KU News Release

KU to honor 62 southwest Kansas high school seniors, Sublette volunteers Nov. 8

LAWRENCE — Students from 10 Kansas high schools will be honored Wednesday, Nov. 8, along with longtime alumni volunteers Sterling and Jacqueline Sloan Hall of Sublette, by the University of Kansas Alumni Association and KU Endowment.

A total of 62 seniors from high schools in Grant, Haskell, Morton, Seward, Stanton and Stevens counties will be recognized for their academic achievements and named Kansas Honor Scholars at a 7 p.m. dinner program in Seward County Community College, 1801 N. Kansas, Liberal.

The Kansas Honors Program began in 1971 and will honor its 100,000th student this year. Scholars rank in the top 10 percent of their high school senior class and are selected regardless of curricula, majors, occupational plans or higher-education goals. Honorees’ names are listed below.

KU Chancellor Robert Hemenway will speak to the students, their parents and guests during the ceremony. Honored students will be guests of the Alumni Association and KU Endowment; parents and area alumni are welcome to attend at a cost of $11 each. Each student will receive an American Heritage Dictionary in hardback and CD versions, presented by Kevin Corbett, KU Alumni Association president.

Corbett will also present the Halls with a Mildred Clodfelter Alumni Award for their years of service in their community on behalf of the university.

The Halls are KU School of Business graduates. Sterling graduated in 1976, and Jacqueline completed her degree in 1975. Both are life members of the KU Alumni Association and members of association’s Jayhawk Society. They coordinated the Kansas Honors Program in Liberal for 25 years. Jacqueline also is a member of the Southwest Kansas alumni chapter board.

For the athletics department, they are members of the Williams Educational Fund and the KU Women’s Basketball Hardwood Club. They have supported the School of Business as donors.

Community volunteers collect reservations, coordinate details and serve as local contacts for the event. Al and Donna Shank of Liberal will be the site coordinators. County coordinators are Nathan McCaffrey of Liberal for Morton and Seward counties; Kevin and Catherine Moyer of Ulysses for Grant and Stanton counties; the Halls for Haskell County; and Erick and Debbie Nordling of Hugoton for Stevens County.

The Kansas Honors Program is made possible through KU Endowment and proceeds from the Jayhawk License Plate program. The Mildred Clodfelter Alumni Award, created in 1986 by the Alumni Association, honors volunteers who serve as KU ambassadors in their home communities. The award is named for Clodfelter, who received a bachelor’s degree in 1941 from KU and worked at KU for 47 years, 42 of them at the Alumni Association. Clodfelter, known to countless Jayhawks nationwide, retired in 1986 and passed away in 2005.

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