ESU announces distinguished alumni
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
The highest honor Emporia State University confers upon graduates, the Distinguished Alumni award, will be presented to four alumni during Homecoming Weekend in late October.
Dr. Becky Hays Boober, of Holden, Maine.; Dr. Randy Scott, of Los Altos, Calif.; Justice Harold See, of Montgomery, Ala.; and Sue Swaim, of Aurora, Maine, will be honored by the ESU community at the Alumni Celebration Dinner on Friday, Oct. 30, 2009, during Homecoming Weekend.
The award has recognized ESU’s most prestigious alumni since 1960, and this year’s remarkable class is no exception.
“ESU is extremely proud of the accomplishments of this year’s Distinguished Alumni,” said ESU President Michael R. Lane. “This year we are pleased to honor four outstanding alumni including an award-winning executive in corrections, a state Supreme Court justice, a nationally recognized educator, and a distinguished research scientist and businessman. These four individuals represent excellent examples of the kinds of contributions our best and brightest graduates continue to provide to our nation. I thank each for their dedication and hard work, and I congratulate them on their selection as Distinguished Alumni of Emporia State University.”
The award recipients are selected annually from among a strong pool of nominations. The initial selection is made by a committee representing alumni and faculty, and the Alumni Association Board of Directors approves the final slate of award winners. Read more about the award and see past recipients online at www.emporia.edu/saf/awards/disalum.html.
The public is invited to honor this year’s award winners by attending the Alumni Celebration Dinner. For more information, call (620) 341-5440 or e-mail alumni@emporia.edu.
Biographies
Dr. Becky Hays Boober
Holden, Maine
BSE 1976, MS 1982, Emporia State University
Ph.D. 2005, University of Maine
Dr. Becky Hays Boober is currently employed as the executive director for the Maine Department of Corrections. She won first place in the state organization category of the International NIE Program Excellence competition and has been awarded the U.S. Department of HUD Local & Regional Practices Award. Becky has a list of publications and articles to her credit, plus a number of grants and workshops. She has twice led teams of student researchers to Nicaragua, and traveled to Cambodia to work with survivors of land mines. She is involved in several professional memberships, including the Maine State Policy Academy to End Homelessness and co-authored a $3 million grant for Keeping Children Safe Downeast with the federal Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.
Dr. Randy Scott
Los Altos, Calif.
BS 1979, Emporia State University
Ph.D. 1984, University of Kansas
Dr. Randy Scott is the co-founder and executive chairman of Genomic Health, Inc., a business created to improve the quality of cancer treatment decisions through the research, development and commercialization of genomic-based clinical laboratory services. Randy also co-founded Incyte, the worlds’ first genomic information content business. An inventor on 25 issued patents, he has authored numerous scientific publications in the fields of protein biology, gene discovery, and cancer. He has been recognized by NASDAQ and Ernst &Young as Silicon Valley Entrepreneur of the Year. He has been listed as one of Biotech’s Top 25 influential insiders by Forbes magazine, and was honored as one of the Top 100 private technology companies in North America by Red Herring Magazine.
Justice Harold See
Montgomery, Ala.
BS 1966, Emporia State University
MS 1969, Iowa State University
JD 1973, University of Iowa
Justice Harold See retired from the Alabama Supreme Court in January 2009, after serving since 1996. Before his election to the court, he was a faculty member for 20 years at the University of Alabama School of Law. He has published over 30 articles and given numerous presentations. He is a contributing editor of the Federal Circuit Bar Journal, and served in many professional organizations, including being vice chairman of the Task Force of Alternative Dispute Resolution for the Alabama State Bar Association, chairman of the International Subcommittee of the American Intellectual Property Law Association, and chapter president of the American Association of University Professors. He is also a Sunday school teacher and was president of the local volunteer fire department.
Sue (Naylor) Swaim
Aurora, Maine
BSE 1967, Emporia State University
MA 1980, University of Northern Colorado
Sue Swaim is the executive director emeritus of the National Middle School Association. She has held several teaching and principal positions at various schools across Kansas and Colorado. She was honored with the John H. Lounsbury Award, the Jim Garvin Distinguished Service Award, the Donald Eichhorn Distinguished Service Award, and was an honorary co-recipient of the Teams that Make a Difference Award. She was a developer of the international celebration and program, Month of the Young Adolescent, a national-recognized critical activity sponsored by NMSA. Sue has published over 70 articles in national and state journals and was co-developer of the Prentice-Hall National Teaching Teams Award. She also increased the number of state and provincial affiliate organizations including nearly every state, all the provinces in Canada, as well as several other countries.
Comments
We allow registered users to post comments on this Web site. To learn more about our posting policies please read our User Poster Agreement Policy.
Posted by giggles (anonymous) on July 31, 2009 at 4:46 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Whoa! Have you plastered this on everything in the forums?
I think this could be considered libel.
Post a comment
We allow registered users to post comments on this Web site. Our goal with this feature is to encourage thoughtful discussions about the news stories. Using the comment feature to make random attacks on people is not acceptable. Emporiagazette.com neither endorses nor guarantees the accuracy of any user contribution. Responsibility for what is posted or contributed to this site is the sole responsibility of each user. To learn more about our posting policies please read our User Poster Agreement Policy.
(Requires free registration.)