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::Attending Bradley :: Apply Online :: Student Life :: Our Community :: Visit Us :: A to Z :: Search :: Home
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Winter 2009 • Volume 15, Issue 1
 Cohen ’96 in Hallmark Hall of Fame movie | Schock ’02 youngest in Congress | Entertainment with an alcohol-free twist | IPL energy solutions | Founder’s Day Awards | Faculty honored on Founder’s Day | Young engineers help major corporation | Campus construction | Center for Testing | Smith Career Center gift | Baghdad revisited | ’08 campaign trail | In the field of history
BUAA honors congressman as Distinguished AlumnusU.S. Rep. RAY LaHOOD ’71 was named the 2008 Distinguished Alumnus Award recipient on Founder’s Day. Due to the pressing bailout vote in Congress on October 3, his wife KATHY LaHOOD, MBA ’87 and his son-in-law Brian Smith accepted the award for LaHood.
U.S. Representative RAY LaHOOD ’71, the 2008 Distinguished Alumnus Award recipient. Elected to represent the 18th District of Illinois in 1994, the congressman is completing his seventh and final term in Washington. He has served on the House Appropriations Committee as a ranking member of the Select Intelligence Oversight Panel, as well as a number of subcommittees. LaHood has pushed for higher levels of civility, decorum, and bipartisanship in the House of Representatives. In Illinois, he led efforts to establish the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield, helped locate a federal health clinic in Peoria, worked to establish the Peoria NEXT business incubator on Main Street, and aided rural communities in his district. LaHood was honored by the Illinois Farm Bureau in 2005 for his leadership on agriculture issues, and in 2001 by the Illinois chapter of the Nature Conservancy for his efforts regarding the Illinois River. LaHood grew up working in his father’s tavern/restaurant and at a grocery store. After earning his Bradley degree in sociology, he taught junior high social studies in Peoria. He began working for a congressman in Rock Island and was soon appointed to a vacant seat in the Illinois General Assembly. In 1982, he went on to work for U.S. House Minority Leader ROBERT H. MICHEL ’48 HON ’81, first running his Peoria office and then serving as his chief of staff in Washington. When Michel announced he would not seek a 20th term, LaHood ran for and was elected to his seat in Congress. LaHood served on Bradley’s Board of Trustees from 1999 to 2006. He was president of the University’s National Alumni Association in 1989–90. On October 18, the LaHoods were honored with a tribute dinner sponsored by Easter Seals. With a goal of raising $1 million, the proceeds will fund the new Ray and Kathy LaHood Center for Cerebral Palsy in Peoria. Centurions represent diverse professionsSix prominent alumni were inducted into the Centurion Society on Founder’s Day in October. Their professions range from photojournalist to physician to ambassador. The Centurion Society began in 1982 and has inducted 154 distinguished members who have been leaders in their fields. Renée C. Byer ’80
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Renée Byer has been a photojournalist for the Sacramento Bee for five years. In 2007 she was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for her photo series, “A Mother’s Journey,” chronicling a mother and her young son as they battled his cancer. The black-and-white photographs were on display at the Hartmann Center for six weeks prior to Founder’s Day. The series also won several national awards and resulted in more than $40,000 in donations to help the family. Byer received the AP News Executive Council’s top honor, the Mark Twain Award. Her series titled “Seeds of Doubt” won several major awards in 2005. Also that year she was honored for her “Women at War” series. She was a photographer for the Peoria Journal Star until 1988, and went on to work at newspapers in New York, Oregon, and Seattle. Byer presented the annual Bunn Lecture at Bradley on October 2. She was profiled in the Fall 2007 issue of Bradley Hilltopics. View the article at 
Dr. Falcon-Cullinan first attended college in the Philippines. She earned her M.D. in 1969 from the University of Santo Thomas Medical School in Manila. After many years as an obstetrician and gynecologist in Peoria, she enrolled in Bradley’s Executive MBA program. She continued to work in her OB-GYN
practice, the Falcon Center for Women. She has also distinguished herself as CEO of Health Professionals Ltd., a company serving the medical needs of more than 60,000 inmates in eight states. The company employs a staff of about
425 technicians and nurses. Dr. Falcon-Cullinan serves on several local boards, including Easter Seals. 
Jim Kenny’s career has taken him from Chicago
to Ireland, and back. He and his family moved overseas for three years when he was appointed U.S. Ambassador to Ireland in 2003. During that time, he was awarded a doctor of humane letters from Lynn University and the American College Dublin. Kenny
is executive vice president of Kenny Construction Company. He also serves as president of Kenny Management Services, which oversaw projects such as the expansion of Midway Airport and the new Soldier Field. Kenny has won numerous awards and has served on boards in Chicago, as well as at Bradley. He is a former Bradley Trustee. He served on the transition team for President George W. Bush in 2000–2001, and he was a member of the President’s first overseas delegation in 2002. He was profiled in the Spring 2008 issue of Bradley Hilltopics. View the article at 
Ed King served Bradley for 38 years from 1957
until 1995, first as dean of men, and ultimately as executive director of housing, residential life, and the student judicial system. During his college days in the early ’50s, King was a basketball player and member of Sigma Chi. He has received several national awards for fraternity service and his program that focuses on fraternity rituals. In 1992, he received Bradley’s Frances C. Mergen award for community service. Ten years later, he was awarded the Orville Nothdurft Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2005, he was honored with the Lydia Moss Bradley Award at Founder’s Day.
Gary Peplow is retired from the law firm of Heyl, Royster, Voelker & Allen in Peoria. He earned his juris doctor degree from the University of Illinois. Peplow opened the firm’s first branch office in Springfield in 1970 and was named managing partner in 1987.
He became chairman of its board in 1997. Peplow served as outside trial counsel for Southern Illinois University School of Medicine. He lectured on loss prevention for the Illinois State Medical Society. He was named Outstanding Member of the Association of Defense Trial Attorneys
in 1998. His articles have been printed in legal publications, including the American Bar Association’s The Brief. A member of Sigma Phi Epsilon, Peplow was president of the Bradley University Alumni Association in 1996–97.