Red Deer College is proud of their alumni, and like to take the time to show their appreciation by awarding those who have taken their education from RDC and used it to benefit their community.

A number of people were honored on Wednesday afternoon at RDC, in a celebratory evening complete with a dinner and photo shoot.

One of the people being honored with the G.H. Dawe Memorial Award was Alfio Truant, who is known around Red Deer as the former owner of Red Deer Bottling Co, which was bought by his father back in 1933.

Alfio grew up in Red Deer, and attended post-secondary classes at both Red Deer College and the University of Waterloo. After his father passed in 1977, Alfio and his brother Dino took the reins of the company. These days, Alfio enjoys his winters in Florida, as his son now runs the company, but he does return home for Christmas, as well as maintaining an office at the Red Deer Bottling Company.

"My son has the business; he's taken over everything now. I just take up space (laughs).I have an office and I go there every day if I'm home, but I go south for the winter. Palm Springs area, it's very good."

Also honored that night was Rod Kennedy, an Investment Advisor with RBC Dominion Securities.

Kennedy was given the Distinguished Alumnus Award for all his work in and around the community. His accomplishments include assuming leadership roles with the Red Deer Chamber of Commerce, Agri-Trade Exposition, Red Deer College, STARS, and currently with the University of Alberta. He is also the founding member of the Business Advisory Network, which is a unique and ground breaking project which focuses on co-coordinating business services.

Kennedy was honored to be the distinguished alumni for this year, and he says his relationship with RDC dates back to when it had a different name.

"It's quite a privilege actually. It's been a long time, I figured it out it's been 44 years in the making. I went here when it was Red Deer junior College, before it was actually a college, so long time ago, 1973-74."

Also honored were seven central Alberta school divisions, who received the Community Partner Award for their long standing relationships with RDC. These school divisions include Chinooks Edge, Clearview Public, Prairie Land Regional, Red Deer Catholic, Red Deer Public, Wild Rose School, and Wolf Creek Public School Divisions.

The long standing partnership with these schools was formalized again by the singing of the Learning Pathways in Central Alberta Memorandum of Understanding, which happened earlier in the afternoon.

(Kennedy (sitting far left) and Truant (sitting far right), join the representatives from the school divisions, as well as representatives from Red Deer College)