This year marks the 47th Annual WSU Alumni Association Awards ceremony, at which six stellar Shockers will be recognized for their many and diverse accomplishments.
Dan Carney ’53
Carney, who — as every informed Shocker knows — co-founded Pizza Hut with his brother Frank ’00 in 1958 and then sold the phenomenally successful venture to PepsiCo in 1977, will receive the Achievement Award, the highest honor given to an alumnus of WSU by the alumni association. Although his entrepreneurial enterprise is recognized everywhere from Moscow, Russia, to Moscow, Idaho, he remains firmly rooted in the Wichita community and credits his family, above all else, for his success. When asked about the award, Carney, who seems genuinely to dislike public acclaim and who has for years aided many local charities in his low-key, behind-the-scenes way, says simply, “It is an honor to be selected.”
Chris Shank ’69
Involved in scores of community and university organizations, including Big Brothers Big Sisters of Sedgwick County, SASO and the alumni association, for which he served as president in 2001-02, this chairman of the board of Dulaney Johnston & Priest, a Wichita-based insurance firm, is a Recognition Award recipient. Although professionally ensconced in the worlds of business and insurance, Shank says his liberal-arts background proved vital to his success: “English makes you well-suited to any job, and literature is key to self-awareness and provides guideposts for us along the way.”
Dharma deSilva
Recognition Award-winner deSilva, a professor of international business and management at WSU’s Barton School of Business, has watched his fruitful relationship with the university ripen into respected partnerships with many entities in the global business world, notably Wichita’s World Trade Council. “My wife and I,” deSilva says, “are proud to be part of the WSU community and grateful for the multinational firms of the board of the World Trade Council, who believed in the WTC as it was being built into a national model of excellence.”
Julia Lee
Lee, executive assistant to WSUs president, is the 2002 Laura Cross Distinguished Service Award winner. Lee, who has worked alongside four Wichita State presidents, notes that although her job can certainly be a high-pressure one, it has brought her many rewards: “The people I encounter here are like a second family.” An avid reader and runner, Lee says one thing that has made her more than 25 years of service to the university so enjoyable is change. “Each new president has brought a new style, a new personality and new challenges. It’s like I’ve had four jobs.”
Eric Sexton ’87/92 and Kathy Sexton ’89/92
“Forgive the pun,” says Kathy Sexton, assistant county manager and chief information officer for Sedgwick County, when asked about the moment she discovered she’d be sharing the Young Alumni Award with husband Eric, “but I was shocked.” Eric jokes: “I knew I’d get one because of my wife.” Eric, who has served WSU for more than a decade — since 1997 as director of governmental relations — adds, “People say you can’t go home again, but you can. I was lucky to attend the university and now to work for it. Being selected for the Young Alumni Award is a privilege and an honor.”
— Jedd Beaudoin ’01
