Three new inductees will enter the Southwestern College Leaders in Service Hall of Fame for the Social Sciences on Friday, April 15, in Deets Library on the college’s campus.  

The celebration will begin at 5:30 p.m. with the unveiling of plaques followed by dinner and the induction ceremony.  Cost of the dinner is $20, seating is limited, and RSVP is necessary.  For more information, contact Susan Lowe, director of alumni programs at SC, at (620) 229-6334.

The inductees include:
•    Barbara Johnson Isely '64 had a career as a public school orchestra teacher and sociologist at Oregon State University, then in 1999 was invited to lead choirs for children in Vellore, India, where she was teaching sociology in the community health department. In Sri Lanka, she created teacher training for use of music with young children traumatized by war and tsunami, and she led workshops for the Ceylon Bible Society for children and youth excluded from competitive choirs.  Her focus is on how to include and expand the skills of all persons, rather than exclude the seemingly less talented.
•    Randy E. Eshelman ’07/’09 joined the U.S. Army in 1986 and served in conflicts in Iraq, Kuwait, Bosnia, Afghanistan, and Uzbekistan. Following retirement from the Army in 2007, Eshelman began working for United States Strategic Command. His duties included developing satellite communications policy and directing the international affairs department in negotiating and managing government-to-government agreements between the U.S. and partner nations. In 2012, Randy led the U.S. delegation that negotiated a six-nation agreement resulting in the largest cooperative agreement for a space-based capability ever achieved by the U.S. Eshelman left government service in 2015 to become chief operating officer for Food Dreams Made Real (FDMR), a start-up focused on Asian food product development. Under its brand “Suji’s Korean Cuisine,” FDMR was named among Top 5 Meals of 2015 by food industry magazine “Prepared Foods.”
•    Mabel Madeline Southard, an 1899 Southwestern graduate, became a preacher and evangelist in her teens. With an A.B. from Southwestern College and an M.A. from Garrett Biblical Institute, she worked for ecclesial suffrage, serving as a delegate to the General Conferences of the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1920 and 1924. After a brief stint with prohibitionist Carry Nation (including the famous Topeka saloon smashing raid in in 1901), she lectured briefly for the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) circuit before settling in on a life of itinerant preaching and evangelism. Her career extended to the Philippines and India, and she founded an organization for women ministers. She lived to be 90, maintaining a personal diary from the time she was 14 years old.