From left, Stephanie Rozman, Laura Walker and Claire Anderson.

This year’s Kussmaul Award was presented to Laura Walker, Granville High School class of ’05 and Denison class of ’08, at the Granville Rotary Club’s luncheon meeting on Monday, April 21, at the Granville Inn. Each year, the Kussmaul Award honors the Denison University student “who has contributed most to the friendly relations between Granville and the college.”

The award is presented by the Granville Area Chamber of Commerce (GACC) in cooperation with Denison University. Both Evelyn Frolking, president of the GACC, and Dale Knobel, president of Denison, were on hand to present the award. The ceremony featured an address by Laurel Kennedy, Denison director of service-learning, whose inspirational talk was titled “Service in Liberal Arts Education.”

Louis Kussmaul, brother of former printer and owner of the Granville Times W.H. Kussmaul, was a well-loved character in Granville. One of the original downtown “benchwarmers,” he was known for calling out his familiar greeting, “What do you know?” and jotting down the answer in his ever-present notebooks. The notebooks provided fodder for the annual Masonic Yearbook, which became an important source of Granville and Denison history.

Kussmaul was intensely interested in both Granville and Denison and the relationship between them. His good friend Harry Amos, editor of the Cambridge (Ohio) Daily Jeffersonian honored “Lou” by funding the annual award. The Louis Kussmaul Friendship Award stands as a testimony to the friendship of the two men and to the importance of friendly relations between a college and its hometown.

This year’s honoree Laura Walker, daughter of Cheryl and David Walker of Glyn Carin Lane, has been a docent at the Robbins Hunter Museum in the Avery Downer House for five years. According to the museum's executive director Ann Lowder, Walker has applied a steadfast devotion to the museum, studying the house and its furnishings and compiling that information into a format to share with visitors, acting as a docent for bus tours and assisting (and baking for) the museum’s annual ice cream social. She plays the oboe with the Denison Unversity Orchestra and works at Denison’s William Howard Doane Library.

Nominees Stephanie Rozman and Claire Anderson also were acknowledged for their contributions to community relations. Rozman, a senior from Chagrin Falls, Ohio, has filled several leadership roles with the Denison Community Association (DCA), she currently chairs the LEADS Swimming Group and has committed more than 1,000 hours of community service while at Denison. Anderson, a senior from Grand Rapids, Minn., has been immensely involved with the HOPE for Autism program, including three years as its co-chair. Anderson also is active in Teach for America, and she has served as a Lilly Intern and youth group leader at the First Presbyterian Church of Granville. Both Rozman and Anderson were recently honored with Denison's Distinguished Leadership Award.

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