1961 Award Winners

Biographies below were included in the program for the year listed here and were current as of that time.

Reba Anderson

English Teacher

Hutchinson Junior College

Reba Anderson has taught English in the Hutchinson schools since 1945, first in the high school, and then in the junior college. Born in Amorita, Oklahoma, she graduated from high school in Alva, Oklahoma, and attended Northwestern State College there, receiving the baccalaureate degree in 1937. Before going to Hutchinson, she taught English in the Alva junior high school and Northwestern State College, Alva. She received the Master of Arts degree from George Peabody College, Nashville, Tennessee, in 1939. She has done further graduate study at the University of Oklahoma and Kansas State University.

Miss Anderson is active in many organizations including the Hutchinson English Council, Delta Kappa Gamma, the League of Women Voters, and Delta Zeta sorority. She is well known in professional circles as a speaker and panelist. In 1958, she was awarded life membership in the Kansas Congress of Parents and Teachers.

In 1958 and 1959, Miss Anderson was on leave of absence from her teaching duties to serve as President of the Kansas State Teachers Association, and as a member of the KST A staff. She was a delegate to the World Confederation of the Teaching Profession in Rome, in 1958, and in Washington, D.C., in 1959. She is, at present, president of the Hutchinson Teachers Association.

Larry Ling

Chemistry & Physics Teacher

Liberal High School

USD 480 Liberal

Larry Ling has spent twenty-two of his thirty-one years of teaching, in the Liberal high school, where he teaches chemistry and physics. Born in Jetmore, he graduated from the Hodgeman County high school, and took his bachelor's degree at Southwestern College in Winfield. He received the Master of Arts degree from Colorado State College of Education in Greeley. This summer, he will complete work for a second master's degree in the natural sciences at the University of Wyoming.

In 1956, Mr. Ling was selected to participate in one of the original summer institutes for high school and college physics teachers at Laramie, Wyoming. He was one of four Kansas teachers, selected in 1957, to participate in the experimental program of the National Science Foundation, to grant stipends for research by high school science teachers in summer institutes.

Mr. Ling is a member of the National Science Teachers Association, the National Education Association, and the Kansas State Teachers Association. He is a past president of the Liberal Education Association.

George Dix Caldwell

Counselor & Physics Teacher

Iola High School

USD 257 Iola

Born in Morris, Illinois, George Dix Caldwell graduated from high school in Warrensburg, Missouri, and took his bachelor's degree from the Central Missouri State Teachers College. From 1917 until 1919, he taught in the junior department of the Wentworth Military Academy in Lexington, Missouri. In 1920, he came to Neodesha, Kansas, as a coach and physical science teacher, beginning a long career in public education in Kansas. Later, he became principal of Neodesha High School, and finally, the Superintendent of the Neodesha school system. He joined the Iola school system in 1948, where he still serves as counselor and physics teacher.

Mr. Caldwell has done graduate work at the University of Illinois, Kansas State College of Pittsburg, Colorado State College of Education, and holds the Master of Arts degree from Teachers College, Columbia University.

When he saw the need for a guidance program to assist high school students, Mr. Caldwell took the task. He established the guidance and testing program in Iola, and served for two years as president of the Southeast Kansas Guidance Association.

Mr. Caldwell has worked with the Boy Scouts of America for twenty-five years. In 1943, he was granted the Silver Beaver Award, the highest award in Scouting.

Lydia Haag

American Government Teacher

Dodge City High School

USD 443 Dodge City

Born in Holton, Kansas, Lydia Haag has spent her entire professional career in the schools of Kansas. Her early years were spent on a farm near Holton. After graduation from Holton High School, she attended Kansas State University, receiving the Bachelor of Science degree there in 1927. Except for time to fulfill requirements for the Master of Science degree, also at Kansas State University, she spent the next years teaching social studies and mathematics at Mayetta, White Cloud, and Hiawatha. In 1937, she joined the faculty of the senior high school at Dodge City, Kansas, where she teaches American Government, and is Attendance Director.

Miss Haag has served as president and secretary of the Dodge City Educators Council, and as president of the Business and Professional Women's Club. She is active in professional clubs, and in organizations of the Methodist Church.

Articles written by Miss Haag have been published in Successful Devices in Teaching about American Problems, Kansas Business Women, and in the Kansas Councilor, a social studies bulletin.

Dorothy McPherson

Supervisor of Elementary Education, Education Teacher

USD 445 Coffeyville / Coffeyville Junior College

Dorothy McPherson has had a double impact on education in Coffeyville. As supervisor of Elementary Education for the Coffeyville school system, she has been instrumental in bringing the best in educational techniques to the classroom, and as a teacher of education in the junior college, she has started many young people on the way to successful careers in teaching.

Miss McPherson was born in Chetopa. After graduation from high school there, she attended Kansas State College of Pittsburg, where she received the Bachelor of Science degree in 1916. From that time, she has taught in the public schools of Kansas. During summers, she has done ·graduate work at Columbia University, where she received the Master of Arts degree, at the University of Wisconsin, New York University, and the University of Kansas. She taught at Kansas State College of Pittsburg during seven summer sessions.

In addition to these activities, Miss McPherson has been active in many professional and other organizations. She is a former president of the Kansas Association of Supervisors, state president of Delta Kappa Gamma, president of the Altrusa Club, and former state and local vice-president of the American Association of University Women. For five years, she served as a member of the Executive Board of the National Association of Supervisors of NEA. She is listed in Who's Who Among American Women.

Jane E. Roether

Superintendent

USD 475 Geary County

As a child, Jane Roeth er lived with her parents on a farm, located on what later became part of the Fort Riley Military Reservation. Her early education was in a one-room rural school. She attended high school in Junction City, where she took normal training, and graduated with a certificate to teach.

At seventeen, Miss Raether began teaching at High Point School in Geary County. For the next twenty-one years, she taught at rural schools in the county: High Point School, Briggs School, Morris School, and Rubin School.

In 1941, Jane Raether became Superintendent of Public Instruction in Geary County, and ten times she has been re-elected to that office. While in office, she did extension work from Kansas State Teachers College of Emporia, and attended summer school here. In August of 1958, she received the Bachelor of Science in Elementary Education from Kansas State University.

She is active in church and professional organizations, and this year was elected president of the County Superintendents' Association of the State of Kansas.

Ruth Socolofsky

Elementary Art Supervisor

USD 383 Manhattan

The daughter of a Baptist minister, Ruth Socolofsky was born in Higginsville, Missouri. She attended school in Missouri, Wisconsin, and Nebraska. After graduation from the Creston, Nebraska, High School, she attended Kansas State Teachers College of Emporia. She took her B.S. degree from Southwestern State College in Weatherford, Oklahoma, and the M.S. degree at the University of Wisconsin.

Miss Socolofsky is both an artist and an elementary teacher. As elementary art supervisor of the Manhattan Public Schools, she has been able to make her art program meaningful and enjoyable for the pupils, and to integrate it with the rest of the instructional program. She has supervised art exhibits in the elementary schools of Manhattan, in which each child has had at least one piece of work. She has been active in the K.S.T.A., and has conducted art workshops for the teachers in attendance at the Riley-Geary County Institutes for three different years.

Besides serving her church in many capacities, Miss Socolofsky has devoted much time to the Manhattan Public Library, arranging book displays, and taking her turn in being the story teller for the "Children's Hour." Her leisure time hobby is sewing-designing dresses and hats. But when the weather is good, Miss Socolofsky is out with her easel and paints, recording some impressions of her surroundings.