Texarkana Independent School District will honor Carl Finch and Melanie Kusin Rowe, both 1970 graduates of Texas High School, as the 2016 Distinguished Alumni during events Friday.
From 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m., the Distinguished Alumni Luncheon will be held at Texarkana Country Club, 1 Country Club Drive, where Finch and Rowe will be presented as 2016 Distinguished Alumni.
Following graduation from Texas High in 1970, Finch attended Texarkana College for a year, and then went to study art and music at the University of North Texas in Denton. There, he received his Bachelor of Fine Arts in Graphic Design and Advertising Art in 1975 and his Master of Fine Arts in Drawing and Painting in 1978.
While visiting Texarkana during a break from his graduate studies, Finch happened into an old Woolworth store downtown, discovering several stacks of reduced-price vinyl polka record albums. This finding eventually led to his forming of the band Brave Combo in 1979, with the primary goal to expand polka awareness and take the music into non-polka venues and settings. Brave Combo met with immediate success in North Texas and was encouraged to take the show on the road.
Finch has also worked in various other aspects of music, including producing albums for well-known folk artists; overseeing production of several Conjunto and Tejano albums for Rounder Records out of Boston; recording albums; and performing and producing music for many popular Japanese anime television shows including Dragon Ball Z, Yu Yu Hakusho and Blue Gender.
She has completed CEO searches across the global consumer space. Global CEO projects Rowe has led include Estee Lauder, Chanel, JC Penney, OSI (Outback Steakhouse), Toys "R" Us and Dunkin' Brands, among others. She also places boards of directors for major public corporations and advises on succession management.
Rowe has authored articles and research around CEO succession and CEOs' relationships with their boards. She has been a frequent contributor to the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, CNN and the Harvard Business Review.
Rowe earned her Master of Business Administration in marketing and finance from Tulane University A.B. Freeman School of Business in New Orleans, and her undergraduate degree in English literature from Sophie Newcomb College Institute of Tulane University.
She is married to Roger Rowe, and they have one daughter, Avery.
"Since 1992, TISD has sponsored a Distinguished Alumni Awards program to recognize the outstanding personal and professional achievements of their alumni. These outstanding former Texas High School and Dunbar High School graduates are models to current and future alumni in terms of their professional, leadership and ethical standards," Veal-Gooch said.