It’s a Pawsitive Life
A lifelong animal lover, Wendy Kelly ’88/91 spends her days helping pets and the people who love them understand one another better. An animal behaviorist based in Pinellas Park, Fla., she owns Pet Peeves Animal Training Inc. — which serves clients across the country — and is the founder of the Pawsitive Life Foundation, which trains rescue dogs to detect cancer in humans. In her book Buji and Me: 7 Lessons From The Dog Who Rescued Me, Kelly shares the story of her own cancer-detecting dog. She also works with cats, horses, and birds. “A positive relationship is the foundation for all successful training and behavior modification,” she says. “We must go there first before we can go anywhere else.”
Miss Ghana USA
The reigning Miss Ghana USA, Idia “Akua” Tokunboh ’08, is a Wichita pharmacist and an advocate for diabetes education in Africa. Born and raised in Ghana, she moved to Wichita with her parents as a teenager. At Wichita State, she majored in chemistry and business. Since winning the Miss Ghana USA crown last summer at a competition in New York City, this beauty queen has been busy in her fight against diabetes by participating in such events as the annual Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation’s Walk to Cure Diabetes, and she traveled to Ghana to take part in various diabetes awareness activities there.
Shockers at Google
At first glance, WSU’s psychology department might not seem a likely place to prepare students for a career at Google. However, for Dawn Shaikh ’05/07, Justin Owens ’01/10/13 and Doug Fox ’06/08/11, who all have PhDs in human factors psychology and work as user experience researchers at Google, WSU’s Software Usability Research Lab was a perfect launching pad. Currently a user experience manager at Google’s Seattle office, Shaikh has also spent time in the company’s Mountain View, Calif., Kirkland, Wash., and Bangalore, India offices. Owens, a senior user experience researcher and user experience lead for Google Analytics, works from the Mountain View office, while Fox is a senior user experience researcher for Google Fiber in Kansas City.
A+ Shocker
Andrea “Drea” Belsan ’14, knowing the power teachers can have in the lives of their students, strives to make a positive impression on each of her fourth grade students at Wichita’s Griffith Elementary School. Her efforts haven’t gone unnoticed. In March, she was recognized by the Wichita Public Schools as the 2015 Distinguished Classroom Teacher in the First-Year Elementary category. The awards, school officials say, are given to “outstanding teachers who affect the quality of education.” Congratulations to this A+ Shocker!
Motown Mojo
From WSU’s Wilner Auditorium to NYC’s Great White Way, Julius Thomas III ’05 has been delighting audiences with his theatrical prowess for more than a decade now. Lately, Thomas has been getting raves for his performances as legendary producer Berry Gordy while on national tour of Motown the Musical. He “makes a charming leading man,” says the Arizona Republic, and is, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, “the steady glue of the show.” Thomas, adds the Durham Herald-Sun, exudes “the personality, voice and heart of Motown.”
Monument Guy
No stranger to movie sets — he sculpted for “The Hobbit” trilogy, “Elysium” and “Mad Max: Fury Road” — Craig Campbell ’99 and his sculptures can now be found on the small screen. A regular on the History Channel’s “Monuments Guys,” Campbell helps create bronze statues of everyone from small town heroes to infamous pirates like Blackbeard. A prolific professional for more than 20 years, his deft touch has turned chunks of concrete, bronze, wax, clay, foam and resin into toys, action figures, collectibles and pieces for both private and public collections. For Campbell, who also leads classes and workshops at the Wichita Center for the Arts, what started out as a hobby has morphed into a career that he thoroughly enjoys.
Counting Shockers
Here at The Shocker offices the other day, we were working on our most recent collection of Class Notes, and couldn’t help but start counting the Shockers listed who work at Allen, Gibbs & Houlik. AGH isn’t only one of the largest CPA and advisory firms in the Midwest, it’s also one of the largest employers of WSU-educated professionals anywhere. Here’s the queue of AGH Shockers we pulled from Class Notes, starting with Paul Allen ’70, who is a 2015 inductee into the Wichita Business Hall of Fame: Ryan Burrus ’01, Scott Carter ’11, Mike Ditch Jr. ’13, Whitney Englert ’12/13, Raymond Hall ’00, Thomas McDonald ’11/11, Ben Schirer ’07, and Michael Wolff ’97.
Shocker Innovator
Innovation is part of Wichita State’s core identity, so it comes as no surprise that many WSU-educated alumni are not afraid to embrace novel ideas and try something new. Kenton Hansen ’13 is one such Shocker. A Wichita native, Hansen helped found the Labor Party, a collaborative Old Town office space. Also active with Wichita’s Startup Weekend and co-founder of the Ad Astra Academy coding boot camp, Hansen is director of marketing for high-tech consulting firm BalancedComp. Recently, his myriad and innovative contributions to the local community were recognized with a 2015 Innovation Award from the Wichita Business Journal. We can’t help but wonder — what’s coming next?
