Achievement Day 2008 Recognizes Outstanding Alumni Make plans now to join in the festivities at the 2008 Achievement Day Dinner and Celebration on Thursday, March 6, 2008 at the Westin Crown Center in Kansas City, Mo. The steering committee responsible for planning the signature event includes Donald and Adele Hall, Honorary Chairs and Martha Comment, Event Chair. The Halls have been affiliated with William Jewell College for several decades, and through financial support and voluntary leadership, they have helped the College establish nationally known educational programs, providing stimulating places to learn and study. As Honorary Chairs, the Halls will encourage others to participate in the event to learn more about the college and be a part of this annual fundraising event. Martha Comment became involved with William Jewell College when her husband Jeffrey joined the WJC Board of Trustees. Upon his death, Martha was asked to fulfill his term. Martha has become a very active trustee and a hardworking volunteer, personally visiting dozens of event underwriters to ask for their continued and increased financial support. Adele and Don Hall Martha Comment William Jewell is fortunate to have the support of these key Kansas City volunteers to work along with the college to take the message of emerging excellence to the metropolitan area. Achievement Day has become a significant event that shares the vision and mission of the institution with a growing group of corporate and community partners. For more details about this event including table sponsorship information and ticket prices, click here. Speaker: Michael Beschloss Michael Beschloss is an award-winning historian and the author of nine books, including Presidential Courage (2007) and the acclaimed New York Times best-seller The Conquerors: Roosevelt, Truman and the Destruction of Hitler’s Germany, 1941-1945, which was the best-selling history book in America in 2002. Newsweek has called Beschloss "the nation's leading Presidential historian." In August 2005, he was appointed the NBC News Presidential Historian, the first person with that title in the history of NBC. He makes regular appearances on "Meet the Press," the "Today Show" and other NBC network programs. He also regularly appears on PBS's "The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer." Achievement Day Speaker Michael Beschloss Beschloss was born in Chicago in 1955. An alumnus of Williams College, he is also the only nationally known historian with a degree from the Harvard Business School. He has been an historian on the staff of the Smithsonian Institution (1982-1986), a Senior Associate Member at Oxford University in England (1986-1987), and a Senior Fellow of the Annenberg Foundation in Washington, D.C. (1988-1996). Taking Charge (Simon & Schuster, 1997) was the first volume of Beschloss's highly praised trilogy on President Lyndon Johnson's secret tapes. The Wall Street Journal called it "sheer marvelous history." The second volume, Reaching for Glory (Simon & Schuster, 2001) was called "an incomparable portrait of a President at work" by the New York Times Book Review. Both volumes were national best-sellers. Beschloss won a 2005 Emmy Award for his work as host of the Discovery Channel series "Decisions That Shook the World." Honorees Carolyn Edison, R.N., Ed.D., P.N.P. '74 Advanced Pediatric Nurse Practitioner Children’s Mercy Hospital Kansas City, Missouri Carolyn Edison has served as an advanced pediatric nurse practitioner at Children’s Mercy Hospital since 1988. She has also held faculty appointments at the School of Nursing and the School of Medicine at the University of Missouri-Kansas City and the School of Nursing at the University of Kansas. She served as associate professor in the Department of Nursing at William Jewell College. She was also the owner and president of Family Health Care, Inc. She created the first private nursing practice in the country. Carolyn was a graduate of the first nursing class at William Jewell in 1974. She also received a B.A. in communications from Baylor University; an M.S. in education from Troy State University; and an M.N. and doctorate in education from the University of Kansas. Douglas Enderle '78 Senior Costume Designer for Walt Disney Entertainment, Costuming and Cosmetology Belle Isle, Florida Douglas Enderle has been a "cast member" with Walt Disney Entertainment, Costuming and Cosmetology since 1982. He has created designs for a wide variety of venues in his role as a Senior Costume Designer. Highlights of his work are designs for Hong Kong Disneyland, Tokyo Disneyland and the Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando, Florida, where his creations are on daily display. Douglas received a 1992 Emmy for his costumes for the ABC telecast of the "Walt Disney World Very Merry Christmas Parade." He earned a B.A. in Communication and the Missouri Certificate of Secondary Education from William Jewell in 1978. He was awarded a Master of Fine Arts in Theater Design and Technology with an emphasis in Costume Design from the University of Missouri-Kansas City in 1981. James Rucker '77 Chairman and CEO Commonwealth Bank & Trust Company Louisville, Kentucky James Rucker has served as Chairman and CEO of Commonwealth Bank & Trust Company in Louisville, Kentucky, since 2005. From 1994 to 2005, he served as Executive Vice President and Retail Division Manager for Commerce Bancshares, Kansas City. In this capacity, he was responsible for a business line comprising $500 million in loans and $2.1 billion in deposits, including 57 branches with 516 employees. He also served as Chairman and CEO of Commerce Bank of Clay and Platte County and as Senior Vice President with Boatmen’s Bancshares, where he was responsible for all aspects of banking, including retail, commercial and operations. He received a Bachelor of Science in business administration-economics from William Jewell in 1977 and graduated from the University of Wisconsin School of Banking in 1983. William Edward Sharp, III ‘62 Chief Technologist and Engineering Manager for the Space Systems Division ITT Corporation Fort Wayne, Indiana William Sharp recently retired as Chief Technologist and Engineering Manager for the Space Systems Division of ITT Corporation. He managed a team of system engineers who provided technical leadership for Business Development Advanced Programs proposals, assessing state-of-the-art technology that could be exploited for space instruments. From 1977 to 1997, he served as research scientist and project director for the University of Michigan, Department of Atmospheric, Oceanic and Space Science. His historic accomplishment was conducting the first successful measurements of the composition and temperature necessary to understand oxygen-hydrogen chemistry in the upper atmosphere. He received a B.S. in mathematics and physics from William Jewell in 1962; an M.S. in physics from the University of New Hampshire; and a Ph.D. in astro-geophysics from the University of Colorado.