KU News Release

Alumna to receive military promotion at KU ceremony

Maj. Janet Holliday

LAWRENCE — A University of Kansas alumna with a distinguished career in the U.S. Army will be promoted from major to lieutenant colonel in a ceremony at 11:15 a.m. Friday, Aug. 1, at the Memorial Campanile.

Maj. Janet Holliday, a Great Bend native, graduated from KU with a journalism degree in 1988 and joined the Army shortly after, working for the Armed Forces Radio and Television Service. She traveled the world, including Greece, Germany and Italy, before returning to KU to earn a master’s degree in English.

Holliday spent three years teaching English at the United States Military Academy at West Point. She now is stationed at the Pentagon, working for the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

The promotion ceremony is taking place at KU, Holliday said, because her family members live in Kansas and because of her deep affection for the university.

“I wouldn’t be where I am today without KU,” she said.

KU’s Army ROTC unit will present colors during the ceremony, and a close friend of Holliday’s will issue the oath. In her next assignment, Holliday will be commander of Carlisle Barracks in Pennsylvania.

“Janet Holliday has been an outstanding student as well as an outstanding servant of her country. Her teachers and her classmates salute her,” said James Carothers, professor of English at KU.

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