LAWRENCE -- The Kansas Alumni Association at the University of Kansas will honor three graduates for exemplary service to their alma mater by presenting them with the 2003 Fred Ellsworth Medallion Sept. 5 at a dinner at the Adams Alumni Center.
The alumni are 1955 graduate Gary W. Padgett of Greenleaf; 1951 graduate Charles W. Oswald of Edina, Minn.; and 1954 graduate and former Kansas Attorney General Robert T. Stephan of Lenexa.
Since 1975 the association has presented the medallion as its highest award for service to KU. The tradition began as a tribute to 1922 graduate Fred Ellsworth, the association's longtime executive secretary who retired in 1963 after 39 years. A committee that includes representatives of the chancellor's office and the alumni, athletics and endowment associations meet annually to choose the recipients.
Gary W. Padgett, longtime champion of small Kansas communities, is president and CEO of the Citizens National Bank in Belleville, Concordia, Lansing, Leavenworth and his hometown of Greenleaf. He has received the Small Business Administration's Advocate of the Year Award for Kansas.
He has remained devoted to KU since his graduation. In Washington and Marshall counties, he helped establish the Alumni Association's Kansas Honors Program, which recognizes the top 10 percent of high school seniors throughout the state. For years Padgett chaired the local event, and he and his wife, 1956 graduate Sue Summerville Padgett, remain loyal participants. In 1990 the Padgetts received the association's Mildred Clodfelter Award for sustained local volunteer service to KU. They are life and Jayhawk Society members of the association.
Padgett served on the association's board from 1983 to 1988 and has chaired the audit committee and participated in Jayhawks for Higher Education (then known as the development committee). Before joining the association's board he represented the organization on the KU Athletics Corporation board from 1979 to 1982. As a student, Padgett was a letterman on the basketball and baseball teams. Each year the baseball team presents the Gary Padgett team captain award. He also was a member of Air Force ROTC.
For the KU Endowment Association, Padgett has chaired the Greater University Fund. During Campaign Kansas in the late 1980s and early 1990s, he served on the National Council and the North Central Committee. Longtime donors to KU, he and Sue are members of the Chancellors Club for KU Endowment and the Williams Educational Fund to benefit scholarships for student-athletes.