Senior
Project Leads to Major Grant
A senior project by a Leadership
Southwestern student may lead to better dental health for hundreds
of youngsters in Cowley County.
Stephanie Youngers ’03 wrote
the grant that led to an award of $47,500 from the Kansas Health
Foundation for dental education in Cowley County. Working with
Pam Moore ’96, executive director of Legacy (a community
foundation), Youngers organized meetings with area dentists,
health department, and Head Start personnel. She then wrote
the successful proposal for a two-year education program.
Now a curriculum is being designed
to help improve the dental health of Cowley County children,
especially toddlers. More than 1,000 kids are expected to be
helped in the first year, Moore says.
|
Builders
will want their own copies of Builderopoly, now available from members
of the volleyball team. The adaptation of the popular board game
will help raise funds for a team trip to Tennessee. For more information
contact coach Julie Konrade, jkonrade@sckans.edu, or call (620)
229-6241. |
Karen Beneke Builds Bridges
Karen
Bencke, a senior from Bartlesville, built
bridges over continents during the spring semester when she studied
in Quito, Ecuador. A student in the college’s intensive foreign
language program, Bencke studied at the Academia Latinoamericana during
the mornings for 10 weeks, and volunteered at in an afterschool care
program for children 5-12 years old. With the use of the Internet, Bencke
connected children in Ecuador with children in a second grade class
at Richard Kane Elementary School in Bartlesville. (Judy Bencke, Karen’s
mother, is an assistant in the Bartlesville class.)
Letters were scanned and sent as picture
files to Bencke in Ecuador. She printed the letters and translated them
into Spanish, delivering them to the children in the project.
After the children in Quito wrote letters
to the Oklahoma children, Bencke took pictures of the letters with her
digital camera, downloaded them to her laptop computer, and translated
the letters into English. She copied the files onto a floppy disc and
took it to an Internet café to send them back to Oklahoma. Karen
also was able to send pictures of the places and people she came to
know in Ecuador.
Kane students wrote about themselves, their
families, their school, and even about a snowstorm in February, describing
snow to children who may never have seen snow.
Karen is shown at left reviewing Spanish
words with the Oklahoma students after she returned in the spring.
Vail
Top KU Med School Teacher
Belinda Vail ’76, professor in the department
of family medicine at the university of Kansas Medical Center in Kansas
City was named winner of the Rainbow Award for Teaching the Art of Medicine
by Example. The award is given by the medical students each year to
honor the physician/teacher who most represents the title of the award.
Dr. Vail also has been selected as the 2003 Exemplary
Teacher of the Year by the Kansas Academy of Family Physicians. The
award is based on nominations and votes from physicians in the state
of Kansas. The Kansas academy will nominate her for the national award,
which will be announced in October.
She lives in Prairie Village with her husband, Richard
Bené, a plastic surgeon in private practice in Kansas City, and
four of her children, Matthew, Michael, and Morgan Bené and Dustin
Carrillo. Her oldest daughter, Ryan Carillo, lives in Phoenix.
Irene
Fulcher: 100 Years Young
Irene
Fulcher, who was employed at Southwestern
College from 1958 to 1968, turns 100 on Oct. 14, 2003. At Southwestern,
she was a house mother at the old Smith Hall, served as part-time hostess
for the college, and managed the college bookstore. Irene continues
to live by herself in Overland Park, and remains involved with her family—daughter
Judy and John Stephens ’61 ’61
and their family. She has three grandchildren and four great
grandchildren. Irene would enjoy hearing from people who knew her while
she was at Southwestern. Contact Irene at 8580 Farley St Apt 305, Overland
Park KS 66212-4623, or at 913-383-1967.
