For the 57th time, members of the Wichita State community came together to commend the accomplishments of the recipients of the WSU Alumni Awards.
On April 30 at the Wichita Marriott, five Shocker honorees – Cleo Littleton, Lynn Stephan, Dave Dahl, Connie White and Alex Kanelakos – were presented traditional awards, with the 10 administrative leaders of the alumni association garnering special Shocker Tribute accolades as part of the association’s centennial celebration, 1913-2013: A Century of Shockers.
The awards ceremony for the 2012 class of honorees served to continue the association’s proud tradition of celebrating personal and professional achievement, as well as service to Wichita State and to society. The 2012 award recipients joined an ever-growing list of individuals who have excelled in their professions and contributed to their communities in myriad, but always extraordinary ways.
Established in 1955, the Achievement Award is the highest honor given to Wichita State alumni by the alumni association. Recognition Awards are presented to alumni, friends of the university and faculty or staff for outstanding public service and/or particular service to WSU. The Laura Cross Distinguished Service Award recognizes WSU staff who have given exceptional service to the university. The Young Alumnus Award is presented in recognition of the accomplishments of a WSU graduate 40 years old or younger.
The evening event began with a welcome by Debbie Kennedy ’94, president and CEO of the alumni association. Kathy Winslow ’04/09, alumni association board chair, and WSU President John Bardo gave remarks, and Dick Honeyman ’61 and Bonnie Bing Honeyman ’70/76 served as masters of ceremonies.
Mark Foley, WSU professor of bass and graduate coordinator, and students from his music technology class composed original background music for the award-honoree videos shown at the event.
When first faced with the alumni association’s request for an original composition, Foley commented, “This sounds fun. I’ll run this by my technology class. So, give me a short list of adjectives that descibes the kind of music you are looking for.”
After turning in the composition, he reported, “The class had a great time interpreting the adjectives! The piece ended up being a simple piano anthem with rock accompaniment, with some long episodes. It’s pretty mellow and repetitive, designed to accompany video.”
The “Shockery,” “uplifting,” “smart,” “savvy,” “cutting-edge,” “sophisticated,” “inspirational,” “traditional” WSU Alumni Awards Anthem debuted to great effect at the banquet, where live music was provided by John Goering ’95/01 and Bill Harshbarger.
Video production work was done by WSU Media Resources staff members Greg Mathias, Garrick Enright and Curt Rierson, while KAKE-TV’s Larry Hatteberg was the talent for the video voice-overs.
The special A Century of Shockers event invitation was designed by professionals at WSU Marketing Communications; Cocoa Dolce Artisan Chocolates provided special gifts for banquet attendees and honorees; Standard Beverage provided libations; the 2012 awards photography was by Wichita-based Chauncey Photography; and Kechi, Kan.-based Karg Art Glass handcrafted the Shocker-yellow-and-black awards themselves.
Alumni Achievement: Cleo Littleton
He was called “Cleo the Cat” during his basketball playing days. At East High, Cleo Littleton was the school’s basketball star from his sophomore year on.
Coached by Ralph Miller, he was tall and slender, graceful and quick, accurate and agile. His high school graduation coincided with Miller’s becoming basketball coach at the University of Wichita. Cleo, who hadn’t thought much about going to college, netted a full scholarship as Coach Miller’s premier Shocker forward. The year was 1951.
As a Shocker, Littleton became the first black basketball player to play in away games in the Missouri Valley Conference, a distinction he held for two years. He also became a lightning rod for racial hostility, both subtle and blatant.
During road trips, he often couldn’t eat or sleep with the rest of the team. He was called names and vilified when he made a basket — which was often. He still holds the Wichita State record for the most points scored in a career: 2,164. Named All-MVC four times, he’s a charter member of the Shocker Sports Hall of Fame and one of only five WSU basketball players whose numbers have been retired. He wore No. 13.
“You have to understand,” says Mike Kennedy ’74, “that at the time he played, the MVC included Tulsa, Oklahoma City, Houston and even St. Louis that all had atmospheres and attitudes much like the deep South in those times. He went through a lot. Not only did he endure that and play successfully, but by doing that he paved the way for the MVC to be one of the leaders in that era to giving opportunities to African American players.”
“The thing that I admire most about Cleo Littleton,” says fellow Shocker basketball great Antoine Carr, “is the fact that he never would give up. And I appreciate what he did for us, as an African American player. He opened a lot of doors for us.”
During his junior year at WU, Littleton was elected “Jack Armstrong,” the most All-American man on campus, and Jeannine Crowdus, who is white, was elected “Wheaties Sweetie.” Tradition associated with the honor involved a meeting at center court, a crowning and a kiss.
Littleton remembers: “Coach ordered me not to kiss her, and my teammates egged me on to go ahead and do it. The crowd was applauding and cheering until it was time for the kiss, and then they went absolutely still. I just shook her hand. It was really funny — that was the one time that prejudice didn’t bother me.”
When he graduated from WU in 1955, he was an early draft choice for the now-Detroit Pistons. But with only three or four black players in the entire league, he decided against being a trailblazer again. Instead, he served six months in the military and then played for three years on a team sponsored by Wichita’s Vickers Petroleum Company in the semi-pro National Industrial Basketball League.
Littleton, who had always been interested in business and entrepreneurship, then entered the service station business. He eventually ran four Wichita gas stations.
By 1958, he and his wife, Eloise, had saved $3,000 to buy some land in an all-white area in north Wichita. It took them another five years to save enough money to begin building their dream home. But when neighbors protested, they sold their land and found a home west of Rock Road.
There, they raised four kids: Reginald, Mitchell, Robyn and Barry. After 21 years of managing service stations and making time to study banking, he was contacted by a group of Wichita’s black community members who were opening a bank at the corner of 17th and Hillside. It would be the first minority-owned bank in the area, and they wanted Littleton to be its vice president of public relations. He accepted the position. The bank did well for a time. But eventually folded.
Undeterred, Littleton started his own general contracting business in 1982 — Litco Inc. In 1991, he brought in his son, Mitchell, to oversee much of the company’s operations. Then in 1999, he began a second enterprise, Litco Products Distributors LLC. Today, unretired at the age of 81, Cleo the Cat is still very much a man on the move.
Alumni Recognition: Lynn Stephan
Lynn Stephan has a gift for beautiful precision, always has. She will find the precise word to make an ad campaign sing, the perfect color and texture for a room’s accent piece. No matter what the target of her creative attention, she works impeccably hard to make sure the end result is just so. It is a gift that has served her well in her student life, in her career in advertising, in her community-service work – and as a Shocker.
Born in Dearborn, Michigan, Lynn Kincheloe grew up in Wichita and was a Shocker from the start. Her mom worked as the receptionist for University of Wichita President Harry Corbin’s office. Her grandmother, too, had a strong tie to the university. During the 1940s, she was the housemother of the Alpha Gamma Gamma fraternity, now Beta Theta Pi.
With all those Shocker connections, it is no wonder that after her graduation from North High, she chose to attend the University of Wichita and graduated in 1964 with a bachelor’s degree in English from brand-new Wichita State University. She was involved in all kinds of student activities. She was on the Parnassus staff, was a member of the Angel Flight Drill Team and, in 1962, was named to the Air Force Queen court. She remembers her college years as “happy and carefree, filled with laughter, dances, football and basketball games, Doris Day movies, sorority, bridge in the student union, dates with a steady boyfriend, a few tears, and as little studying as possible.”
She put her undergraduate degree in English education to use and taught for several years, before finding herself the rising star in a Wichita advertising agency. She won numerous awards as creative director and helped build the agency in her role as executive vice president. In 1982, she was recognized as Wichita’s Advertising Woman of the Year.
The world of advertising brought her more than professional accolades. It also brought her a life partner. In 1977, she married her advertising mentor, Don Stephan, a 1959 Shocker graduate, in Las Vegas.
After a 20-year career as an advertising executive, she broadened both her career and educational interests. In 1992, she earned a master’s degree in liberal studies from WSU. In the mid-1990s, her creative endeavors shifted from advertising to interior decorating. And, always an active volunteer, Stephan continued to expand her community involvement activity. To date, she has held 18 different leadership positions on 12 nonprofit boards, including the Wichita Children’s Home, KPTS television and the Kansas Humane Society.
“Lynn,” says Jim Moore ’66/69, retired Wichita Community Foundation executive director and a former WSU Alumni Association executive director, “Lynn is a consummate volunteer. The words and phrases ‘maybe’ and ‘I don’t know’ are buried deep in her vocabulary.”
Kim Janzen, president and CEO of the Kansas Human Society, says Stephan is a “force to be reckoned with” and describes her as “energetic and passionate. She’s tenacious. When she believes in something, she goes all out.”
For her many philanthropic endeavors, Stephan has been recognized as Outstanding Volunteer Fundraiser by the Association of Fundraising Professionals.
Stephan also has remained extraordinarily connected with her alma mater, in particular with WSU’s Elliott School of Communication and the WSU Alumni Association. Dale Richmond, a former alumni association president, says that her heartfelt Shocker involvement has always been brimming with “energy and excitement.” He also relates that her passionate personality, sense of fun and advertising know-how were key in the creation, organization and growth of the Shocker Hellraisers, an alumni spirit group central to the association’s roster of actitivites in the 1980s and into the ’90s.
Stephan served mutiple terms on the alumni association board and twice chaired the Shocker Auction. In fact, there’s hardly a major association undertaking that hasn’t been enriched by her talents, passion and hard work — and that beautifully gifted sense of the just-so.
Alumni Recognition: David Dahl
Turns out, nice guys do finish first. Case in point: Dave Dahl.
His most recent win is being elected this past November as a judge in the 18th Judicial District Court in Sedgwick County. Earlier this year, Dahl ’71 began his four-year term in the court’s family law department. Among his keys to the bench are surely these: 42 years as an involved Wichitan; a sterling reputation as a family man, an educator and an attorney with an unshakeable sense of fair play. Not to mention a love of Shocker basketball.
Growing up in the Minneapolis suburb of Shakopee, he dreamed of playing for the hometown University of Minnesota. But when the Top 10 Gophers were defeated not once but twice in his youth by what he remembers as “really, really good Shocker teams,” he switched his allegiance.
“Wichita State has brought me all the great joys that I’ve had in my life,” says Dahl, who was a walk-on basketball player in 1968. As a student-athlete, he excelled in the classroom, was a three-year letterman and was twice voted the team’s Most Inspirational Player. He also met his wife of 41 years, Tonya, during a blind date set up by his roommate and teammate. She’s been the biggest joy that WSU has brought him, he says – along with their twin sons, Brock, who is married to Jessica, and Kalle, married to Kate.
Almost a decade after hanging up his jersey, Dahl re-connected with the Shockers as color commentator to Mike Kennedy’s play-by-play calls of men’s basketball games. Ron Heller, Dahl’s former coach who had called some games previously with Kennedy, suggested Dahl for the job, says Kennedy ’71, who was hired as the full-time radio broadcaster for Shocker basketball in 1980. “It was almost eerie how we clicked,” Kennedy recalls. “It was like we’d been working together all the time.” The two have garnered national acclaim, and one of Dahl’s signature segments is “Keys to the Game.”
The keys to his success are that he always does his best and is well prepared, says Kennedy, “whether it’s teaching, doing work for a client or calling a Shocker game.” A key to his sterling reputation is that he’s a loyal friend, Kennedy adds. He’s also known for his dedication to family and being an active community volunteer. Dahl credits his father, Heller and Fran Jabara, former dean of WSU’s business college and a well-known business adviser, for helping develop the strong character he’s known for.
“My dad would talk to me and my four siblings about what it means to be a good person,” Dahl says. He remembers Heller and Jabara for not only what they taught him about basketball and business, but what they shared with him off the court and outside the classroom – such as treating everyone fairly and doing one’s best. “They really reinforced the lessons I’d learned at home.”
Dahl holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in business administration from WSU and is co-author of Starting and Operating a Business in Kansas. For more than 30 years, he has taught business courses at WSU’s renowned Center for Entrepreneurship and elsewhere. He’s credited with helping to form, advise and encourage nearly 1,000 local start-up companies.
A graduate of Washburn University Law School with honors, Dahl practiced with the Wichita firm of Kennedy, Dahl and Willis, which specializes in small business, employment, real estate and trial work. Through the years, Dahl has demonstrated his community-mindedness in myriad ways. He has provided countless hours of free legal and consulting services to minority businesses, churches, nonprofits and youth entrepreneurs.
For years, he has offered legal advice to the athletic departments at Newman University, Kansas State and WSU. Among the long list of organizations he has served in one capacity or the other are Wichita Children’s Theatre, Big Brothers and Big Sisters, the Wichita Crime Commission, the Shocker Athletic Scholarship Organization – and the WSU Alumni Association.
Chris Shank ’69, who, like Dahl, has served as alumni association president, says he’s impressed with Dave’s leadership abilities — plus, Shank adds simply, “He’s just a good man.”
Distinguished Service: Connie Kachel White
“The Mystery of the Moaning Graves” was her first story.
Written after school with the help of her second-grade BFF, the tale starred two Nancy Drew-esque young heroines. Since that first exercise in storytelling, Connie White has gone on to write all kinds of stories — mostly Shocker stories.
White hasn’t had cause to send out her résumé in years, but like all responsible professionals, she keeps it current. In her objective line, she captures what everyone who has worked with her over the years knows is a solid truth.
Her professional goal is to find “an opportunity to lead in a position that offers both the freedom of creative challenge and the structure of analytical and strategic thinking.”
And that’s an opportunity she seized back in 1992, when she began working at the WSU Alumni Association. Her first position was as director of alumni chapters and events. She also was a staff writer for association publications and eventually moved into full-time communication work.
As a writer, editor and director, her accomplishments have been many and varied. Perhaps her proudest achievement was making the transition in the fall of 1999 from the association’s quarterly tabloid, The Alumni News, to the award-winning quarterly magazine, The Shocker.
Since then, White and the magazine staff have tackled issues of note, captured university history and interviewed far too many Wichita State alumni, faculty and administrators to even begin to mention.
Well, it does seem appropriate to mention one: the namesake of the distiguished service award, Laura (McMullen) Cross, a 1925 graduate of Fairmount College, who went on to work for her alma mater in various capacities for some 70 years.
Before her death in 1998, White worked with her at the alumni association, where Cross often joked: “I don’t need tenure. I have blackmail.” In addition to a wicked sense of humor, Cross and White shared a love of literature, especially of the poetry of William Butler Yeats.
A native Oklahoman, White attended Goodwell High School, graduating as the salutatorian of the Class of 1976. She received academic and music scholarships to Oklahoma Panhandle State University, where she studied piano, English and biology – and met her husband, Phil, a drummer and the kicker on the Aggie football team. After graduation, she taught English at a number of schools in and near Liberal, Kansas, including West Middle School, Tyrone High School and Seward County Community College.
Although she loved teaching, she wanted to pursue a career with writing at its center. In 1988, she enrolled in Wichita State’s graduate program in communications and was awarded a graduate teaching assistantship. To bankroll her education, she also began working as a freelance writer. Her clients were diverse, and she wrote everything from music personality reviews for the alternative paper The Note out of Lawrence, Kan., to business profiles for corporate publications. And it wasn’t long before she was writing her first Shocker stories for Joan Stibal, who was then the alumni association’s communications director.
It was Joan, White says, who became her greatest Shocker mentor. Writing and editing recognition followed. White’s résumé lists more than 40 awards.
One of her award-winning tales, “The Grande Dame of Fairmount Hill,” is a profile of Cross. Others include “Native Visions,” about artist Woody Crumbo; “Behind the Scenes,” on the work of crime scene investigators; “For the Sake of Art,” featuring WSU art historian Mira Merriman; “Against the Grain,” the story of the Wichita Group: Michael McClure, Bruce Conner, David Haselwood; “Sunday at One,” a profile of Bill Parcells; and “Westward Bound,” a feature on former WSU President Eugene Hughes.
One of her most recent recognitions came her way, thanks to former WSU President Don Beggs and his wife Shirley, who last spring presented her with a brick in WSU’s Plaza of Heroines.
Award-winning indeed. Success to Connie Kachel White is no mystery, and to that we say, “Cheers!”
Young Alumnus: Alex Kanelakos
Alex Kanelakos has been fascinated by space and space exploration just about his entire life. As a youngster, he would look up at the night sky and wonder what space was like. What would it be like to walk in space?
In sixth grade he got to interview Russian cosmonaut Alexey Leonov, the first person to walk in space. From that point on, he was more determined than ever to someday work at NASA. As serious as he was about growing up to pursue a career in space science and technology, Kanelakos was anything but single-minded. At Topeka High School, he not only excelled in the most challenging science and math classes, he was also a drum major in the band and swam competitively.
When it was time for college, he looked at universities all across the nation. He chose Wichita State primarily because of its great work-based learning and cooperative education programs, which allow qualified students to work and attend school at the same time.
A Wallace Engineering Scholar at WSU, he qualified to work in NASA’s Cooperative Education program. The NASA program receives more than 800 applicants, but only accepts between 25 and 30. Kanelakos became part of an elite group.
He put in five semesters, alternating between going to Wichita State full time and working full time at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. It was while co-oping at NASA that he met the love of his life — his wife C.J., who today works at NASA in its robotics group.
While on campus, Alex was active in Phi Delta Theta, the WSU Student Ambassador Society and the Golden Key National Honors Society. He also founded WSU’s Microgravity Team, and was named Shockertoberfest Man of the Year in 2004. His senior year brought him more accolades. He was named a 2007 Senior Honor Man at WSU and, most impressively, was recognized as the National Outstanding Graduating Senior in Aerospace Engineering. And he landed his dream job – as a NASA spacewalking instructor and flight controller.
As a member of NASA’s Extra Vehicular Activity Team, he helps train astronauts in how to use the tools and hardware developed for space missions. He also specializes in training astronauts in the Neutral Buoyancy Lab, where they practice maneuvering in weightlessness. And he works in mission control to help astronauts during spacewalks.
During his time at Johnson Space Center, Kanelakos has executed 10 spacewalks. He has worked 16 space shuttle flights and four International Space Station missions in NASA’s Mission Control. He has led training for six sets of astronaut crews. He has developed and designed procedures and hardware crucial to the operations of the International Space Station.
Currently, this young WSU graduate is certified as the only NASA employee to train astronauts and execute missions in both the Spacesuit Systems and the EVA Hardware and Tools groups.
Already, he has earned five special recognitions, including two Johnson Space Center Achievement Awards for technical accomplishments. In 2011-2012, he was named a Johnson Space Center Academic Fellow. And last May, he bulked up his academic résumé by graduating from Stanford University with a master’s degree in management science and engineering.
When looking to the future, the sky’s no limit for Alexandros Demetrios Phillip Kanelakos.
Shocker Tribute: Administrative Leaders
Since its beginning in 1913, the alumni association has embraced the many bonds between Shockers and their university – whether Fairmount College (1895-1926), the University of Wichita (1927-1964) or Wichita State. In its earliest years, the association was led by an enthusiastic cadre of volunteers, beginning with its first president, Harry Schuler ’13.
Then in 1944 WU President William Jardine invited Esther Wenzel ’34/34, who had graduated with double majors in English and journalism, back to the university to manage the first alumni office. As the first paid executive secretary of the association, she catalogued alumni files, tracked down “missing” graduates and, at President Jardine’s request, created and distributed a survey to see if GIs who were also former students were interested in coming back to school after the war.
Mickey (McCoy) Armstrong ’45 was the association’s next alumni secretary. She has described the task of collecting and organizing alumni records as working “by guess and by golly. We’d have a name and we’d try the phone book. Did someone know them? Did they work at WU? Did they go to war?”
In 1948, Beulah O. Mullen took up the executive secretary post, a position she would serve in for 19 years. Ethel Jane (Myers) King, who had been the women’s news editor at KAKE Radio and Television, became the first executive director of the association in 1966.
She was followed by Jane Gilchrist ’68, who was named to the post on Oct. 19, 1978, after she had served two years as associate director at the alumni association.
Next in the administrative-leader queue were James Moore ’66/69, who began his work in alumni relations in 1984 and later served as executive director of the Wichita Community Foundation; Michael Meacham ’74, who took up his position on Nov. 1, 1989; Lynda Tousley Sade ’72, who began her post on Jan. 4, 1993; and Brad Beets ’87, a former WuShock who worked in alumni relations for 16 years, including serving as executive director until 2004.
Deborah Kennedy ’94, a nurse and nurse educator who changed professions to begin her executive director duties Feb. 1, 2005, was named president and CEO in 2012.
Each of these administrative leaders has enriched the alumni association in ways unique to their own time, talents, interests and energies. Each has helped guide the association in its quest of serving as a collective voice in preserving Shocker history, building relationships, engaging in campus and alumni events, and in establishing traditions for Shockers to come.
