**Peter Bekkerus, president of the Denison Education Association (DEA), presents Rhonda Rauch with the DEA Friend of Education Award for 2024.** Submitted Photo

The Denison Education Association (DEA) presented Rhonda Rauch with its Friend of Education Award for 2024 at its March meeting.

Rhonda works as a project analyst at Professional Computer Services in Denison, but her passion is photography. It started as a hobby when her kids were younger, and it has blossomed into her own business, RhondaR Photography. She takes pictures at almost every event that takes place at the school.

From basketball games to musicals, FFA Tractor Day and speech competitions, she makes sure she gets pictures of all students participating in their activities. Many of these pictures are posted in places for parents to see; she shares Facebook albums with hundreds of shots of the kids participating in the activities they love.

She also has recently joined the newest paper, The Denison Free Press, as their chief photographer.

She keeps herself busy, heading to schools at the start of each sports season for team and individual pictures of each sport.

For the first decade of taking pictures, Rhonda was working full time as a project analyst and still taking and editing photos for the schools and students. On average, she spent about two to three hours taking pictures of activities during the week. After each event, she would sort through roughly 600 photos to find the best ones to edit, and she would upload about 200 photos to Facebook. This process of sorting and editing a single event takes a couple of hours.

Just about two years ago, she was able to cut back on her hours as a project analyst so she could dedicate even more of her time to taking pictures of events. This allowed her to attend anywhere from eight to 16 hours of school activities per week - even some out of town activities.

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People will also find Rhonda attending any state event that involves a Denison athlete. From the state wrestling meet to playoff football games, she makes sure that these athletes are recognized for their hard work and dedication to their activity with lots of photos available to their families.

The impact she has on the Denison Community School District and its students does not go unnoticed. Almost every student involved in activities at the school will recognize Rhonda and the crazy photography angles she likes to get. Many parents are appreciative of the photos she posts or sends out. It is clear to the Denison Education Association that Rhonda puts in an immense amount of time and energy for this passion to make a difference in students’ and families’ lives.

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