Athletic Hall of Fame

Congratulations to the newest members of the 

Southern Utah University Athletic Hall of Fame!

Rick Robins, Stuart Adams, Cherri Shurtliff Frandsen,
Myndee Kay Larsen and SUU Athletic Director Ken Beazer

Rick Robins ('96) was a four-year starter at quarterback for the Thunderbirds who left the school as its career total offense, total plays, passing attempts, pass completions, passing yards and passing touchdowns leader and he still ranks among the top three in all of those categories. When the native of Scipio, Utah, graduated from SUU in 1997 he also held two of the top four single-season marks for pass attempts, including the record; two of the top-three season completion marks, including the record; and two of the top-four single-season passing yards marks, including the record; as well as two of the top-three single-seasons for total yards and plays. All but one of the single-season marks are still among the school’s top ten. Robins is currently the principal at Utah’s Juab High School.

Stuart Adams ('85) was a two-time all-American in golf who led the Thunderbirds when they finished seventh at the 1985 NAIA national championships with a fifth-place individual finish. The native of Vacaville, Calif., still holds SUU’s single-round scoring record with a 61 he shot at Boise State during the 1984-85 season, a year in which he led the Thunderbirds in scoring at all but one tournament. A four-time all-Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference selection and three time RMAC individual champion, he was also the RMAC’s scholar-athlete for golf his junior and senior years as well as SUU’s male athlete of the year in 1984-85. Adams, who is one of just six golfers in the RMAC Hall of Fame, currently practices optometry in Lake Havasu City, Ariz.

Cherri Frandsen ('97) was a four-year letter winner in women’s basketball who helped lead Southern Utah to three straight American West Conference championships, from 1994-1996. A graduate of Enterprise High School, she was a three-time all-AWC selection and is still the school’s career scoring leader with 1,762 points, while ranking second all-time in field goal percentage, third in rebounding and blocks and fifth in steals. She was named the AWC’s player of the year following her senior season and was a two-time conference tournament MVP as well as Southern Utah’s Athlete of the Year in 1994 and its’ Female Athlete of the Year in 1995. She currently resides in Panguitch, Utah, where she coaches at the youth and high school levels.

Myndee Kay Larsen ('98), who was also a four-year letter winner in women’s basketball at SUU, teamed with Frandsen on three of those AWC championship teams and also was a member of the school’s inaugural Mid-Continent Conference squad. During her time at SUU the Twin Falls, Idaho, native earned first-team CoSIDA GTE Academic All-American honors, was a two-time all-AWC honoree and earned first-team all-Mid-Continent Conference recognition. She set two NCAA records which still stand, for converting 28 consecutive field goal attempts in a row, which helped her to set the NCAA season mark when she connected on 249-of-344 shots, 72.4 percent, as a senior in 1997-98. She is the school’s career field goal percentage and blocks leader and ranks second in rebounds and fourth in free throw percentage. Larsen, who went on to serve as an assistant coach and administrator at SUU, is currently an assistant commissioner in The Summit League.

Campus Tradition Puts Face to Each Scholarship's Impact

Scholarship Luncheon, Gilbert Great hall

The weather outside was frigid, but inside the Hunter Conference Center, hearts were warmed during the fourth annual Scholarship Appreciation Luncheon on January 16, which brought SUU scholarship recipients together with the donors who have paid for their education, revealing the impact a single person can have on another’s success.

Though the event was intended for students to give thanks to their benefactors, the givers were, in turn, just as openly grateful for the students they were able to support.

According to donor Dan Jones ('70) of Cedar City, whose parents created the Homer and Belle Jones Scholarship Endowment, “It was great to talk to the student who is benefiting from my parents’ legacy. To know that their sacrifice wasn’t in vain brings me great joy.”

SUU President Michael T. Benson echoed that sentiment saying, “It is one thing to construct buildings or build football fields, but without students, none of us would be here. These donors truly emulate the spirit shown by the original founders.”

During the luncheon, three scholarship recipients addressed the group and shared their stories of hardship, strife and even tragedy. Though their experiences were different, each imparted an inspiring account of how the generous support of others has changed their lives forever. 

Jourdyn Cleveland

One student speaker, Jourdyn Cleveland of Cedar City, a senior studying elementary education who has been fighting cancer since the age of 15, said, “I know that whatever time I have left, I want to do something with it and pursue my dreams. Giving is an ongoing process and is more than writing a check, it’s changing a life.”

In addition to thanking donors, the luncheon was also intended to recognize student success in academics. Through the generosity of Edward and Carolyn Rondthaler, two $3,000 prizes were awarded to SUU’s top psychology and music students.

This year’s music recipient went to Alex Byers, a senior music education major. The award for psychology went to Shalisha Jessup, a senior from Adamsville, Utah. Both students have 4.0 GPAs.

During his closing remarks, Benson asked the students in attendance for two commitments: “I ask you, first, to complete your education and then, later in life, give back to the place that gave you your start. To give a student just like you a chance at an education.”

For the 2012-13 school year, 3,372 students received institutional scholarships, totaling $10,818,218 to help SUU’s students.

Jeffrey Ure, student speaker
at the Scholarship Luncheon

Garrett McCullough, student speaker
at the Scholarship Luncheon

Shalisha Jessup, recipient of the
Rondthaler Prize in Psychology

Alex Byers, recipient of the Rondthaler Prize in Music

Danielle Erickson performs Somewhere Over the Rainbow

Alex Byers and Christina Meikle perform a scene from
Madima The Catalog Aria from Don Giovanni
Accompanied by Dr.  Willem Van Schalkwyk

Alumni Spotlight: Bob Grove

Bob Grove (’87, Communication) is the owner of DriveAway Vacations and Wild West PR.  As it turned out, his major and work experience as a student at SUU was the perfect combination.   

In 1993 Bob founded DriveAway Vacations, a business that promotes places to go, things to do, and sights to see that are within a day’s drive of Salt Lake City and Las Vegas.  Seven years later he created Wild West Public Relations & Marketing and integrated both this past year to form a new marketing alliance for tourism businesses.   He “got hooked” in the travel and tourism industry while a student and working at hotels, travel agencies, Brian Head Ski Resort, SkyWest Airlines and rental car companies.   

He’s been featured on KSL TV’s Utah Business, KSL Radio’s Speaking on Business with Fred Ball, and was on the cover of Travel Agent Magazine as an entrepreneur of diversity in travel.  Bob is a frequent media expert source in discussing travel trends in the Intermountain region and is a member of the executive board for the Utah Society of Association Executives.

Graduation day was the highlight of Bob’s college career.  Not because he didn’t have a great SUU experience but because he was the first in his family to receive a college degree.  “While sitting with my graduating class listening to a bag pipe band play, the realization set in that I did it!  It was one of the proudest moments of my life,” he explains.

Bob and his wife Susan have five children and four grandchildren.

President's Gala & Old Main Society

Friday, December 9, President Michael T. Benson hosted the 2012 Holiday Gala to pay tribute to the many generous donors - individuals, businesses and foundations - who have qualified for membership in both the President's Giving Society and the Old Main Society.

The President’s Giving Society represents alumni and friends who play an ongoing and vital role in the institution and its success by annually contributing cash or in-kind gifts of $1,000 or more to the University.

Old Main Society members symbolize the spirit of devotion and sacrifice that our early founders demonstrated in constructing our first building – Old Main.  These donors are, in a very real sense, this University’s modern-day founders.  This prestigious gift club at SUU recognizes cumulative lifetime giving to the university in excess of $50,000 for individuals and $100,000 for organizations. 

The newest members of the Old Main Society during 2012, inducted and welcomed into the society that evening were Walter ('51) & Alice Gibson, Maud Trismen Mason, Jerry Grover, Scott Snow, Anthony Stocks, Betty McDonald and June Sewing. 

Special tribute was paid to Maud Trismen Mason and Cedar City Corporation for their extraordinary generosity and commitment to SUU.

Maud Trismen Mason has spent her life in search of beauty and has, indeed, lived a life of grace and elegance while, at the same time, remaining unafraid of dirtying her hands in the earth.

Maud Trismen Mason, Keith Mason and President Benson
Old Main Society Centurium Circle

Born in New York City in 1931, she grew in Forest Hills, New York, and in Buck Hill Falls, Pennsylvania. Her parents, Frederick and Gladys, steeped her in the cultural arts with love and guidance, teaching by example. Galleries and museums were a large part of Maud’s life. When she was six, the family moved to Winter Park, Florida, her father having purchased an historic 40-acre estate and its 21-room mansion known to all as The Palms.

As a girl of central Florida, Maud became accomplished at the piano, and learned from her mother the lessons of nurturing botanicals in the rich landscape of the family grounds on Lake Osceola. As a student at the hometown Rollins College, Maud excelled in all subjects and was honored as the outstanding history student at her 1951 graduation. She would later attend Oberlin College in Ohio and Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania.

For a time, she studied music and managed her husband’s worldwide career as a concert organist, even unto tuning the mammoth instruments. In 1954, she became curator of living arts at Rollins College and further broadened her interests in the arts and in sports. She found her life’s greatest calling when studying at central Florida’s Maitland Art Research Studio, creating assemblage art. The Center’s Attilio Banca was the champion of her work, which was at the forefront of the new movement that used found objects to compose three-dimensional expressions.

In 1964, her work earned a Gold Medal at the New York World’s Fair, and in the years that followed, her assemblages were shown in many venues and were in great demand.

Along the way, she maintained her love of music and accompanied a number of string quartets, and she built her lifelong love of animals into an additional career training horses in both English and Western style.

In 2009, Maud and her manager Keith Mason relocated to nearby Kanarraville and began to immerse themselves in the life of Iron County and of the University while enjoying their greenhouse filled with Maud’s tropical gardens, including her well-tended crepe myrtle. Maud and Keith, who wed in 2011, were pleased to greatly aid in the funding of the Southern Utah Museum of Art, as they intend to enjoy the work of myriad artists in the new Rocki Alice Gallery in memory of Frederick D. Trismen. The gallery is named for the German Shepherds that brought them together.

Michal Adams, Nina Barnes, Mayor Joe Burgess and President Benson
Old Main Society Gold Medallion

Some 46 years after Cedar City was founded in 1851, its citizens labored famously to establish what is now Southern Utah University. Today, that pioneering spirit continues to succor and to inspire as the rewardingly symbiotic relationship of this town and its school has continued with unabated success for 115 years. The history of each is steeped in sacrifice and resolve in a common goal of building for the future.

From its earliest beginnings when 35 men trekked from Parowan to settle the area, the town has revered education. Today, with some 30,000 residents within its 20 square miles, that level of reverence has only deepened.

Cedar City Mayor Joe Burgess has wisely said that without Southern Utah University, Cedar City would not be Cedar City. Conversely, all would agree, SUU would not be SUU without Cedar City. That truth is at the heart of what has cemented a marriage benefitting untold numbers of citizens and students in a variety of ways.

SUU is honored to be a member of the Cedar City community and be served by the Cedar City Corporation, which has maintained its enduring commitment to SUU over many decades and in diverse and momentous instances. Community leaders have always provided support across a broad range of needs and have steered public monies to the University and its programs on many mutually-beneficial fronts, including in support of such important University components as the Utah Summer Games and the Utah Shakespeare Festival.

The Utah Summer Games, founded in 1986 as a program designed to bring people to the City and to the University, required great cooperation between the two, and City representatives were generous in providing not only numerous playing fields and other venues, but personnel as well. Over the past 26 years, mayors, council members and City managers have done much to put the Games on sound financial footing.

The world-renowned Utah Shakespeare Festival, too, is among the most grateful recipients of the generosity and dedication of the City. Through its 51 years of progressive success, the Festival has ever been able to count upon the City for support, and Cedar leaders have been unstinting in their sustenance, including aiding in the construction of the Randall L. Jones Theatre in the late 1980s and today, in providing Redevelopment Agency monies toward the new Shakespeare Theatre complex, currently in the funding phase.

In countless and varied ways, Cedar City Corporation continues to aid the University in its mission of serving the populace through a variety of service and educational programs. 

Following dinner, guests moved to the Randall L. Jones Theatre for Brad Carroll and Peter Sham's A Christmas Carol On the Air, a hilarious behind-the-scenes story of radio actors and their conflicts as they tell Dickens' tale of Ebenezer Scrooge. The role of Scrooge was played by Utah Shakespeare Festival founder Fred C. Adams.

Betty McDonald
Old Main Society Level

June Sewing
Old Main Society Level

Stuart Jones
Vice President for University Advancement

Yuletide Singers
Recent SUU Graduates

SUU wins at NAU

Saturday, November 10, the Thunderbird Nation migrated to Flagstaff, AZ as our football team closed out the season against the Lumberjacks of Northern Arizona.

The game was beyond exciting as senior DL Cody Larsen sacked NAU quarterback Cary Grossart on fourth-and-three from the SUU five yard line to seal a 35-29 triple-overtime win over Northern Arizona and claim the inaugural Grand Canyon trophy.

Southern Utah has been a football spoiler this season. On October 27, Brad Sorensen threw for a season-high 392 yards and Colton Cook hit a 36-yard game-winning field goal as our team upset NCAA Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) No. 1 Eastern Washington 30-27. And then going into last Saturday's game against NAU, the Lumberjacks were ranked No. 11 in the country and were sitting alone atop the Big Sky Conference standings. Our win over NAU was their first in Big Sky play and only their second of the season.

Prior to the game, a good group of alumni, boosters and students gathered in the Dubois Center for a pre-game party. Thank you to everyone who came.

Go Thunderbirds!

Tribute to the Founders Poem Unveiling

Fae Decker Dix ('26) and daughter Nancy

An inspiring event during Homecoming week was the unveiling of a large engraved panel of glass in the President's Suite on the third floor of Old Main displaying a beautiful remembrance to the founders of the University.

In 1947, Branch Agricultural College graduate Fae Decker Dix ('26) wrote "Tribute to the Founders of SUU," a poem performed at the College Cavalcade presented during Commencement week in 1947 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the BAC (known now as Southern Utah University). The pageant was a beautiful evening program presented in the football stadium, which at that time ran north and south at the base of the west side of Old Main Hill. It featured a water curtain which turned colors and separated the audience from the football field.

Fae was passionate about learning and, for a woman in the 1920's, had an uncommon interest in a college education. She was an avid reader, loved history and journalism, and was an advocate of cultural and civic events, finding particular enjoyment in music, art, literature and theater. She was active in the community and served for sixteen years as the coordinator for adult education in Iron County and provided valuable service and leadership to the Cedar City Fine Arts Guild and the Cedar City Music Arts and Arts Exhibit Committee.

Fae moved from Cedar City in 1956 to Logan and later to Salt Lake City, where she continued to make her mark in adult education, arts and civic affairs. On October 29, 2002, Fae passed away in Tulsa, Oklahoma at the age of 96.

Tribute to the Founders of SUU

Give us the work and strength to get it done,

So rang the burden of their decision,

We must and we will, every woman and man,

This was their prophecy, this their vision.

Then face this task, 'tis time for actual deeds.

We've logs to get, and brick and sullen lime,

And rocks to cut from yonder firm red cliffs,

and roads to build, and many hills to climb.

So break the earth and raise the towering walls,

This our privilege -- this our blessed task,

To build for those ahead, those yet to come,

This be our answer when the future asks!

With a stubborn trust, and unflinching faith,

They toiled and they labored from dawn to dark,

In the barren fields and the frozen hills

By dint of hard labor they left their mark.

Till, from a thousand dreams they had built this one,

And taught it as a part of the way to live,

Not what I will get back from this life,

But only how much can I give?

-- Fae Decker Dix

Engraved Glass Panel on the third floor of Old Main

Homecoming Banquet 2012

The annual Homecoming Banquet was held Thursday, September 27, in the Gilbert Great Hall of the Hunter Conference Center. Alumni from all eras came together to reconnect, reminisce and celebrate an evening of being True to SUU.

Honored at the banquet were three individuals who have distinguished themselves in their careers and service to the University.

Ellen Wheeler, 2012 Outstanding Alumnus

Ellen Wheeler, who is among the most renowned of all SUU theatre arts and dance students, is a three-time winner of the Daytime Emmy Award, and has made a significant mark in the annals of television’s daytime drama world. She was born in Hollywood into a theatre family and shined on the stage at Cedar High School and at this University before finding stardom in, first, Another World, then in All My Children, playing roles in each that gained her Emmys. Then she moved behind the camera as a director for As The World Turns, earning an Emmy nomination. Finally, she progressed to the post of executive producer of Guiding Light, which won her a third Emmy when it was named best dramatic series in 2007. In that position, she set new standards for audience interaction and for filming techniques that have been adopted by other productions. Today, she and her husband, Shannon Comp, who also has SUU roots, maintain a ranch in Virgin, Utah, and a home in Cedar City. They have two children.

Craig Jones, 2012 Distinguished Service Award

William Craig Jones, well-steeped in the heritage of this institution, served as a beloved member of the political science faculty for 35 years, and was an architect of the pre-law program. Additionally, he was instrumental in establishing what has become the Michael O. Leavitt Center for Politics and Public Service. He completed his studies at the College of Southern Utah, where he played basketball, in 1959 and went on to earn bachelor’s and master’s degrees at BYU. It was when he was completing his doctorate at the University of Arizona in 1963 that he was enticed back to Cedar City where he came to love teaching the philosophies of government and citizenship that frame our nation. He continued to work in the family business, as well, maintaining the sheep and cattle herds on the Jones ranch in Iron County. Also, he gave of his time and talents across a wide range of civic bodies in the region and the state. He and his wife Bonnie are the parents of four and grandparents of 16.

Jamie Shaw, 2012 Young Alumnus

Globetrotting Jamie Shaw, who earned a bachelor’s degree from SUU in 1996 in business administration and finance, has always shined in whatever arena she has chosen. Today, she serves as a senior consultant for Event Knowledge Services, based in Lausanne, Switzerland, aiding cities around the world in their bids to host major events. Currently, she is engaged in Istanbul, Turkey’s quest to host the 2020 Summer Olympics. Her specialty is the staffing for such grand undertakings and she began her career in human resources with Verizon after gaining an MBA from BYU. Subsequently, she became manager of HR Planning and Operations for the Salt Lake 2002 Winter Olympic Games. A stint with Starbucks preceded her current career, which has seen her work in successful campaigns around the world, including Rio de Janeiro’s 2016 Olympic bid. A native of Aurora, Utah, she was exceedingly vital in student life at SUU, including activity in SUUSA, Future Business Leaders of America, the Student Alumni Association and Alpha Phi Sorority.

The traditional singing of the Grand Old BAC was performed by students from the College of Performing and Visual Arts and tables containing a variety of University treasures were on display. Below are four such displays: books singed from the 1948 Old Main fire, Old Sorrel's hobbles, memorabilia from SUU's Centennial Celebration and the dress worn by Ruth Higbee when she graduated from the Branch Agricultural College (BAC) in 1916.

Books from Old Main

Old Sorrel's Hobbles

Centennial Memorabilia

Graduation Dress from 1916