Hawkeye Distinguished Veterans Award recipients to be honored Nov. 14

Six University of Iowa alumni and faculty who served their country—in roles ranging from saving art stolen by Nazis in World War II to representing a women’s service association in the Vietnam era—will be honored in a ceremony at 5 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 14, in the Main Lounge of the Iowa Memorial Union (IMU).

Criteria for the Hawkeye Distinguished Veterans Award include a strong university connection, having served honorably, military accomplishment, and service to the community.

The 2019 Hawkeye Distinguished Veterans Memorial Award recipients are: 

• Kathleen “Kitty” Buckwalter, U.S. Navy Nurse Corps
• Larry Hershberger, U.S. Marine Corps
• Harold “Hal” Jackson, U.S. Air Force
• Julie Stanik-Hutt, U.S. Navy Nurse Corps
• George L. Stout, U.S. Navy, U.S. Army
• Maurice Wright Van Allen, U.S. Army Medical Corps

Each recipient will be recognized with a plaque. The Memorial Honor Roll on the first floor of the IMU recognizes students and alumni who have given their lives in service to the nation as members of the armed forces.

More about the honorees:

Kathleen “Kitty” Buckwalter, professor emerita in the College of Nursing known for her research in geropsychiatric nursing and long-term care, served two tours of duty in the U.S. Navy Nurse Corps during the Vietnam War.

Buckwalter specializes in behavioral management strategies for dementia caregivers and the effectiveness of community programs to prevent, minimize, and treat psychiatric problems in the rural elderly. She has a sustained record of private and federal support from organizations related to the evaluation of nursing interventions for geropsychiatric populations, is a member of the National Academy of Medicine and former editor of Research in Gerontological Nursing and the Journal of Gerontological Nursing, and has authored more than 400 articles, 90 book chapters, 10 health policy and commissioned papers, and has edited eight books.

Prior to assuming emerita status in 2011, Buckwalter devoted more than three decades of service to the UI. She was the Sally Mathis Hartwig Professor in Gerontological Nursing, director of the John A. Hartford Center of Geriatric Nursing Excellence, associate director of the UI Gerontological Nursing Interventions Research Center, co-director of the UI Center on Aging, and associate provost for health sciences. In 2012, she was awarded the UI Faculty/Staff Distinguished Alumni Award.

In 2019, the Iowa Department of Veterans Affairs and Gov. Kim Reynolds recognized the 50th anniversary of Buckwalter’s service in the Navy Nurse Corps. 

Larry Hershberger, a UI alumnus and former director of the UI Tippie College of Business’ Emmett J. Vaughan Institute of Risk Management and Insurance, served in the U.S. Marine Corps during the Vietnam War era from 1966 to 1973. During his time in the Marine Corps, he received the Navy Commendation Medal, Combat Action Ribbon, Vietnam Service and Campaign Medals, and the National Defense Service Medal.

Committed to serving the UI throughout his life, Hershberger established an endowed scholarship for student veterans to recognize their service. The first Vira G. Hershberger Scholarship, named in honor of his mother, was awarded to students in 2018. Since its inception, five student veteran awardees have received Hershberger’s support.

Harold “Hal” Jackson served in the U.S. Air Force from 1950 to 1954 during the Korean War and shot photography over enemy lines from a B-52 bomber.

Jackson enlisted in the U.S. Armed Forces while attending Kansas State University on a football scholarship and completed his basic training at Lowery Air Force Base in Denver, Colorado. After graduating from the UI in 1962, Jackson practiced pharmacy in his hometown of Winterset, Iowa, for decades. He retired at age 70 but remained active as a pharmacist, working one to three days per week. He was involved in the Iowa Pharmacy Association and the UI College of Pharmacy, and served on various boards and commissions in Winterset and Madison County, including the VA Commission, the MATURA Action Corp. board, development board (32 years of service), community foundation board, and zoning and planning board.

An active member of the American Legion and VFW, Jackson has served as an elder of the First Presbyterian Church in Winterset and loyally attends UI home football games.

Julie Stanik-Hutt began her service in the armed forces while a nursing student at the UI, where she would later go on to develop and lead the UI College of Nursing’s Adult/Gerontology Nurse Practitioner-Acute Care Program.

As a senior at the UI, in a time when women and nursing students were not eligible for ROTC, Stanik-Hutt served as vice president of Angel Flight, (a women’s service association affiliated with the Arnold Air Society and Air Force ROTC Unit), and represented the group at a national conference in Dallas, Texas, as well as at Offutt Air Force Base in Omaha.

Sworn in as an ensign in the Navy Reserves, Nurse Corps, in 1974, Stanik-Hutt was stationed at the Naval Health Clinic Annapolis, continued her military service after reserve.

Specializing in critical care, Stanik-Hutt obtained master’s and doctoral degrees from the University of California, San Francisco and University of Maryland, respectively, and a postgraduate certificate from Georgetown University. Since returning to the UI in 2016, Stanik-Hutt has provided service to her field by giving testimony on health issues to the Iowa Legislature and recruiting Iowa City Veterans Affairs Medical Center nurses to graduate school, and in the Iowa City community by serving on the health committee at St. Patrick’s Catholic Church.

In 2018, with members of Cedar Rapids VFW Post 788, Stanik-Hutt coordinated a ceremony to honor UI College of Nursing faculty veterans who served during the Vietnam War. 

George L. Stout, a UI alumnus who served as editor-in-chief of the Daily Iowan from 1920–21, became a World War II hero and leading figure in the field of art conservation whose story was depicted in the film The Monuments Men, with actor George Clooney playing a character based on Stout.

Stout’s military service began in World War I. Between the wars, he served in the U.S. Navy Reserves. After his graduation from the UI, Stout was an instructor in the art department before moving to the Fogg Museum at Harvard University, where he began his career as an art conservator. As a member of the Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives unit during World War II, Stout was instrumental in the efforts to save and retrieve art stolen by the Nazis. After World War II, he worked in Boston at the Worcester Art Museum and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.

Stout, who remained passionate about art conservation throughout his life, died in 1978.  

Maurice Wright Van Allen received a medical degree from the UI in 1942 and went on to become head of the UI College of Medicine’s Department of Neurology.

Van Allen entered the U.S. Army Medical Corps and was stationed in the South Pacific at various Army hospitals, where he focused on neurological and neurosurgical services. After being discharged in 1946, Van Allen trained in private practice, and in 1952 joined the neurological-neurosurgical staff of the new Veterans Administration Hospital in Iowa City. From 1952 to 1959, he was active in teaching and research programs in the College of Medicine’s neurology department, where he earned the rank of professor in 1965 and became department head in 1974.

Van Allen served as chief editor of the Archives of Neurology, an examiner for the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology, and member of National Institute of Neurological and Communicative Disorders and Stroke Scientific Information Advisory Committee. He was a member of the American Medical Association’s Section Council on Psychiatry; American Academy of Neurology representative to the Council of Medical Specialty Societies; and consultant to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

A member of the UI President’s Club, Van Allen had a passion and love for the UI, especially teaching and mentoring students.

The event is sponsored by the UI Army ROTC and Air Force ROTC programs, Division of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, Division of Student Life, Iowa Memorial Union, Office of the Registrar, and Military and Veteran Student Services.