Cheryl Stevens went to SUNY Oneonta after high school and majored in Education K-12, concentrating in English, Speech and Theatre following the passion acquired in Sidney with her young involvement with the Tri-Town Theatre and High School Drama Club. She then moved to Schoharie County, the State University of New York in Cobleskill where she was Director of Student Activities for 20 years and then Director of Community Outreach, and Director of Campus and Community Programming and Special Events for 15 years. While at SUNY Cobleskill, Cheryl became intensely involved as a volunteer with the Arts community and directed two or three musicals each year and an astounding fifty talent shows.
After 35 years at the college from a career spent nurturing young people along their path in life as well as directly being a "hands on" administrator, Cheryl, in retirement continues to direct a group of ladies in their 70's and 80's that entertain in hospitals and nursing homes and a choir of ARC citizens.
Cheryl is founder, President and CEO of the completely volunteer Schoharie County Marathon for a Better Life, a countywide event which has raised over a million dollars to help over 900 cancer patients
Today Cheryl continues on as the county's unofficial Goodwill Ambassador. Nominated six times by the citizens of Schoharie County to the newspapers "Star", Cheryl was lauded for her "efforts to help the hungry, senior citizens, the mentally challenged, kids, soldiers serving overseas and cancer victims."
In the wake of the flood of 2011 Cheryl, as a board member of the Schoharie County Community Action Program, spearheaded fundraisers to help out her fellow county residents in the aftermath of these historic floods, raising more than a quarter of a million dollars in donations to help in flood relief. Today Cheryl serves as Chair of the Schoharie County Flood Relief Committee which was organized by SCCAP, Catholic Charities and Social Services which has raised well over a half million dollars, some of it from the proceeds of Schoharie County: Stronger than Irene published by National Grid.
It is no wonder that this young girl from the Class of 1970, a child of Sidney's Bridge Street neighborhood, was named Schoharie County's Notable Woman of the Year, Rotary's 2010 Citizen of the Year, the Daughters of the Revolution Statewide Citizen of the Year, ARC Volunteer of the Year and twice named to the Outstanding Young Women in America.