The Leadership Charlotte Class of 2026 wanted to create an award that would be carried on by future classes.<\/p>\n
Their idea was to make a Community Impact Award that each year would honor an individual whose “leadership, service, and dedication have made a lasting difference in the lives of others and strengthened the Charlotte County community.”<\/p>\n
When the committee began meeting, names were bandied about.<\/p>\n
One name kept popping up\u00a0\u2014 over and over.<\/p>\n
Mike Riley.<\/p>\n
The longtime employee of the Charlotte County Public Schools and founder of the BoogieMen band accepted the award recently at the Leadership Charlotte 2026 class graduation.<\/p>\n
“I was floored,” he said of the recognition Thursday. “I told them ‘I didn’t do anything.'”<\/p>\n
Members of the class disagreed.<\/p>\n
In a letter, the class said the award would forever honor those who built the community and nourished its growth.<\/p>\n
They were looking for people who:<\/p>\n
\u2022 Show up.<\/p>\n
\u2022\u00a0People who care.<\/p>\n
\u2022\u00a0People who give of themselves expecting nothing in return.<\/p>\n
\u2022 People who touched a lot of lives.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Those who created opportunities for others.<\/p>\n
\u2022 People who offered encouragement.<\/p>\n
Riley, himself a member of the Charlotte Leadership Hall of Fame, was humbled by the honor.<\/p>\n
“I said I know I do stuff but I am no better than any guy I pass on the street,” he said.<\/p>\n
“Earlier this year I got an award from the (Charlotte County) Sheriff’s Office for community service. There were like 500 people there and I looked out on the crowd and there were so many people there more deserving than me.”<\/p>\n
Riley is known for his work with kids from his days as a coach in schools on up to his tenure as the school district’s public information officer.<\/p>\n
He is also well respected for dozens of free concerts his band played to help local nonprofit charities.<\/p>\n
“It was hard work,” he said of managing and performing with the band. “But I had a riot doing it.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Leadership Charlotte Class of 2026 wanted to create an award that would be carried on by future…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":328559,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[209,211,210,4250,115],"class_list":["post-328558","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral-headlines","tag-cape-coral-news","tag-charlotte","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328558","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=328558"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328558\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/328559"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=328558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=328558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=328558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}