Recipients of the honor, the highest given by KU and the Kansas Alumni Association, are A. Drue Jennings of Leawood, chairman and chief executive officer of Kansas City Power & Light Co.; the Rev. Vincent E. Krische of Lawrence, director of the St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center; Martha Dodge Nichols of Kansas City, vice president of Nichols Industries Inc.; and Chester B. Vanatta of Tucson, Ariz., president of Executive Consulting Group Inc.
The Distinguished Service Citation, honoring those who have benefited humanity, has been awarded since 1941. This year's winners will be honored by the Alumni Association Friday, May 21, at the All-University Supper in the Adams Alumni Center and will march in commencement Sunday, May 23. Limited public seating for the dinner is available. Tickets are $35. For information call the Alumni Association at (785) 864-4760.
A. Drue Jennings, who earned his bachelor's degree in education in 1968 and a law degree in 1972, grew up in Kansas City, Kan., graduating from Argentine High School. He attended KU on a football scholarship, then returned to Kansas City to teach at Wyandotte High School for a year before starting law school at KU. In 1974 he joined Kansas City Power & Light as an attorney, advancing through the ranks to become chief executive officer in 1988 and chairman of the board in 1991.
Among other activities, Jennings helped guide the Bartle Hall Convention Center Expansion Campaign and the Campaign for Science City at Union Station, and helped found Bethany Medical Center.
For his alma mater, Jennings serves the KU Endowment Association, the KU Medical Center Research Institute and the School of Law. In 1992, with his wife, Susan Kolman Jennings, who earned an education degree in 1968, he gave $55,000 to support expansion of KU athletics facilities.
The Rev. Vincent Krische built the St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center from a garage-based meeting hall into a $3 million complex, which clergy from universities worldwide study as a model.
Krische grew up in Topeka, graduating from Hayden High School. At St. Thomas School of Theology, he earned a bachelor's degree in philosophy and a master's degree in theology. He was ordained in the Archdiocese of Kansas City in 1964, and directed Washburn University's Catholic Campus Center in Topeka from 1969 until 1977. In 1977 he became director and chaplain of KU's St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center.
That year, Krische established the Religious Education and Activities for the Community Handicapped (REACH). In 1980 he founded Lawrence Catholic Social Services. He also works with the Douglas County AIDS project, the Douglas County United Way Executive Board and the TLC Project (Training Leaders for the Community). He recently completed an eight-year appointment as vice chairman for the Kansas Government Ethics Commission, and his Spring Break Alternative Program has expanded to other campus ministries and to Student Union Activities.
Although Martha Dodge Nichols, a 1936 graduate of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, chose bacteriology over fine arts for a KU degree, she later pursued a three-year comprehensive course in art and art techniques at the Artists School of Westport, Conn. While working since 1953 as a board member and vice president of family-owned Nichols Industries Inc., she has created original works for more than a dozen one-artist shows and 26 juried shows in Kansas City, throughout Kansas and in Colorado. She is now a professional with five other artists at Studio West in Kansas City, Kan.
She has been active in the arts community, helping to revitalize the Kansas City Philharmonic Association, and has served in various capacities KU's Lied Center of Kansas and School of Fine Arts, the University of Missouri-Kansas City's Gallery of Art, Kansas City's Starlight Theater Association, the Kansas City Ballet, the Kansas City Artists Coalition, the Kansas City Conservatory, and the Johnson County Arts Council, the American Royal Association, and Helicon 9, a magazine of women in the arts. She is a charter member of the Central Exchange and the Writers Place in Kansas City, and the National Museum of Women in Washington, D.C.
Two Kansas governors have appointed Nichols to the Kansas Arts Commission, including a 1976 appointment as the organization's president by former Gov. Robert Bennett, a 1950 graduate of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and a 1952 law graduate. In 1990, then Gov. Mike Hayden named her to the Governor's Council on the Arts.
Chet Vanatta, a 1959 business graduate who earned a master's degree in 1963, worked for Arthur Young & Co., rising from staff accountant in 1962 to become vice chairman of operations and regional managing partner from 1976 to 1985, before retiring at age 50. While at Arthur Young, Vanatta shared his knowledge with civic and educational organizations wherever his career took him, serving on the Council on Foreign Affairs in Chicago, and, from 1977 to 1981, as a director of New York City's Legal Aid Society. He was the only non-attorney member of an organization with approximately 1,500 lawyers on staff.
After leaving Arthur Young, Vanatta returned to KU, joining the School of Business faculty and teaching a graduate financial accounting course as the Paul J. Adam Distinguished Lecturer.
Vanatta also served the Alumni Association, the Endowment Association, and the business school's Campaign Kansas Steering Committee. Vanatta and his wife, Patsy Straub Vanatta, a 1959 graduate of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, also contributed $125,000 to Campaign Kansas for the business school's Arthur Young distinguished professorship and other KU programs.
Vanatta has helped steer a preschool for at-risk children and a full employment program for the developmentally disabled. He has advocated for children through Kansas Action for Children Inc. and Kansas Children's Service League.
Contact Jennifer Jackson Sanner or Kay Henry, Kansas Alumni Association, (785) 864-4760.