Published: June 1, 2011 By

alumni awards

From left to right bottom row are award winners Lucinda McWilliams Sanders, James Copeland, Daniel Liston, Chancellor Philip P. DiStefano, Dean Boal, Marni Spott and Tony Ortega. Middle row left to right are Brian Cabral, David Getches, Larissa Bernhardt Herda, Sue Duris-McMurdy and Bernard Amadei. Top row from left to right are Jason Burdick, Richard “Trey” Lyons III, Justin Macauley and Dan Omasta. Ron Geschwer is not pictured.

The Alumni Association celebrated the 81st anniversary of its annual awards ceremony in early May by awarding 16 alumni, faculty, staff and students with six prestigious awards.

The George Norlin Award honors outstanding alumni for their careers and service to society.  Recipients were Boulder resident Dean Boal (Mus, MusEdu’53, PhD’59); Castle Rock, Colo., resident Larissa Bernhardt Herda (PolSci’80); Denver resident Anthony “Tony” Ortega (Span’80, MFA’95) and Lucinda McWilliams Sanders (MCompSci78) of Boulder.

Three professors and one football coach received the Robert L. Stearns Award in recognition of extraordinary contributions to the university: civil engineering professor Bernard Amadei, assistant football coach Brian Cabral (Rec’79), law dean David Getches and education professor Daniel Liston.

Boulder resident James D. Copeland (PE’62, Arch’69) and New York City resident Ron Geschwer (Psych’01) received the Alumni Recognition Award.

Sue Duris-McMurdy (Econ’84) of West Hollywood, Calif., received the Leanne Skupa-Lee Award as a faithful National Alumni Admissions Assistance Program volunteer for more than 20 years.

The Kalpana Chawla Outstanding Recent Graduate Award went to two alumni — Jason Burdick (PhDChemEngr’02) of Philadelphia and Richard “Trey” Lyons III (PolSci’00) of Arlington, Va.

Three students received the inaugural Forever Buffs Student Award: Justin Macauley (Bus’11), Dan Omasta (EnvSt’11) and Marni Spott (Ger, IntlAf’12).