Minnesota’s 2019 50 Over 50 Celebration

Pollen and AARP Minnesota

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About This Event

McNamara Alumni Center | 200 SE Oak St Minneapolis, MN 55455

October 17, 2019

Pollen and AARP Minnesota are proud to present the 2019 50 Over 50. Join us as we recognize and celebrate 50 of the most inspiring and accomplished leaders in Minnesota who are over the age of 50.

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Learn more about our past honorees.

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Event Details
FEATURED SPEAKERS

Event Details

It’s time to recognize that possibilities shouldn’t be limited by age. It’s time to change the stories we tell ourselves about aging.

It’s time for a new list.

Join AARP Minnesota and Pollen at McNamara Alumni Center on Thursday, October 17, as we recognize and celebrate 50 incredible individuals over the age of 50 who are challenging outdated beliefs about aging, living life on their own terms, and improving the lives of others.

Minnesota’s 50 Over 50 list honors Minnesotans who are 50+ and have made significant contributions and achievements in the nonprofit and for-profit sectors, in the arts and community, and in disrupting our outdated beliefs about aging.

M E E T T H E

HONOREES

50 Over 50 Celebration Event
McNamara Alumni Center
Thursday, October 17, 2019
11:00 a.m.–1:00 p.m.
Register by October 7

MORE ABOUT

Thirty under thirty. Forty under forty. Twenty under twenty. We’re bombarded with lists of people under a certain age who are making significant contributions in their communities. Ever wonder why there isn’t a list of people OVER a certain age? So did we. That’s why AARP Minnesota and Pollen teamed up to create a new list. Minnesota’s 50 Over 50 is a first-of-its-kind list honoring fifty incredible individuals over the age of fifty who are making an impact in our state. People who don’t adhere to the belief that you have to be under forty, thirty, or twenty to blaze a trail or shake things up.

A transparent cohort of distinguished peers then took on the near impossible task of narrowing down the list to fifty of the most inspiring and accomplished leaders from across the state. All of us at Pollen and AARP Minnesota owe a great deal of thanks to our selection committee for all the time and energy they invested in helping us bring 50 Over 50 to life.

PROGRAM

11-11:30AM Registration & Networking

11:30AM-1:00PM Recognition Ceremony

Co-emceed by 2018 50 Over 50 Honorees Rose McGee (Community) and T. Mychael Rambo (Arts), with a special performance by 2017 50 Over 50 Honoree Venus de Mars (Arts).

McNamara Alumni Center is located on the University of Minnesota campus with convenient access from 94, 280 and 35W. Detailed directions can be found on McNamara’s website. You can also plan your trip at metrotransit.org.

Lunch will be served.

Special thanks to AARP Minnesota for their partnership in organizing this event.

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FEATURED SPEAKERS

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Venus de Mars

Performer

Featured Contributor

Venus de Mars

Performer

Venus de Mars is best known as the iconic leader of the long standing Minneapolis dark-glam/trans band: “Venus de Mars & All The Pretty Horses.”

Venus formed the band in the early 90s, and fronted it through turbulent dark days when identifying as trans meant being classified as mentally ill and living as an outcast. She recently toured with Laura Jane Grace and Against Me.

She is now touring her first solo-acoustic release, “Flesh and Wire.”

But she is also known in the arts community as a performance artist. She is both a former McKnight Multidisciplinary Artist Support, and Bush Artist Support fellowship recipient, as well as one of the core artists from the now defunct 1980s era “Rifle Sport Alternative Art Gallery,” which was formerly located on Minneapolis’s infamous “E-Block.”

Venus, her band, and her wife are the subject of the award winning 2004 rock-documentary “Venus of Mars.”

In addition to continuing her musical career, Venus is now in the process of writing a memoir which follows her early 90s to mid-2000s underground trans-rock world-path full of music, ambition, destruction, obsession, dream, fetish, and shadow.
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Rose McGee

Co-Emcee

Featured Contributor

Rose McGee

Co-Emcee

Rose McGee is a sweet potato pie philanthropist and creator of the Sweet Potato Comfort Pie™ approach – a catalyst for building and strengthening community. She is a 2018 50 Over 50 Honoree, a two-time Charlie Awards Nominee, a 2019 Bush Fellow, is featured in the national PBS documentary A Few Good Pie Places, and TEDx talk on The Power of Pie. Sweet Potato Comfort Pie™ has become a cornerstone service approach during the Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday weekend when Rose, along with dozens of volunteers, bake pies; hundreds of community members convene in tough conversations around race and equity; then among themselves, the participants distribute the pies throughout the community as a symbol of concern and celebration. Rose resides in Golden Valley where in 2017 she was named “Citizen of The Year” and in 2018 was presented the “Bill Hobbs Human Rights Award.” She is author of the play, Kumbayah the Juneteenth Story, the book, Story Circle Stories, and soon to be released children’s book, Can’t Nobody Make a Sweet Potato Pie like Our Mama.
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T Mychael Rambo

Co-Emcee

Featured Contributor

T Mychael Rambo

Co-Emcee

Regional Emmy Award winning actor, vocalist, arts educator and community organizer, T. Mychael Rambo, has made an indelible mark here in the Twin Cities. He has performed principal roles at such theaters as Penumbra, the Guthrie, New Dawn Theatre, Ordway Theatre, Illusion Theatre, Mixed Blood, Park Square Theatre, 10,000 Things, Theater Latte Da, Children’s Theatre and Minnesota Opera to name but a few. Nationally and internationally his stage credits include Carnegie Hall and performances abroad in Africa, Europe and South America. He has appeared in local and national television commercials, feature films, HBO mini-series, and other television programming. T. Mychael is an accomplished residency artist and an affiliate professor in the College of Liberal Arts, Theatre Arts and Dance at the University of Minnesota. As a recording artist, T. Mychael has released two popular CD’s: “Simply” – a collection of jazz standards, and “The Gift; A Christmas With Love” – a selection of original and holiday classics. T. Mychael had the great honor of singing the National Anthem for both President Barack Obama and former President Jimmy Carter. T. Mychael is also the proud recipient of the 2010 Sally Award in Arts Educator, presented by the Ordway Theatre, and the 2010 Minnesota Black Music Award. His other honors and awards include Young Audience Artist of the Year, McKnight Theatre Artist Fellowship, Minnesota State Arts Board Artist Fellowship, Bush Finalist and both the University of Minnesota Century Council Community Award and Outstanding Community Service Award among others. As a public speaker T. Mychael shares his motivational skill set by lacing together his many other talents with spirited anecdotal storytelling, insightful observations, levity and song that makes for a thought-provoking, transformative and truly enriching interactive presentation.