Missouri Western received the Craig Watkins Friend of Northwest Missouri Press Award by the Northwest Missouri Press Association in 2012. The award was in recognition of the university’s support of publishers and editors in the region, and its openness in dealing with the media.
Three members of the student chapter of The Wildlife Society, under the direction of Dr. Cary Chevalier, professor of biology, prepared material for interpretative sign panels at the Missouri Department of Transportation’s new Rock Port Welcome Center on I-29. The panels include information about energy use in Missouri, both past and present. Cary and one of the students, Lisa Montgomery, spoke at the dedication ceremony last summer. Although other entities provided information as well, it was the Missouri Western students who provided the bulk of the material, and they were the only ones invited to be part of the ceremony.
The Prairie Lands Writing Project received $40,000 in federal grants from the National Writing Project to support its work with teachers in northwest Missouri during 2012-2103. The grants help support the 2013 Invitational Institute. Also, the site was one of 15 NWP sites throughout the country selected to receive a competitive grant for the NWP’s “Evaluating the Impact of Professional Development to Meet Challenging Writing Standards in High-need Elementary Schools” research project.
The Fountain City Brass Band, a volunteer musical ensemble founded by Dr. Lee Harrelson, instructor of music, held a 10th anniversary concert at the Kauffman Center for Performing Arts in October. Since its first competition in 2004, it has won four U.S. Open Brass Band Championships and four North American Brass Band Championships. In 2009, the band became the first American band and the first non-United Kingdom band in more than 50 years to win a major brass band competition in the U.K.
