2008 Woodie Awards
Outstanding alumni to be honored at homecoming
Doug Graham, Entertainment Editor
Issue date: 10/19/06 Section: Campus Life
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| Five outstanding Pittsburg State University alumni will be honored during homecoming activities throughout the weekend, including a reception at 5 p.m. Friday, Oct. 20, in the student center, the homecoming parade Saturday morning in downtown Pittsburg, and at halftime during the football game against Southwest Baptist University. Beginning this year, the Oustanding Alumni Award will be named after Kenneth K. Bateman, retired director of the Alumni Association. The award is presented by the association in recognition of professional and civic achievements. The five people receiving the Outstanding Alumni Award this year are Donna L. Dutcher, Robert Dale Gardner, Jeffrey J. Quirin, Fredrick Lewis Strasser and Michael Paul Zafuta.
Donna L. Dutcher Dutcher, a 1993 PSU graduate in sociology, will receive the award for her legal work in the Central District of California. She also earned a juris doctorate from Harvard Law School in 1999. Dutcher lives in Los Angeles, where she serves on the University Centennial Commission and is a life member of the PSU Alumni Association.
Fredrick Lewis Strasser Strasser, who serves as director for the Intermountain Medical Center construction project in Salt Lake City, graduated from PSU with a master's degree in construction technology in 1981. In leading the construction project, he took on the largest contract ever awarded to a single general contractor in Utah's history, a $300 million, 1.3 million square foot project to be completed next year. Strasser oversees 1,200 employees. He has won awards in both his professional and personal life, having been named Knight of the Year by his Knights of Columbus chapter. Strasser and his wife live in Park City and have two grown children.
Jeffrey J. Quirin Quirin is an associate professor in accounting at Wichita State University. He graduated from PSU in 1994 with a master's degree in accounting, and later earned a doctorate from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 1998. Quirin has been nominated for and won numerous awards for his teaching. He and his wife live in Parsons with three children.
Robert Dale Gardner Gardner is a senior engineer at Raytheon where he works on aircraft and business jets. He graduated in 1984 with a bachelor's degree in technology, and has since worked in his field for 21 years, working on missiles and aircraft. He also serves as Raytheon's campus recruitment manager at PSU, and coordinates the company's support of the Moon Buggy Contest. He lives in Douglass with his wife and two children.
Zafuta is an orthopedic surgeon in private practice at New Century Orthopedics and Sports Medicine in Pittsburg. That makes him the only winner this year to work and live in Pittsburg. Zafuta earned a bachelor's degree in 1990 at PSU and went on to earn his doctorate at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston in 1994. Zafuta is also a volunteer physician for Frontenac High School and a volunteer team physician for PSU and Neosho County Community College. He operates an injury clinic for school athletes every Saturday in the fall and lectures in the PSU Department of Nursing. He is a lifetime member of the Alumni Association. Zafuta lives with his wife and two children in Pittsburg. |
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