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Media Relations
Kansas State University
9 Anderson Hall
Manhattan, KS 66506
785-532-6415
media@k-state.edu

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Note to editor: Although the luncheon is closed to the public, members of the media are welcome to cover the event. It starts at noon in the K-State Student Union's Flint Hills Room.

Thursday, Dec. 18, 2008

LUNCHEON TO HONOR K-STATE'S NEWEST RHODES SCHOLAR AND NATIONAL PROFESSOR OF THE YEAR

MANHATTAN -- A special luncheon Friday, Dec. 19, at Kansas State University will honor two K-Staters who recently received prestigious national honors.

Being recognized are Vincent Hofer, who just became K-State's eighth Rhodes Scholarship winner since 1986, and Michael Wesch, K-State assistant professor of anthropology, who is the winner of the 2008 national professor of the year award for research and doctoral universities from the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education.

Jon Wefald, K-State president, said the luncheon is a fitting way to honor the two scholarly all-stars.

"This is such a rare honor for any school to have both a Rhodes Scholar and the Carnegie/CASE professor of the year in the same year," Wefald said.

Along with Wefald and M. Duane Nellis, K-State provost and senior vice president, honoring Hofer and Wesch at the luncheon will be family, friends and colleagues. U.S. Sen. Sam Brownback also will be attending the luncheon to congratulate Hofer.

Hofer earned his bachelor's in agribusiness from K-State in May 2008 and now works as a legislative correspondent for Sen. Brownback in Washington, D.C. He will use the Rhodes Scholarship to pursue Latin American studies and development studies at England's Oxford University.

K-State is second in producing Rhodes Scholars among all state universities since 1986, ranking behind only the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

"This reaffirms what Paul Harvey said on his nationally syndicated radio program -- that K-State is the student scholar capitol of America," Wefald said.

K-State also can lay claim to being home to the nation's best professors. Wesch is K-State's third recipient of the national Carnegie/CASE honor for doctoral and research universities, and it is the second year in a row that a K-State professor has received the honor. Chris Sorensen, university distinguished professor of physics, was the 2007 national professor of the year. Dean Zollman, university distinguished professor of physics and head of K-State's department of physics, earned the honor in 1996.