Alumni group announces 2024 'distinguished' honorees
Sep. 13—Baskin and Skinner to be honored at AHS Homecoming
A couple of Austin High School alumni who graduated more than a century apart will be honored later this month during Homecoming festivities this year.
Jason Baskin (Class of 2002) and the late Gertrude Ellis Skinner (Class of 1881) are the 2024 Distinguished Alumni as selected by the Austin High School Alumni & Friends Association.
A school assembly is set for 8:45 a.m. Thursday, Sept. 26, at Austin High's Knowlton Auditorium, where Baskin will address students along with Mower County Historical Society's executive director Randy Forster, who will talk about Skinner. Members of the public who would like to attend must check into the main office by entering the high school's east, main entrance.
Later on Thursday, Baskin and representatives for Skinner will be part of a 6 p.m. dinner in Austin High's commons area outside of Knowlton Auditorium, with a reception starting at 5:30 p.m. The public also is invited. Dinner tickets are $25 per person and need to be reserved by Friday, Sept. 20, by contacting Alumni chair Jeni Lindberg at [email protected] or 507-433-4557.
Baskin and Skinner also will be honored Friday, Sept. 27, in the Homecoming afternoon parade and evening football game.
Baskin, of Austin, is the director of marketing for SPAM at Hormel Foods Corp., where he has worked since 2006. Baskin has worked in sales and served as Hormel's director of corporate strategy in addition to leading brands that included Hormel Chili, Hormel Black Label Bacon and Natural Choice lunch meat.
While at Austin High, Baskin won the state debate championship; placed seventh at the national debate contest; and was a National Merit Scholar semi-finalist.
Upon returning to his hometown, Baskin has been significantly involved in the Austin community, especially since 2018 in his elected role as an Austin City Council member.
Skinner, who died in 1960 at age 94, graduated from Austin High in 1881 and, just nine years later, returned to Austin after being elected as Mower County's first female schools superintendent.
She served a decade in this role, overseeing 130 school districts; 150 teachers and 4,068 students. She established 90 school libraries in Mower County and six summer schools. Skinner helped organize Austin's YWCA group that advocated for women and girls; led the local Red Cross during World War I; and helped serve clothing and necessities to people before Austin had a Salvation Army.
She was honored in 2019 as an Austin Pillar of the City.
Baskin volunteers in numerous ways in the Austin community, including as a youth softball coach, speaker to high school classes and a judge for state and regional debate tournaments. Baskin serves as president of the Austin Port Authority economic development committee and on the Development Corp. of Austin's board of directors.
He previously served as the chair of the Austin Human Rights Commission and vice chair of the Red Cross of Mower County.
Baskin's wife, Dr. Katie Baskin, is Austin Public Schools' executive director of academics and administrative services, and they have two daughters, Ava and Olivia.
His advice for students is to realize they can do anything if they are willing to work hard enough.
"Austin provides a great foundation for you," Baskin said. "You have the power to open amazing doors for yourself." Baskin encourages students to focus their energy on people and things that make them feel happy and fulfilled. "When I look back at my time at AHS, the memories that last nearly 20 years later are the good ones: the friends I still am in touch with; the activities that I loved; the teachers who made an impact," Baskin said. "All the worry about being cool and popularity doesn't matter because that is fleeting. Spend your time and energy on the things that give you time and energy back. That's but one step on your journey of life."
Skinner was born in 1865 near Austin's city limits at the time, which today is land that includes Ellis Middle School that was named in honor of her parents — the Ellis family — who lived there for more than 50 years.
After graduating, Skinner taught grade school in Austin, California and in Hawaii. In 1888, she went on a 14-month tour of Europe, Palestine and Egypt, and then became a school principal in Omaha, Nebraska, before being elected in 1889 as Mower County's superintendent of schools.
In 1900, she married Austin Daily Herald editor John Skinner. She resigned as superintendent prior to her marriage because, at the time, regulations governing Minnesota teachers specified that "women teachers who marry or engage in unseemly conduct will be dismissed." In 1917, she was appointed by the Minnesota governor to a committee focused on improving the state school system.
She worked for 20 years as the Herald's associate editor, and, in 1921, was part of the League of Women Voters, one year after women gained the right to vote in the United States.
In 1956, Skinner was chosen as Austin's "Centennial Queen" as part of the city's celebration of 100 years since its formation.
"Gifted with a rare eloquence and a remarkable memory, she spoke without notes and was constantly in demand as a speaker at civic and social clubs," the Herald wrote in 1966. "Her wide background of travel, her experience as a newspaper woman and her devotion to literature and art, enabled her to speak with authority."