CSC to honor six distinguished alums

A synopsis of the careers of those to be honored follows:

Francis Cortney

He is a Kimball native who earned his bachelor’s degree from Chadron State in 1956 and his master’s degree from CSC in 1961. He had an outstanding career as an educator. A middle school is named in his honor in Las Vegas, Nev., where he and most of his family live.

Cortney attended the University of Wyoming one year and Chadron State one semester before joining the U.S. Air Force. While stationed in Louisiana, he met and married his wife, Ruth.

Cortney began his teaching and coaching career at Hyannis. He then spent six years at Alliance St. Agnes before becoming superintendent for two years at the Sunol School east of Sidney.

The Cortneys moved to Las Vegas in 1964. After teaching social studies two years, he was promoted to principal at Jim Bridger Middle School, where he served six years. He then became principal at the Woodbury School, where he spent nine years. He concluded his career in 1984 after serving as principal at Cashman Middle School two years.

Curriculum planning was Cortney’s passion, and he became known for introducing several creative curriculum and scheduling programs.

In 1998, the Francis Cortney Middle School opened in Las Vegas. The campaign to name it for him was begun by a teacher who had worked with him. At least 80 letters of support were sent to the name-selection committee. A newspaper article reported that about 150 names were considered.

Since retiring Cortney has used his artistic talent to produce hundred of oil paintings. The Cortneys had 10 children. The oldest son is deceased and the oldest daughter lives in Houston. The others live in the Las Vegas area. The couple also has 23 grandchildren. His brother, the Rev. Ed Cortney, is the pastor of St. Patrick’s Church in Chadron.

 

Dr. Robert “Butch” Hanlon

Dr. Robert Hanlon is a Crawford native and a 1969 graduate of Chadron State who practiced medicine in Dawes County for 28 years before moving to Omaha in 2003 to become the medical director for a group of urgent care centers.

He has been a member of the Nebraska Medical Association’s Commission on Association Affairs, served on Gov. Ben Nelson’s “Blue Ribbon” Committee on Health Care and was president of the Greater Nebraska Medical Coalition Board 1998-99.

In 1994, Dr. Hanlon received Ak-Sar-Ben recognition for family community service. In addition, he received the Volunteer Faculty of the Month Award from the University of Nebraska Medical Center’s College of Medicine for May 2002 for helping with the rural preceptorship program that provided experiences in the Chadron clinic for medical school students.

Music has been a long-time avocation for Dr. Hanlon. While in high school, his parents, Ed and Geri Hanlon, purchased a high quality tenor saxophone for him. While attending Chadron State, he was a member of The Esquires, a popular dance band founded by the Joe and Bertha Horse family.

He was a charter member of the Bordeaux Community Band that was founded in 1991. Early this decade, he presented a series of recitals that raised funds for a music scholarship to be awarded to a Chadron State student in the name of the Esquires.

Dr. Hanlon is married to the former Debby Bunch, who also grew up in the Crawford area and earned both her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Chadron State. Her community service while living in Chadron included nearly 15 years on the Board of Education and 10 years on Chadron’s economic development board. The couple has three children—Shane, Sarah and James (Skip).

 

Moni Hourt

Moni Hourt is a Sioux County rural school teacher with many talents and tremendous energy. Both she and her students have been recognized numerous times for their accomplishments.

This past week, Hourt was presented the 2004 National Rural Education Association’s Teacher of the Year Award in Indianapolis. She also has received Peter Kiewit Foundation Nebraska Teacher Achievement Awards in 1996 and 2000 and was the Northwest Nebraska Region’s Wal-Mart Teacher of the Year in 2002.

In particular, her students have excelled in statewide and national History Day contests. Ten individuals and groups that she has worked with, including several from neighboring schools, have qualified for national competition. Two of her students have finished among the top two in the national contest in Washington, D.C.

The native of the ranch in northern Sioux County, Hourt had raised her two children and worked as a newspaper photographer and reporter for about 20 years before enrolling at Chadron State in 1988. She received a bachelor of science degree in secondary language arts in 1991 and returned to earn a BS in elementary education in 1996.

She taught at the District 43 (Pink) School 1991-97 and has taught at the District 2 (Glen) School the past eight years. Through the years, she has organized and co-organized numerous special events for Sioux County students.

In addition, she has been a National History Day judge the past three years and has been a presenter at the Nebraska Reading Association’s state conference, a social studies teachers’ conference in Lincoln and the Midwest Archives Conference in Rapid City.

Hourt also has hosted Elderhostel groups that were exploring rural America and has been the co-author of two full-sized biographies, “Chasing the Wind,” the story of Casper sculptor Chris Navarro and his work, and “A Wrinkle-Bellied Kid,” the story of rancher Earl Cherry. She is currently writing a book and producing a video on the Coffee family’s ranching legacy in Sioux County.

Moni credits her father, Melvin Nation, for encouraging her to tackle new projects and never letting a day go by without learning something; her mother, Thelma Nation, for believing that nothing is impossible; and her husband Joe for supporting her efforts and telling her there’s no reason she can‘t complete the challenges that she frequently accepts.

The Hourts’ daughter, Buffy, and her husband, Shawn Allred, also are Chadron State graduates who are teachers in Illinois. Joe and Moni’s son, Bryan, is a graduate of South Dakota School of Mines and Technology. He is a safety test engineer for Honda in Ohio and his wife Carinna is a pharmaceutical representative.

 

Donald G. Pursley

Dr. Don Pursley has had four distinct phases of his career since graduating from Chadron State in 1959. He has served as an Air Force pilot and flight instructor, was a professor and director of computer resources at the U.S. Air Force Academy, the vice president for finance at Union College in Lincoln and the chief financial officer for Loma Linda University and related entities in California.

After retiring from the latter positions earlier this year, Pursley was presented the President’s Medallion, the highest award given by Loma Linda for service.

Pursley is a native of Goshen County, Wyo. In 1963, he joined the U.S. Air Force and was the pilot of a C-130 Hercules Transport that dropped supplies to troops in Vietnam. After nine years as a pilot, he was associated with the U.S. Air Force Academy, where his duties included director of computer resources. He retired from the Air Force as a colonel in 1984.

While attached to the Air Force, Pursley earned a master of science degree in computer science from Georgia Tech in 1973 and a doctorate of business administration degree from George Washington University.

In 1984, Pursley was employed by Union College, where his duties included chairman of the Division of Business and Computer Science and vice president for finance.

Pursley joined the staff at Loma Linda University, a health sciences institution with 3,000 students in 1991. He was the chief financial officer for an 85-bed in-patient mental health facility, the university health care center that sees about 300,000 out-patients a year, a medical group that employs 220 hospital-based medical doctors and surgeons and a medical group that employs 45 doctors.

He also served as executive vice president and senior vice president and chief financial office for the university and its medical center, which includes a 789-bed hospital.

At his retirement program, Steven Mohe, senior vice president for finance at the medical center, called Pursley “a moral compass, a spiritual guide and a true friend.”

Pursley and his wife Jan have homes in Lincoln and Orlando, Fla. They have two sons and five grandchildren.

Richard E. Shepherd

He is a native of Oshkosh, who graduated from Chadron State in 1959 with majors in chemistry and mathematics. He earned a master of science degree in industrial pharmacy from the University of Georgia in 1972.

He has had more than 40 years experience with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, two Fortune 100 pharmaceutical corporations—Travenol Laboratories and G.D. Searle Laboratories—and his own consulting firm.

Now living in Boerne, Tex., Shepherd was one of the FDA’s four original international drug experts. Approximately 50 percent of his responsibilities were in international pharmaceutical operations, involving inspections of pharmaceutical and bulk active ingredients manufacturers outside the United States.

He was the first inspector to receive approval for the FDA’s long-term training.

He later was senior director of corporate quality and compliance at G.D. Searle Laboratories, where he developed and implemented quality policies, systems and programs to improve quality and regulatory compliance in worldwide operations.

At the request of the Soviet Union’s State Committee for Science and Technology, he developed GMP training programs that he presented in Moscow at a conference for the Russian pharmaceutical industry.

At Travenol Laboratories, Shepherd was a corporate group quality assurance manager. His responsibilities included line quality operations for four domestic and international divisions and developing corporate responses to FDA inspection findings at worldwide production facilities.

His consulting firm, Richard Shepherd Associates, works with domestic and international pharmaceutical companies to prepare them for FDA inspections for approval of new products, and to evaluate their regulatory compliance. He has written and narrated training programs to assist pharmaceutical companies in training their employees. The programs have been used by the FDA.

His wife, the former Joan Sturgeon of Alliance, graduated from CSC in 1960.

 

Togiola T.A. Tulafono

Known as Tala when he attended Chadron State College, Tulafono has been one of American Samoa’s governmental leaders for many years, and is currently its 52nd governor.

Before enrolling at Chadron State in 1968, Tulafono had been a member of his homeland’s fire and sword dance team that performed for several months at the World’s Fair in New York.

While at Chadron State, he frequently performed a fire and sword dance routine that was popular with audiences both on-campus and in surrounding communities. He also won the triple jump at the Nebraska College Conference Track and Field Meet and set a new school record in that event as a senior in 1970.

Following graduation, Tulafono was a legal assistant in the American Samoa attorney general’s office and served as administrative assistant to the secretary of Samoan affairs for two years. He then earned a doctor of laws degree from Washburn University in Topeka, Kan.

After returning to Samoa, he was vice president of South Pacific Island Airways 1976-78 and, was a district court judge for two years. He was elected to the American Samoa senate in 1980, serving 16 years.

From 1979 to 1983, Tulafono was chairman of the inaugural board of directors of the American Samoa Power Authority. From 1993 to 1996, he was chairman of the inaugural Board of Higher Education.

In 1996, he was elected lieutenant governor of American Samoa. He was re-elected in 2000. He was sworn in as governor on April 7, 2003 after the sudden death of Gov. Tauese Sunia He is running for governor this fall.

In addition, he is chairman of the Congregational Christian Church of American Samoa and is district president of the American Samoa District of Boy Scouts of America.

Tala and his wife Mary have six children. His brother Ray and three of Ray’s children also are graduates of Chadron State.