Alumni Awards
Doane has established numerous awards to recognize alumni and friends of the college for their professional accomplishments, outstanding achievements, community service, leadership and continued relations with the college.
Additional Information:
Taylor Foy, '09
As I chugged along atop my uncle's old 3020 John Deere one hot dusty August afternoon, I contemplated what I would pack into my suitcase. In less than a week, I would be trading in my Wranglers with the blown-out knee and paint splatters for a suit and tie. I would be leaving that patch of earth south of Ogallala, Neb., for the White House.
Two months after graduating from Doane with a journalism degree, I was selected to be an intern in the Communications Department for the Obama Administration. I had no background in political science . I never worked on a campaign. I wasn't even a Democrat. How could some kid with little experience from a red state be qualified for such a post?
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Ken Krings, '85
Ken Krings patiently answers these predictable questions about working for one of the world's most identifiable companies. Taylor Swift and Taylor Hicks did perform in the Yahoo! courtyard. Employees did get to watch a personal interview with Tom Cruise in their cafeteria. The company founders did sumo wrestling on the lawn.
But his career is not about perks. This is Silicon Valley, home to Google, Apple, and about 6,600 other technology companies. The coffee is free because the workday at a global company can sometimes be around the clock.
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Herbert Cousins Jr., '74
On a July afternoon in 1984, the world reeled from the largest single-gunman massacre in U.S. History. The rampage of an unemployed security guard killed 21 people at a McDonald's in San Ysidro, California.
Herbert Cousins Jr., was on the scene, part of an FBI Special Weapons and Tactics team, making sure the shootings were not a security threat to the upcoming Summer Olympic games in Los Angeles.
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MaLinda Henry, '92
MaLinda Henry '92 knew she wanted to study primates by her eighth-grade year at McCook Middle School. She met her share of doubters. McCook is a long way from primates and forests. But fortunately, role models can go anywhere and they made their way to MaLinda in textbooks, television and visits to the zoo. The more she learned about female scientists like Dr. Dian Fossey and renowned primatologist Jane Goodall, the more she wanted to emulate them.
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Amanda Bennett Lothrop, '06
In the past year, health care reform captured America's attention. People packed town hall meetings. They flooded senators with correspondence. Because the reform is a complicated departure from the status quo, most are armchair quarterbacks in the debate.
Amanda Bennett Lothrop '06, however, has as much expertise as some of the politicians who cast a vote. As a health care actuary with Deloitte Consulting LLP in Chicago, it's Amanda's job to know the intricacies and repercussions of health care reform.
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Maggie Sheehy, '08
2007.
Doane offers free HIV testing.
Four students show up.
2008.
The free HIV test station in Perry Campus Center is the place to be one cold February Tuesday.
Testers run out of kits and turn a couple hundred students away.
The difference? Maggie Sheehy.
O.K. Maggie Sheehy and a little bit of prize money.
Sheehy saw the devastation of AIDS in Africa firsthand while living there as part of Doane's Semester in Africa program. She also spent two summers as a counselor at Camp Kindle - a camp for children affected and infected with HIV and AIDS.
Santino Akot, '08
It's 1987 in southern Sudan.
Santino Akot is nine.
A slender boy tending cattle at the edge of his village, Marial Baai.
Until this moment, he is a middle child in a middle-class family with seven children.
The second Sudanese civil war was a part of this life. His father had died from war-related disease. Eighteen months earlier soldiers had taken his family's property and burned their home to ashes.
His mother made a hut and kept them alive.
The soldiers are back now.
Jeremy Wilhelm,'98
Defining moments.
They sound big, don't they?
Big and loud.
Moments that say: 'Life change headed your way.'
But they are quiet, and usually only seen with hindsight.
Jeremy Wilhelm is not even 35, but he's had his share.
His biggest was more like a defining 30 seconds, during a round table board meeting of a new renewable fuels company based in California.
Wilhelm was leading the meeting, when, 15 minutes in, the board member with an MBA from Harvard looked at Wilhelm and told the farm kid from Unadilla, Nebraska:
"You don't have the pedigree to lead this company."
Terri Vrtiska, '83
Terri Vrtiska fits the profile of many Doane students in the early 1980s.
She grew up in the tiny farming community of Table Rock and graduated with 20 classmates.
Her father was a dryland farmer who spent 12 years in the Nebraska Legislature.
Her mom was a teacher and homemaker to the family's three children.
They were a Cornhusker red family whose children went to Doane and Peru. College tuition - private or public - did not come without sacrifice.
Eric Cantrell, '00
The most important person Eric Cantrell met at Doane? Eric Cantrell.
The 20-something, working-his-way-into-the-entertainment-industry version. The one whose addresses have already included the Middle East country of Jordan and Hollywood, Calif. Read more...
Tom Mangelsen, '69
Renowned Nature Photographer
With his formative years spent along the banks of the Platte River hunting and fishing, Tom Mangelsen's understanding of the natural world stems from a childhood rich in outdoor adventures. Tom grew up exploring the Nebraska landscape with his brothers Bill, David, and Hal, many times at their father Harold's side. Read more...