Anne Vallette served as the first executive director for the Klein ISD Education Foundation.[/caption]Anne Vallette’s face lights up as she strolls past an old basketball goal and rubs her fingers down the yellowing lockers from the original Klein High School.
Vallette said she enjoyed returning to the Klein Alumni Center for the same reason she loved her job as executive director of the Klein ISD Education Foundation before retiring in 2011—it blends her passions for public education and history.
“I’m a history major, and that added to it, but once I [became executive director] I realized that people I had casually known were actually descendants of the founders of this area,” Vallette said.
An innovator in education
The KISD Education Foundation, which was established in 2000, provides grants to teachers for academic projects, awards to students and funds for professional development through fundraisers, such as the A.K. Buddy Brown Golf Tournament.
“Teachers are wonderfully creative and innovative and they think of these things that would be so beneficial for their students, but they just don’t have that extra funding,” Vallette said. “We were able to make dreams happen.”
Vallette became the foundation’s first executive director in August 2002. Her replacement, Cindy Doyle, said Vallette left big shoes to fill when she took over.
“She established a strong board of directors and set a good model for starting education foundations,” Doyle said.
Programs that Vallette helped institute, such as the Reading Express Bus and the Alumni Tribute Garden, left lasting effects on the community and still engage students today, Doyle said.
The Reading Express Bus was launched after the education foundation contributed $30,000 to transform an old school bus into a mobile library. The bus weaves through KISD’s boundaries during the summer, making stops in neighborhoods where students have limited access to libraries.
“The [Reading Express Bus] hit the road in 2010, and the number of students the bus services grows each summer,” Doyle said. “It grew even further when the bus started utilizing to-keep books. For some students it may have been the first book they have ever owned and been able to put their name in.”
Serving her community
Since retiring in 2011, Vallette said she has kept busy by volunteering for the district and the Houston Northwest Chamber of Commerce because she is passionate about preserving the prosperity of the community for future generations.
Vallette serves as chairwoman for the chamber’s economic forum and capital campaign director for its Grow Northwest improvement initiative.
She said serving with the chamber allows her to help a community that has seen rapid development in her lifetime. When Vallette arrived in Klein in 1975, traffic backed up near Cypresswood Drive and I-45 because drivers stopped to watch a young foal play behind a farmhouse, she said.
Today, rapid population and business growth is the cause of traffic congestion.
“I want people to come here in 40 years for the same reasons that I did 40 years ago and the same reasons the old Germans came here in the late 1800s—because it’s beautiful, we love it and feel safe here,” Vallette said.
