Knox College 2013 Founders Day Convocation and Alumni Achievement Awards

Knox College will recognize four graduates with Alumni Achievement Awards at the College's 2013 Founders Day Convocation at 5:30 p.m., Friday, February 15. Knox's charter was granted by the Illinois Legislature on February 15, 1837. The convocation and award ceremony in the Muelder Room, Seymour Library, are free and open to the public.

This year's honorees are Ann McConachie '71, an educator who has taught in the United States and Africa; W. Dudley McCarter '72, whose law firm in Missouri has been rated as one of the best in the country for 2013; Lori Sundberg '95, president of Carl Sandburg College; and Geoff Ziegler '03, media specialist for ESPN.

As part of Knox's Founders Day celebration, thirty Knox students will showcase their research, scholarship, and creativity in a display of posters, media and artwork at 4 p.m., Thursday, February 14, in the lobby of Ford Center for the Fine Arts. HORIZONS: A Celebration of Student Inquiry, Imagination, and Creativity is sponsored by the Gerald and Carol Vovis Center for Research and Advanced Study. In addition, the art department will present an exhibit of student work, and the theatre department will have a display on its current Repertory Theatre Term.

About the 2013 Alumni Achievement Award Winners

W. Dudley McCarter '72 graduated cum laude from Knox with a degree in political science and earned his J.D. degree in 1975 from the University of Missouri-Columbia. His legal work has focused primarily on civil litigation, construction litigation, and municipal law. In 1992, McCarter helped found Behr, McCarter & Potter, recently listed in U.S. News and World Report's 2013 list of Best Law Firms, and his peers have voted him one of the Best Lawyers in America for the last eight years. He has received the W. Oliver Rasch Award three times in recognition of the best article of the year published in the Journal of The Missouri Bar Association. McCarter has served as president of both the St. Louis County Bar Association and the Missouri Bar Association, and on the boards of Parkway School District and the Children's Trust Fund of Missouri for the Prevention of Child Abuse. He is currently on the board of the St. Louis Crisis Nursery. The Missouri Bar awarded McCarter the 2001 Purcell Professional Award for his professional achievements and charitable work.

Ann McConachie '71 is director and teacher-in-residence at Amka Afrika School in Tanzania. She earned her bachelor's degree in history at Knox and taught elementary school for 35 years, retiring in 2005 from Hinsdale School District 181 in Illinois. In 2011 she traveled to Africa with a tour group and, a part of the trip, visited a newly established primary school, Amka Afrika in Babati, Tanzania. Unlike the schools where she had taught, McConachie later said, "There were no books, art supplies, puzzles, science equipment, maps and globes, gym equipment, or other typical school supplies." After returning to the United States, she established the Amka Afrika School Foundation, which has donated furniture and supplies and helped improve the school's facilities. McConachie spent most of 2012 teaching at the school, with two Knox students, Hannah Black and Max Potthoff, and will continue teaching there in 2013.

Lori Sundberg ‘95 earned a cosmetology certificate at Carl Sandburg College in 1977, eventually starting her own business in Galesburg. She returned to CSC in 1991 to complete an associate's degree and entered Knox in 1993, where she earned a bachelor's degree in economics and history in 1995. She began teaching part-time at Sandburg, then accepted a position as coordinator of institutional research. While working and teaching, she completed an MBA at Western Illinois University in 1998, and a doctorate in business administration at St. Ambrose University in 2003. She has held several senior administrative positions at Sandburg and has served as a lecturer in economics at Knox. In 2010, she was named president of Carl Sandburg College -- the first woman to hold that post.

Geoff Ziegler '03 began working at ESPN shortly after graduating from Knox with a bachelor's degree in chemistry. While in college, he was editor-in-chief of The Knox Student and lettered in baseball, serving as team captain for his senior year. A media specialist for ESPN, Ziegler has worked a wide range of sporting events, from Wimbledon to the World Series. Ziegler is credited with helping develop new ways to cover NASCAR auto racing in 2007. Now widely adopted by other networks, the innovations initiated by Ziegler and his team at ESPN were honored with a 2008 Sports Emmy. Ziegler is the recipient of the 2013 Young Alumni Achievement Award.

History of Knox College
Knox College, as well as the city of Galesburg, were founded by a group of pioneers from upstate New York, led by the Rev. George Washington Gale, after whom the city was named. The Illinois Legislature approved Knox College's charter on February 15, 1837. Among the members of the General Assembly was Abraham Lincoln, who would later rise to national prominence in the 1858 Lincoln-Douglas debates, one of which was held at Knox's Old Main. Today, Old Main is the sole remaining site from the historic debates. A nationally ranked liberal arts college, Knox has 1,400 students from 48 states and 51 countries, 38 academic majors, 49 minors, 11 cooperative and pre-professional programs and off-campus study in 18 countries. Knox also is one of the 40 colleges listed in the book "Colleges That Change Lives," by former New York Times education editor Loren Pope.