W.H. Thompson
Alumni Center
University of
Nebraska at Omaha
Omaha, NE
68182-0010
• Tel (402)
554-2444
• Fax (402) 554-3787
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
DATE: May 10, 1998
Contact: Anthony Flott
aflott@mail.unomaha.edu
(402)
554-2989
Four graduates receive UNO Alumni Citation
(OMAHA, NE) — The UNO Alumni Association bestowed its Citation
for Alumnus Achievement Award on four distinguished alumni Saturday, May 9. The
award, instituted in 1949, is presented each year at UNO’s spring commencement
to graduates who have achieved distinction in their careers. Michael De Freece,
1998 UNO Alumni Association Chairman of the Board, presented Citation for
Alumnus Achievement Awards to: Kenneth Bird, Howard Hawks, Michael McLarney and
Carol Schrader.
Kenneth M. Bird
Kenneth Bird earned a
bachelor’s degree in special education from the University of Nebraska at Omaha
in 1971. He went on to earn two more degrees from the University of Nebraska at
Lincoln. Currently superintendent of Westside Community Schools, he has spent
more than 25 years as an educator. Bird has worked for Westside Community
Schools since 1981 and has been superintendent for the past six years. He also
has served as associate superintendent, director of governmental relations and
pupil services and director of the department of special service. From 1974 to
1981 he was with the Nebraska Department of Education in various capacities.
Prior to that, he was a teacher and department head at Westside.
The 50-year-old Bird
currently serves on numerous boards, including the Nebraska Commission for
National and Community Service, the Educational Research and Development
Institute and the U.S. Office of Education National Agenda Setting Task Force.
His extensive community involvement includes service for the Boy Scouts of
America, Children’s Hospital, UNO’s Maverick Council and numerous other bodies.
Bird has received many awards during his career, including the Nebraska
Superintendent of the Year award last November.
Howard Hawks
Howard Hawks received
a master of business administration degree from UNO in 1971 after receiving an
accounting degree from UNL. He is chairman and chief executive officer of
Tenaska, Inc., an 11-year-old Omaha-based company ranked among the top
independent power producers and sellers of power and natural gas in the nation.
The 62-year-old Hawks
started the company with five partners, all of whom had worked for Enron but
did not want to move to Houston when that corporation left Omaha. Since then
Tenaska has become a big player in the energy field with various projects
across the United States and internationally. The company last year completed a
586-megawatt, gas-fired plant in Pakistan that cost nearly $700 million.
Hawks’ employment
with Enron began in 1966 when he joined what was known then as InterNorth. Over
the years he became president of three Enron subsidiary groups, Northern Plains
Natural Gas Co., Northern Liquid Fuels Group and Northern Natural Resources and
Enron Development. Prior to joining InterNorth he worked for General Motors
Corp.
Michael
McLarney
For nearly a decade Michael McLarney has been president of United Way
of the Midlands, an organization he joined 25 years ago as a campaign division
director. Since then he has served in a number of administration positions,
overseeing the campaign, finance and administration, marketing and
communications.
McLarney, 52, earned his bachelor’s degree in general studies from UNO
in 1975. His education has continued since with completion of Executive
Education Programs at the Harvard Business School, the University of Michigan
and the National Academy for Voluntarism.
He maintains an active and visible role in various organizations
affecting the welfare of local citizens in Omaha. He chairs the Advisory
Committee for the Midlands Institute for Non-Profit Management and serves on
numerous other boards, committees and coalitions focusing on health and human
services. That includes Omaha 2000, Safe Futures, Youth Leadership Omaha and
the Domestic Violence Coordinating Council. In 1993 McLarney received the 1993
Outstanding Citizen Award from Woodmen of the World Alpha Lodge.
Carol
Schrader
One of Omaha’s most recognized and respected broadcast journalists,
Carol Schrader is news director and a morning talk show host at KFAB Radio. She
earned her journalism degree from UNO in 1988, though most of her undergraduate
work has been completed in the early 1970s when she was a Homecoming Queen and
active with several campus organizations.
Her broadcasting career began as an intern with an Omaha television
station and continued as a reporter with an all-news radio station. In 1977 she
joined Omaha’s KETV Channel 7 as a reporter rand soon thereafter became that
station’s anchor, a post she held for nearly 20 years. One of the things she
became best known for was her “Wednesday’s Child” program which focused on
children with special needs who were up for adoption.
In 1997 Schrader changed fields and joined KFAB Radio as the station’s
news director and co-host of its highly rated “Good Morning Show.”
