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Alumni Awards List

Stephen B. Holloway, Overland Park, Kansas, is the recipient of the K-State Alumni Medallion for 2003. This K-State Alumni Association award is the highest honor given to graduates by Kansas State University in recognition of lifetime professional and humanitarian service.

A member of the K-State class of 1965, Holloway is an architect who, for the past 20 years, has rallied support for health, education, and housing for Jamaica's neediest youth, as well as other residents in the rural, mountainous region of the island.

Since 1980, Holloway has led eight delegations of doctors, dentists, nurses, teachers, construction workers, computer specialists, and others to work at Oberlin High School, a vocational school serving 1,800 students from the low-income farm area. To coordinate work between the Kansas volunteers and Oberlin High School, Holloway and others formed Jamaica Partners Inc., a nonprofit service organization.

Volunteers from 12 other states now have joined these "work camps" of Kansas volunteers. They journey to an area 18 miles from Kingston known as the Lawrence Tavern area. There they have built a health clinic, library, and a science education center. Holloway designed these buildings and raised the millions of Jamaican dollars needed to build them. He also participated in the construction and is planning another work camp in 2001 to complete a third story on the science education center.

"Steve is an excellent ambassador for his country," said Richmond Nelson, general secretary of the United Church of Jamaica and The Cayman Islands and former principal of the high school. "He has reached across the seas to break down barriers of race and class and to build bridges of understanding between peoples of different cultures."

"I am amazed at Steve's energy and devotion to the people of Jamaica and his genuine desire to do whatever he can to improve lives," said Dr. Betse M. Gage, a pediatrician who joined one of the work camps. "He has truly given the best of himself as well as his time, talents, and money to making a difference in the world."

Following the destruction of Hurricane Gilbert in 1988, Holloway helped spearhead the shipment of tons of building materials and organized volunteers to travel to Jamaica to repair educational facilities. Current work camps build houses for Jamaicans left homeless by Gilbert.

During the 1991 work camp, Holloway and the 24 volunteers poured the health clinic's concrete footings--bucket-by-bucket--for the two-story structure while the volunteers also found time to render medical and educational services to the poor. Today more than 2,000 students and other residents use the clinic each week.

Holloway's wife, Mary R. Steinbrink Holloway '66, recalled the words of the Jamaican Governor General Sir Howard Cooke during the dedication of the medical clinic.

"In thanking Steve for his humanitarian efforts," she said, "the Governor General called the medical center the most excellent facility in the most needy and unlikely location."

As a result of Holloway's two decades of service, the Jamaican minister of education recognized him in 1998 by dedicating a portion of the science education center--the Stephen B. Holloway Science Laboratory.

He and his wife have two adult children, Wendy L. Holloway Morton of Orlando, Florida, and Kelly B. Holloway '93, '94, of Lenexa, Kansas.