Tornado inspires new scholarship

Missouri Southern's tornado memorial Aug. 28 concluded with an announcement from University President Bruce Speck that a scholarship fund will be created in the names of those who lost their lives in the tornado.

"Carmen [Speck, wife] and I determined that we would help support a scholarship in the name of our three heroes [Dr. José Alvarez, Donald Lansaw Jr., Abe Khoury] today," Speck said at the ceremony. "We are going to give $1,000 for each of them to the scholarship because we don't want their names to be lost. We don't want to close the door at the end of the service today. We hope to raise $50,000 for this scholarship, and every time it is awarded, to however many students receive it, it will have the names of the three heroes we heard about today."

The ceremony allowed friends and family of those who died who were attached to the University to speak about their loved ones and their experiences during and after the storm. Speck said the University needed to do something more than a ceremony to memorialize those lost to Southern.

"Carmen and I began thinking about this as we got closer to the event and we realized that it was important for us to have a long-lasting scholarship, and one is to have an endowed scholarship," Speck said Wednesday. "As we thought about it, we chatted with Mark Parsons and just tried to figure out the best way to do this and it was sort of, actually, spontaneous. It was a few days before the service and I presented the idea and…it was an opportunity to get the community involved in something that is longer lasting than just a ceremony. All of their names will be on it."

Speck set his goal to raise $50,000 for the endowment fund and is encouraging fundraising for it.

"I think that will be somewhat a lofty goal, but if you're commemorating three people and you want to give scholarships out, I think we have the opportunity, if we raise that amount of money, to really make a very positive impact," he said.

Speck said Rod Surber was heavily involved in organizing the event. Surber said the committee began organizing in late June or early July

"That date was established a long time ago, recognizing that it was the first time that all students, faculty and staff and been together since May 22," he said. "We wanted to have a forward looking message to provide some closure, and that was the purpose for the service."

At the event, the Red Cross also presented a plaque to commemorate the University and the efforts of those who helped with the shelter after the tornado.

"That was a very fine gesture on their part and it was very gratifying that they had realized just how much this campus had done in the immediate recovery effort and the ongoing recovery," Speck said. "We haven't decided [where it will be placed] but it is for the entire community. It is for the entire campus. It's not there for view of one particular person."

He also said he is very proud of Southern's efforts during the tornado, and was even driven to tears.

"It is a moving event for me," Speck said. "It is also something that as I think about, it causes me to reflect deeply on the nature of the University, and I'm very, very proud of our people because they stepped forward. There was no poking or prodding."

Speck feels that the tornado has allowed the University to connect with the Joplin community in a new way, and plans to build on that.

"I think that even though the campus was not psychically damaged, there are all types of implications in the aftermath of the tornado," he said. "One is that we have really been changed in our perception and our relationship with the community and the community's relationship with us.

"I have had graduates say how they are proud to be alumni. I've had citizens say that the University stepped up and they're really proud of that. We need to be very service-oriented, to think about how we might enable people to be more effective as citizens and how we might enable them to have grounds for more compassion."

Speck's plan is to increase accessibility of the University to the public in both educational and non-educational ways, and to increase on community service.

"That [serving the community] becomes the tone for our institution because we demonstrated that that's who we are and that we do that, and we need to continue to refine that so that we make it as our motto that we are here to serve others and look outwardly and make sure that we are helping people to come to us educationally and whatever ways we can."