By Staff
EDWARDSBURG – Saulius "Saul" Anuzis, chairman of the Michigan Republican Party, will be keynote speaker at the 2007 Cass County Lincoln Day Dinner next month.
The GOP dinner will take place Saturday, March 10, at American Legion Post 365, 25751 U.S. 12, Edwardsburg.
Social hour begins at 6 p.m., followed by dinner at 7.
Tickets cost $25 for adults and $10 for students 18 and younger.
Reservation deadline is Thursday, March 1.
Contact Margaret Stanley at (269) 663-2062 to reserve seating.
Born in Detroit on March 6, 1959, Anuzis attended Bishop Borgess High School and studied economics at the University of Michigan on the Dearborn campus.
His senior year he was elected student government president and also was one of the founders and first chairman of the UM-D College Republican Club on campus.
In 1980, Anuzis was elected as the youngest delegate to the Republican National Convention in Detroit. After attending President Reagan's first inaugural, one of the highlights of Anuzis' life, he was elected Third Vice Chair of the MRSC. Anuzis also served six years as a member of the MRSC and two terms as a Congressional District Chairman.
One of Anuzis' biggest opportunities came when he met a small farmer from Lowell named Dick Posthumus. Saul managed Posthumus' first Senate race in 1982, then worked closely with Posthumus throughout his rise in Michigan politics. During that time, Anuzis worked for the House Republican Campaign Committee, the Senate Republican Campaign Committee and, finally, as chief of staff to then Majority Leader Posthumus.
In 1990, Anuzis took a break from politics to focus on his family and business interests. He and partner Bruce Yuille founded Coast to Coast Telecommunications that year. They sold that business in 2000 and in 2001, Anuzis and Yuille co-founded Quick Connect USA, a telecommunications firm providing local, long distance, VOIP, Internet and data services to residential and small businesses throughout Michigan.
Anuzis serves as chairman of Quick Connect USA. However, after being elected chair of the MRSC, he is currently on a leave of absence from the company and maintains no day-to-day responsibilities.
Anuzis is particularly proud of his family's history. He speaks with pride of the Righteous Among the Nations award his parents and paternal grandparents received from Israel's national Holocaust memorial, Yad Vashem, for helping three young girls escape from a Jewish ghetto and make their way from Lithuania to Estonia during World War II. One of those girls, now grown, nominated them for the award.
Anuzis tells a story of how his family was resettled after the war, first in a displaced persons camp in Germany, then in the basement of a church in Brooks, Minn. There, the priest gave his father a set of 19 books on how to become an electrician. He first had to learn to speak English, but he mastered both the language and the skill. His father then spent 32 years as a skilled tradesman on the line at the Detroit Fleetwood Fisher Body plant on Fort Street.
Anuzis is a Scoutmaster of a local Boy Scout troop, is actively involved in several Lithuanian-American organizations and serves on several non-profit boards. He was a gubernatorial appointee to the Michigan Jobs Commission and the Michigan Export Development Authority. He currently serves as Honorary Consul to Michigan for the Republic of Lithuania.
Anuzis has been married for 19 years to Lina (Alksninis) and they have four sons: Matas, 16; Tadas, 14; Vytis, 12; and Marius, 10. They reside in Eaton County.