Cleo Knippenberg

Cleo Knippenberg, 1918 -

Cleo Knippenberg was born in Cumberland and attended Maryland Avenue Elementary, Pennsylvania Avenue Junior High, and Allegany Senior High Schools. She also attended Allegany Community College, the Concordia Lutheran Teaching College in Illinois, and is a graduate of the Barbizon School of Modeling.

In 1959 Cleo began teaching a morning kindergarten class at the Trinity Lutheran Church on North Centre Street in Cumberland. Christian education, as well as academic preparation, had always been important to the congregation and a parochial school had been initially established as early as 1854.

In 1960, and along with her continued teaching responsibilities, Cleo was appointed School Director overseeing three teachers and, over the coming years, anywhere from 60 to 81 students divided among numerous classes. This was well before the Allegany County public schools had initiated a kindergarten program in 1970. Cleo Knippenberg would serve the school for 26 years until her retirement at age 63. At that point the congregation decided to discontinue the school.

Cleo is a former President of the Cumberland Business and Professional Women's (BPW) Club and was selected on two occasions as the club's "Woman of the Year". She was also selected as one of five Maryland Federation of BPW "Women of the Year". In 1988 she was voted Ms. Senior Maryland and finished as Third Runner-up in the National Ms. Senior America Pageant held in Atlantic City that same year.