It's an old familiar tale.
Bright, ambitious boy from North Little Rock heads off to the big city for college, falls for the cute co-ed from Santa Fe, N.M., with the winning smile, graduates, gets married and lives happily ever after.
That's the CliffsNotes version of the Rob and LuAnne Seay story. They are co-chairmen of the 2015 JDRF Imagine Gala presented by the BKD Foundation and the family of John Alexander Rockefeller. It's set for April 25.
For those out of the loop, JDRF is the global organization formerly known as the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. Its mission is funding research "to progressively remove the impact of Type 1 diabetes (T1D) from people's lives until we achieve a world without T1D."
Why go with initialism for the name? It turns out that the word "juvenile" is misleading because 85 percent of those in the United States with T1D are adults. The goal of the name change was to emphasize that JDRF is an organization for all ages and all stages of the disease.
The Greater Arkansas Chapter of JDRF was founded in 1998 by parents of children with T1D to aid with fundraising and provide support for children and adults with the disease and their families.
Back to the Seays, the poster couple for today's modern, active, involved and caring families.
LuAnne and Rob were college sweethearts at Memphis' Christian Brothers University. "I was a little sister to Rob's fraternity," LuAnne says. They've been married since 1992 and watching them gamely contort beneath a giant potted fiddle leaf fig tree for their photo demonstrated they are also good sports for the cause.
The young couple hit the ground running after graduation. Rob took his degree in mechanical engineering and immediately joined Cromwell Architects and Engineers. Now a principal partner, he's the director of the firm's mechanical and electrical divisions.
"When Rob got his job with Cromwell, I wasn't overly excited," LuAnne confesses. "I thought, 'Oh, I don't know Little Rock. Can't we stay in Memphis?' Now I am so glad to live in Little Rock. It's such a better, nicer community. We have a small-town feel."
"She even prefers it over Santa Fe," Rob adds.
"Little Rock is a very giving community," she says. "Actually, Arkansas is a very giving state. Little Rock's JDRF gala is one of the biggest in the South."
Why?
"People in this community like to get dressed up and feel like they're making a difference," she says. "Having fun and helping."
"It's a Southern thing," he adds.
LuAnne earned a degree in economics with a minor in management information systems at CBU. These days, she's a development manager for FIS (nee Systematics).
"I have to tell people in Little Rock that I work for Systematics because if I say FIS, nobody knows."
The Seays are also deeply involved with activities at Our Lady of the Holy Souls Catholic Church. Rob is on the building and grounds committee; LuAnne is president of the school board and on the social concerns committee.
All of the above sounds fulfilling, important and not a little exhausting, but the couple's crowning achievement is the raising of three happy, healthy children -- Ryan, 17 (and headed to the University of Notre Dame in the fall); Reed, 14; and RileyAnne, 12.
Parental pride just oozes when they speak of their kids.
Recognizing there are only so many hours in the day, Rob has retired from coaching his kids' baseball, basketball and soccer teams.
But with no immediate family member affected, why become involved in the battle to cure T1D?
"We've always been involved with the gala," LuAnne says. "Cromwell has always had someone on the board of JDRF, so we've always attended. But when they asked us to chair, people began asking, 'Oh, do you have a child with T1D?' And we say, 'No.'"
"But once you get involved with it," he says, "you realize that you actually do know a lot of people dealing with T1D. I didn't think I knew a lot of people before."
And "unlike Type 2 diabetes, Type 1 diabetes is not caused by lifestyle or dietary choices. Right now we don't know what causes it."
"What's neat about JDRF is that it was started by moms," LuAnne says. "And this year, the focus of the gala is that it affects the entire family. There are no vacations from T1D. No summer breaks. The gala is honoring the mothers because they said, 'I don't believe my child has to live with this forever.' The squeaky wheel gets the grease."
Rob notes the 2015 Imagine Gala's goal is 550 to 600 people. "We're shooting for $558,000 this year," he says. "There is a cure, and together we can find it."
...
The 2015 JDRF Imagine Gala will be held from 6 to 11 p.m. April 25 at the Statehouse Convention Center.
The evening, with master of ceremonies Kevin Kelly of KLRT-TV, Channel 16, includes silent and live auctions (featuring Fund a Cure), dinner, dancing, music by The GroanUps, and the presentation of the 2015 Living & Giving Award to Melissa and Martin Thoma.
Tickets are $200 per person, or $2,000 for a table of 10.
For more information, call the JDRF office at (501) 217-0321.
High Profile on 04/12/2015