SEVEN TO RECEIVE UNIVERSITY MERIT AWARDS

The Alumni Association of Southeast Missouri State University has selected six alumni and a Southeast faculty member to receive the University's annual merit awards.

The seven will be honored during homecoming festivities at the annual Merit Award Dinner. The dinner will be held at 5:30 p.m. Oct. 8 in the Student Recreation Center.

Larry J. Easley will receive the 1999 Faculty merit Award for excellence and distinction in teaching.

Easley is an associate professor of history at Southeast, where he has taught for more than 30 years.

The alumni winners by college are: Dan McLean, Donald L. Harrison College of Business; Dr. Richard Eichhorst, College of Education: Dr. Jerry Caulder, College of Science and Technology; Nina Swan-Kohler, College of Health and Human Services; Dr. James LaRue, Polytechnic Institute; and Billie Letts, College of Liberal Arts.

McLean is a retired president and former chief executive officer of Safeco Insurance Companies' Property and Casualty operations. He last attended Southeast in 1955. He received a bachelor of science in business degree at Wichita State in Kansas.

He was formerly chairman of the Insurance Information Institute and a past trustee and executive committee member of the American Institute for Chartered Property and Casualty Underwriters.

He and his wife, Denise, live in Westchester, Ill.

Eichhorst retired as executive director of the South (St. Louis) County Chamber of Commerce after 10 years of service.

He graduated from Southeast in 1956 with a bachelor of science degree in education with an emphasis in physical science.

Eichhorst worked at his alma mater, Hancock High School in south St. Louis County. He served for 31 years as a basketball, baseball and track coach, athletic director, high school principal, and eventually assistant superintendent for business administration.

He also was a basketball and football referee, working 25 years in the Big Eight, the Big 10, and the Missouri Valley Conference, as well as the U.S. Football League and the National Football League.

He and his wife, Barbara Ann, live in St. Louis.

Caulder completed a bachelor of science degree in botany and zoology from Southeast in 1964.

He founded and served as executive chairman, president and chief executive officer of Akkadix Corp., an agricultural biotechnology company.

He currently is executive chairman and chief executive officer of Myelos Corp., a neuroscience company. The firm uses biotechnology to develop products for the treatment and prevention of diabetic neuropathy, multiple sclerosis and other neurodegenerative diseases.

He and his wife Carol Boken Caulder, who received her bachelor of science in education degree from Southeast in 1963, live in Rancho Santa Fe, N.M.Swan-Kohler is the founder, owner and president of Swan-Kohler & Associates, a Cedar Rapids, Iowa, public relations and marketing firm.

Swan-Kohler graduated from Southeast in 1974 with a bachelor of science degree in vocational home economics education.

She is a 20-plus year member of American Association of Family and Consumer Sciences (AAFCS) and AAFCS's business section, a member of Consumer Science Business Professionals, International Association of Culinary Professionals, and former chairman of Iowa State University's College of Family and Consumer Sciences Advisory Board.

A native of Pocahontas, Mo., she and her husband, Ronald, reside in Cedar Rapids.

LaRue is a retired professor of the industrial technology department of the University of Northern Iowa.

He graduated from Southeast in 1947 with a bachelor of science in education degree with an emphasis in industrial technology. He received his master of arts degree from the University of Northern Colorado (UNI) in 1952 and a doctoral degree in education from Pennsylvania State University in 1968.

He was honored upon retirement from UNI in 1986 with the naming of the "LaRue Metal Technology Laboratory."LaRue and wife, Nancy, also a graduate of Southeast, live in Cedar Falls, Iowa.

Letts, best-selling author of "Where the Heart Is," and "The Honk and Holler Opening Soon," began her education at Northeastern State University in Oklahoma.

She completed a bachelor of science degree in education with a major in English at Southeast in 1969. Upon completing her degree, she launched her teaching career at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale and in Oklahoma.

She recently retired from the English faculty of Southeast Oklahoma University.

Warner Books Trade Paperback has published both her books and she has negotiated a movie deal for the rights for "Where the Heart Is." Letts and her husband, Dennis, live in Durant, Okla.

The Alumni merit awards have been given since 1958 to graduates or former students of Southeast who have brought distinction to themselves and the university.