp experience for children who have parents with cancer.
She also has been a supporter of Clarissa Cook Hospice, Genesis Health, Vera French, Family Resources, the Figge Art Museum, Birdies for Charity, and Habitat for Humanity.
