Summer 2010 - Wayne State College

Campus NotesShuck Receives Alumni Achievement AwardGeorge L. Shuck was presented the Alumni Achievement Award at the Spring 2010baccalaureate commencement ceremony. He enrolled at Wayne State in the fall of 1973in the business school and completed his studies at Wayne State in 1976, graduatingsumma cum laude with a bachelor of science degree in business administration with aconcentration in accounting and a minor in economics.While at Wayne State, Shuck was vice president of the Student Senate and wasa member of the tennis team. After graduating from Wayne State, he attended theUniversity of Kansas, graduating with a master of science degree in accounting in 1977.Shuck began his career in public accounting with Arthur Andersen & Co. as astaff accountant in the auditing division in the company’s Kansas City office in 1980.While at Arthur Andersen, Shuck’s audit focus was on commercial business enterprisesprimarily in the manufacturing and retail sectors.Shuck changed his career path from public accounting to private industry in1985. He became chief financial officer for a computer hardware and software retailerin Kansas City. Another opportunity presented itself a year later and he became ashareholder and president of a T.J. Cinnamons franchise in Memphis, Tenn. Shucktemporarily relocated to Memphis and was actively involved in the entire businessoperations of the franchiseAfter spending two years away from Kansas City, Shuck returned and joinedFerrellgas, Inc., a national propane retailer in Liberty, Mo., as manager of financialaccounting and reporting. He was promoted to director of administration servicesin 1992. In this position, George’s responsibilities included the tax, audit andadministrative services departments.Shuck left Ferrellgas and became president and sole stockholder of a custommetal fabricating company in Kansas City in 1995. He sold the business in 2004 afterreceiving an offer from a local strategic competitor. Shuck assumed the position of vicepresident and chief financial officer of Clearwater Natural Resources in 2005 where hecontinues his employment today. Clearwater was founded in 2005 as a private MLP toacquire coal mining businesses in eastern Kentucky.George and his wife, Deb, make their home in Kansas City, Mo. They enjoy golfand supporting their alma maters (Deb is a graduate of Kansas State University). Shuckhas been a Trustee of the Wayne State Foundation since 1993 and has hosted two KansasCity alumni reunions.Wayne State Honors RetiringFaculty O’Leary and TaberDr. Jay O’Leary came to Wayne State College44 years ago in 1966, specializing in music and,specifically, woodwind instruments. He holdsbachelor of music education and doctor of musicalarts degrees from the University of Colorado. Hismaster of music degree is from Boston University.He received the Wayne State FoundationTeaching Excellence Award in 1970. Beforecoming to Wayne, he served as Associate PrincipalClarinet and Soloist of the United States ArmyField Band of Washington, D.C., during whichtime he played at the funeral of President John F.Kennedy and the later inauguration of Lyndon B.Johnson.O’Leary was Fine Arts division head atWayne State for 20 years, and was the director ofthe Wayne State Summer Music Camp. He wasPrincipal Oboe of the Sioux City Symphony for40 years, and currently plays in the Sioux CityMunicipal Band and Siouxland All-America Band.Dr. Jay O’LearyDr. Linda TaberDr. Linda Taber began her career as a WayneState College professor in 1992. She earnedher bachelor’s degree in history at Penn StateUniversity in 1964, her master’s degree in historyat Rutgers University in 1966 and her doctorate inhistory at Stanford in 1983.She served as a visiting professor of history atthe University of South Dakota and the Universityof Iowa before joining the Wayne State facultyfull time. Taber taught Wayne State courses inWorld History, World Civilizations, Ethics andValues, Society and Gender, African History, theRenaissance and the Reformation, and Slavery in aGlobal Perspective.She noted in thoughts about her retirementthat, “The college has undergone numerouschanges in campus and curriculum, but someof the best things about teaching here haveremained the same. Every semester I have hadthe opportunity to teach in fields that interest me,even when my interest took an unexpected turninto the history of slavery, ancient and modern. Iappreciate the program flexibility which made itpossible to develop and share new interests.”6