Alumnus of the Year
Ken Haines, a 1964 graduate from Charlotte, N.C., received the 2005 Alumnus of the Year award. Haines is the president and CEO of Raycom Sports, the largest independent sports network in the country. He has been called an innovator in the sports television and marketing arena because of the relationships he has formed with major television networks for coverage of college basketball and football games.

Haines, a former member of the DWU Board of Trustees, is instrumental in negotiating contracts with major college conferences. He also organized Charlotte’s Continental Tire Bowl, an immediate success story in postseason college football that generated millions of dollars for the city of Charlotte.

Outstanding Service to Alma Mater
Don Screes, a 1960 graduate from Tucson, Ariz., received the 2005 Outstanding Service to Alma Mater award. Screes, formerly of Mitchell, began working for DWU in 1963 as an admissions counselor. He left the university in 1971 to pursue a master’s degree from Arizona State University. He returned to DWU in 1988 as director of development and in 1990 he became alumni director. He retired from DWU in 2001.

Screes was instrumental is organizing the university’s first Alumni Days. He also reorganized the alumni board into its present format and established the Class Challenge and Class Agent programs. Additionally, he personally secured the funds needed to refurbish the Grandy Alumni House.

Outstanding Professional Achievement
Sam Muyskens, a 1963 graduate from Wichita, Kan., received the 2005 Outstanding Professional Achievement award. Muyskens is executive director of Inter-Faith Ministries, an inter-religious organization that administers 12 major programs focusing on the needs of children, youth and the elderly.

Muyskens led the growing organization from one that had no assets and a $200,000 program debt in 1992, to one that has assets in excess of $2.5 million today. He also travels back and forth to Haiti where he helped build a school and medical clinic, an assembly plant that produces solar ovens and a micro-lending bank. He also initiated a nutrition program.

Outstanding Educator
LeRoy Hollenbeck, a 1950 graduate from Palm Springs, Calif., received the 2005 Outstanding Educator award. Hollenbeck taught high school English, speech and drama for 52 years, 38 of which were spent in the Fullerton Joint Union High School District of Southern California. He served the last several years as head of the English department, leading a staff of 23 teachers. He retired in 2002.

Hollenbeck taught an international baccalaureate course to gifted students for several years. The course allowed them to earn college credit in high school. He also taught students with poor English skills and directed plays and musicals.

Humanitarian of the Year
Gladys Hall, a 1973 graduate from Mitchell, received the 2005 Humanitarian of the Year award. Hall has served as the executive director for the Mitchell Area Safehouse since 1990. She has also worked as a preschool teacher; the director of Project Threshold, a group home for girls; and as a probation officer. In 1997, she established the first third-party child visitation center in the state.

Hall is also credited with initiating the Common Sense Parenting Program and support groups for victims of abuse. Additionally, her Domestic Abuse Intervention Project has led the courts to sentence abusers to a mandatory program to teach them how to conduct themselves while living with family members.

Young Alumna of the Year
Toby Russell, a detective with the Mitchell Police Department and a 1998 graduate, received the 2005 Young Alumnus of the Year Award.