(Butler, PA) Pennsylvania state and U.S. flags flown atop the Capitol in Harrisburg recognized David C. Huseman’s 40-year dedication to financial literacy and extended an honor the longtime professor received from Butler County Community College in 2023.
BC3 last year named the Professor David C. Huseman Center for Economic Education space within the college’s arts and hospitality building on its main campus in Butler Township.
Huseman, 79, of Butler, has been director of the center since its founding in 1983, and at nearly 57 years is the college’s longest-serving employee.
The center teaches economic concepts by administering to students in Grades 4 through 12 a 30-week Stock Market Game that begins in September, and 10-week competitions in the fall and spring.
Students competing in BC3’s Stock Market Game receive a hypothetical $100,000, make buy-and-trade decisions and track how those decisions would have played out in the market had they been real.
The center also administers the BC3 Entrepreneurship Challenge.
High school students competing in the challenge have 15 minutes to pitch a business plan idea to judges, who consider factors such as creativity, the effectiveness of an introductory speech, and students’ ability to identify the competitive advantage their business would have.
“This is just something special.”
The 5-foot-wide by 3-foot-tall Pennsylvania state flag was raised in Huseman’s honor Dec. 22, according to state Rep. Marci Mustello, R-11; and a same-sized U.S. flag in Huseman’s honor Jan. 22, according to state Sen. Scott Hutchinson, R-21.
“It is very rare.”
Flags are flown to recognize “individuals who have shown outstanding service in molding others’ lives and helping others to become the best that they can be,” said Hutchinson, who in his third term said one to two of his approximately 260,000 constituents are recognized each year with a flag flown over the Capitol.
“It is very rare,” Hutchinson said.
Huseman is the first of her approximately 66,000 constituents to be recognized with a flag flown over the Capitol since she took office in 2019, Mustello said.
“This is just something special,” Mustello said. “David has been such a stalwart at BC3. For someone to do what he has done for as long as he has done it, he has to be recognized.”
Mustello’s and Hutchinson’s districts include parts of Butler County. The state legislators presented the flags flown and certificates to Huseman on Feb. 15 on BC3’s main campus.
“My family and I are obviously thrilled,” Huseman said. “They were part of everything we have done over the past number of years.”
Huseman “so very much deserves it”
The Professor David C. Huseman Center for Economic Education named space features 3.75-inch-tall letters raised a half-inch off a wall near the interior entrance to the Concordia Educational Center and the Amy Wise Children’s Creative Learning Center.
Huseman, a professor in BC3’s liberal arts division, teaches principles of economics and American national government courses at BC3. He has also been a director on the BC3 Education Foundation board since 1999 and a member the board’s finance committee since 2004.
“There is not another person, there has not been another person, who has spent so much time on our campus as David Huseman,” said Dr. Nick Neupauer, BC3’s president. “The center in his name is a great recognition for David, and this is another recognition for someone who so very much deserves it.”
Financial literacy “the way of life”
The college’s most-recent Stock Market Game included 397 teams from 26 schools in Armstrong, Butler, Clearfield, Elk, Jefferson, Lawrence and Mercer counties.
BC3’s most-recent Entrepreneurship Challenge attracted teams from Ellwood City, Farrell, Freeport, Fort Cherry, Jamestown, Lakeview, Penns Manor, Punxsutawney and Seneca Valley high schools.
Financial literacy, Mustello said, “is vital for life skills. It’s a good thing that we have BC3 to provide that education to students. They have to learn about finances. It’s the way of life.”
It is important “that individuals learn how to manage their own lives, their own finances,” Hutchinson said. “They should have a little bit of an understanding about how the broader picture works with financial events in our communities or in our country.”
