Southeast announces Distinguished Service Award, Young Alumni Service Award recipients

Several Southeast Missouri State University graduates and a faculty member will be recognized next week during the university’s annual homecoming festivities.

Abbie Crites-Leoni

The university announced Monday its 2019 Distinguished Service Award recipient is Abbie Crites-Leoni of Jackson, while this year’s Distinguished Young Alumni Service Award recipient will be Dane Huxel of St. Charles, Missouri.

Dane Huxel

In addition, Southeast announced Spanish/Spanish for health professions instructor Debbie Lee-DiStefano is this year’s Faculty Merit Award recipient, while four Southeast alumni have been designated to receive 2019 Alumni Merit Awards. Those recipients are Patricia Reinhart of St. Louis, a retired corporate sales executive; Donald Taylor of Oro Valley, Arizona, chief executive officer of Titan Mining Corp.; Jon Robinson of Union City, Tennessee, executive vice president and general manager of the National Football League’s Tennessee Titans; and Steven Curtis of Norman, Oklahoma, a retired music education professor at the University of Oklahoma.

The seven award recipients will be recognized during the university’s Copper Dome Dinner on Oct. 25 at the Show Me Center.

The university’s Alumni Association presents Distinguished Service Awards every year to individuals and organizations that have made lasting contributions to their communities and to the university. The Young Alumni Service Award is given annually to graduates age 37 or younger in recognition of their outstanding service and support of the university.

Presented annually since 1958, the university’s Alumni Merit Awards are given to alumni who have brought distinction to themselves and the university while the Faculty Merit Award is given to one university faculty member each year in recognition of teaching excellence.

Crites-Leoni is a 1993 Southeast graduate and is a U.S. magistrate judge in Cape Girardeau. At Southeast, she earned a Bachelor of Arts with majors in Spanish and the performing arts. She went on to earn a law degree at Southern Illinois University-Carbondale and spent two years as an assistant prosecutor in Cape Girardeau County before joining the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Missouri in 2000, where she spent more than a dozen years prosecuting cases involving drug trafficking, child exploitation and government program fraud.

In 2014, she was sworn in as a U.S. magistrate judge, becoming the first full-time female federal judge appointed to work in Cape Girardeau.

As a Southeast student, Crites-Leoni was a member of the emerging leaders and honors programs, University Players and the Black Mask honorary dramatic society. She was also a presidential ambassador and member of the University Leadership Board. As a Southeast alumna, she served as president of the Southeast Alumni Association Board of Directors from 2017 to 2019. She also received a Young Alumni Merit Award from the association in 2008.

Huxel graduated from Southeast in 2006 with a degree in manufacturing engineering technology. He has owned a State Farm Insurance agency in South St. Louis County.

As a student at Southeast, Huxel served as president of the Student Government Association and served as a member of the committee that organized the retirement of the Southeast Indian mascot. He was also part of the committee that designed and named the school’s Rowdy the Redhawk mascot.

While serving as student government president, Huxel made several trips to Jefferson City to discuss various issues, such as funding for the River Campus, with state legislators. In addition, he was involved in a student fee initiative to build the university’s Student Aquatic Center, as well as to fund athletics, a university speakers series and the Redhawk sign on the pedestrian bridge over New Madrid Street.

He has continued his involvement with the university, serving as a member of the St. Louis Alumni Chapter executive committee.