Emporia State University is having a memorial service for Dr. Mary Winstead Bonner at 3 p.m. Friday, Sept. 14, at the Sauder Alumni Center, 1500 Highland Street. Dr. Bonner died July 15 at age 94.
Drs. Thomas and Mary Bonner were the first two African-American faculty members at Emporia State with Tom Bonner joining the mathematics faculty in 1960 and Mary joining The Teachers College in 1964. She retired in 1986 but remained very active with the campus community. She received the Ruth Schillinger Award in 1998 for extraordinary contribution to the women of Emporia State over a sustained period of time. In 2000, Drs. Thomas and Mary Bonner received the ESU Presidential Award for Distinguished Service to Diversity.
The Bonner & Bonner Diversity Lecture Series was established in their honor.
The Bonners’ legacy at Emporia State continues. They established two funds at the ESU Foundation — the Bonner-Bonner Diversity Lecture Series and the Mathematics Scholarship Fund. Two new endowments will create the Drs. Thomas E. & Mary Winstead Bonner Scholarship for Sociology, Anthropology & Crime/Delinquency Studies and Dr. Thomas Edison Bonner & Dr. Mary Winstead Bonner Scholarship for the Teaching of Psychology.
Those unable to attend the memorial on Friday can watch the livestream at https://livestream.com/emporiastate/events/8360126.