1973 Recipients
W. Lloyd Graunke
Class Year: 1940
Outstanding Alumni Award Winner 1973
W. Lloyd Graunke was appointed superintendent of the Tennessee School for the Deaf in 1957. Graunke was a member of several national speech and hearing associations. He was associate editor of “American Annals of the Deaf” and was a lecturer and consultant at many universities and public schools. Graunke received his B.A. from North Central College in 1940, his M.S. from Gallaudet College in 1940, his M.S. from Gallaudet College in 1942 and a Ph.D. from Northwestern University in 1952.
Harold E. Kohn
Class Year: 1945
Outstanding Alumni Award Winner 1973
Rev. Harold Kohn was a well-known religious journalist, author and lecturer. He wrote the syndicated newspaper column, “Lift for Living,” from 1963 to 1972. He wrong 14 books, articles and essays for “Together,” “The Christian Herald” and “Reader’s Digest.” Rev. Kohn was also an accomplished artist who illustrated his own books. In 1963, he was presented a citizenship award by then Michigan Governor George Romney for voluntary contributions in the field of culture during the previous 10-year period. He was also honored with the Doctor of Humane Letters degree from Olivet College in 1964.
J. Guy Woodward
Class Year: 1936
Outstanding Alumni Award Winner 1973
J. Guy Woodward joined the research department of RCA in Camden, J.J., in 1942 and later that year, moved to the newly-formed RCA Laboratories in Princeton, N.J. His research was in a variety of fields – including the study of vehicular radio noise, underwater sound, electromechanical feedback devices, musical acoustics, stereophonic sound reproduction, disc-phonography recording, magnetic tape recording and digital magnetic recording. He was a member of the research team that conducted the first public demonstration of video tape records of television signals in color and black-and-white in 1953.
Harris W. Fawell
Class Year: 1950
Outstanding Alumni Award Winner 1973
The Honorable Harris Fawell, a Trustee of North Central since 1985, served with distinction in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1985-1999, representing the 13th District of Illinois. Fawell received his pre-law education at North Central and his doctor of law degree from Chicago-Kent College of Law in Chicago. He practiced law for 30 years, with offices in Naperville, prior to his election to Congress in 1985. In 1995, Fawell was chosen to deliver the Commencement address at the College and was awarded the honorary degree doctor of laws. Upon his retirement, Fawell donated his public papers to North Central, and the College established the Fawell Institute in his honor, an important resource for students of the history and public policy of the Western Suburbs in the 20th Century. The College is also grateful for his service as co-chair of the five-year $50 million Preparing for a New Century Capital Campaign, now successfully completed. In 2003, Fawell was named Life Trustee of North Central.
John A. Koten
Class Year: 1951
Outstanding Alumni Award Winner 1973
John “Jack” Koten is a Life Trustee who joined the College’s Board of Trustees in 1970 and received an honorary degree, Doctor of Laws, at Commencement Ceremonies in 1991. Koten is a retired senior vice president for Ameritech and president of the Ameritech Foundation. He has served as a member of the Illinois School Problems Commission; secretary and director of the Economic Club of Chicago; secretary of the Better Schools Committee of Chicago; and director of the Church Federation and chairman of the Board of Pensions of the Northern Illinois Conference of the United Methodist Church. For more than 100 years, the Koten family name has been associated with North Central and Evangelical Theological Seminary (E.T.S.). In 1979, Koten and his wife, Catherine Hroska Koten, and sister, Jane Koten ’55, made a generous gift to honor their parents and fellow alumni. That same year the chapel was renamed “The Roy Y. and Margaret Koten Chapel.”