ESU recognizes Hoelting family tradition with Hornet Heritage Award
Dirk McBratney - ESU Media Relations
Thursday, September 18, 2008
The Hoeltings and ESU are truly a family tradition together.
The Hoelting family, headed by Norbert and Mary Hoelting of Olpe, has produced 15 ESU graduates and eight other ESU attendees over a course of 43 years. They have been selected for the eighth annual Hornet Heritage Award, presented to families with ESU pedigree by the ESU Alumni Association. The Hoelting family will be recognized during halftime of Saturday’s football game against Fort Hays State at 1 p.m. Saturday at Welch Stadium.
At the same time ESU shows its appreciation to the Hoeltings, the Hoeltings are recognizing ESU’s mission by establishing the Norbert and Mary Hoelting Scholarship Fund at the Olpe State Bank, serving as a holding fund until the $10,000 goal is reached.
Floyd Hoelting, the family’s first Kansas State Teachers College (later ESU) graduate, sees this as an appropriate investment: “Higher education improves and enriches our lives. In collaboration with Emporia State University, Hoelting family members keep learning and striving to improve themselves and their communities for future generations.”
Hoelting said that when he was able to attend college through the GI Bill, it hadn’t been a part of his life plan.
“College was only a dream for us,” said Floyd. “We did not have the money for college, and we were always too busy to consider college as an option.”
Nonetheless, his enthusiasm for the university life spread to his younger siblings, who attended college events and befriended faculty. Six of Norbert’s and Mary’s 11 children became students of KSTC. Floyd Hoelting married JoEllen Greathouse, who was also a KSTC student. He earned his BA degree at KSTC and graduated with an MA in 1968. JoEllen graduated with a BSE in the following year and completed her master’s degree in 1972. Their son, Jason, graduated with a BS in 2000, and is married to Holli Redeker, a current undergraduate student at ESU.
Of Floyd’s siblings, Donna Herron, Daryl Hoelting, and Mary Beth Bonitatibus are former students, and Viola Hoelting (BSE 1971, MS 1973), Joyce Ratcliff (BSE 1971), and brother-in-law Gary Herron (BSB 1972) are ESU alumni.
Of the next generation of Hoeltings, Lynn Redeker (BSB 1998) and her husband Justin (BSE 1994), Stacy Heins (BSE 2000), Karis Ratcliff (BS 2004), Sara Tomlinson (BSE 2004, MS 2008), and Mark (BSB 1997), Brent (BSE 2003), and Trisha Hoelting (BSN 2000) are alumni, and Travis Heins, Chris Herron, Kelli Herron, and Lisa Mautz are former students of ESU.