ESU announces 2009 Distinguished Alumni
Emporia State University
Thursday, July 30, 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.
Thye four to be honored are Becky Hays Boober of Holden, Maine.; Randy Scott of Los Altos, Calif.; Justice Harold See of Montgomery, Ala.; and Sue Swaim of Aurora, Maine. The ceremony will be at the Alumni Celebration Dinner on Oct. 30.
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 pool of nominations. The initial selection is made by a committee representing alumni and faculty. The Alumni Association Board of Directors approves the final slate of award winners.
Boober is 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. She has twice led teams of student researchers to Nicaragua, and traveled to Cambodia to work with survivors of land mines.
Scott is the co-founder and executive chairman of Genomic Health, a business created to improve the quality of cancer treatment decisions through research, development and commercialization on genomic-based clinical laboratory services. He also co-founded Incyte, the worlds’ first genomic information content business. An inventor with 25 issued patents, he has written 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. His company was honored as one of the Top 100 private technology companies in North America by Red Herring Magazine.
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 more than 30 articles and given numerous presentations. He is a contributing editor of the Federal Circuit Bar Journal and served in many professional organizations. He is also a Sunday school teacher and was president of the local volunteer fire department.
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. She has published more than 70 articles in national and state journals and was co-developer of the Prentice-Hall National Teaching Teams Award.
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.
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