Kirk and Noel Schulz were married in 1987 after meeting as students at Virginia Tech. Kirk served as the thirteenth president of Kansas State University, 2009 to 2016, and Noel was associate dean for research and graduate programs in the university's College of Engineering and director of the Engineering Experiment Station.
Kirk Herman Schulz was born to Carl and Judy Schulz in Portsmouth, Virginia, in 1963. He attended Old Dominion University before transferring to Virginia Tech in 1984, graduating from there with his B.S. and Ph.D. degrees in chemical engineering in 1986 and 1991, respectively. Noel Nunnally Schulz was born in Virginia in 1966 to Charles "Butch" and Joan Nunnally. She met Kirk while attending Virginia Tech, graduating from there with her B.S. and M.S. degrees in electrical engineering in 1988 and 1990, respectively. In 1995, she received her Ph.D. in the same field of study from the University of Minnesota.
Kirk and Noel Schulz have two children, Timothy and Andrew. The family lived in Virginia from 1987 to 1991 while Kirk and Noel attended school, after which they moved to North Dakota as Kirk became an assistant professor and Noel was an instructor at the University of North Dakota. In 1995, the family moved to Michigan where Kirk and Noel had professorships at Michigan Technological University. Kirk received tenure and was promoted to associate professor in 1998 and Noel received tenure and was promoted to associate professor in 2000. Kirk and Noel then moved to Mississippi State University in 2001 where Kirk began as director of the school of chemical engineering and Noel was associate professor of electrical engineering. By 2009, Kirk was vice president for research and economic development and Noel was the Tennessee Valley Authority professor in power systems engineering. They came to Kansas State University in 2009 when Kirk began his presidency and Noel became the LeRoy C. and Aileen H. Paslay professor of electrical and computer engineering. In 2012, Noel became associate dean for research and graduate programs in the university's College of Engineering and director of the Engineering Experiment Station.
In April 2016, Kirk left K-State to become the president of Washington State University in June 2016. Noel became a professor in the Washington State University School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Voiland College of Engineering and Architecture.

Kansas State University first lady Noel Schulz was born in (town?), Virginia in 1966.  Schulz is the daughter of Charles "Butch" and Joan Nunnally.  Noel and Kirk Schulz married in 1987 and had two children, Tim and Andrew.  She graduated from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, or more commonly known as Virginia Tech, where she earned both her B.S.E.E. (1988) and M.S.E.E. (1990).  In 1995 she received her Ph.D. in electrical engineering from the University of Minnesota.  Her field of work is with power systems.
During her career she has taught at Michigan Tech, University of North Dakota, Virginia Tech, and Mississippi State before moving to Kansas State University where she is the Paslay professor of electrical and computer engineering.
She is an active member of the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) Power & Energy Society where she has served as the Awards and Recognition chair (2001-2004), Secretary (2004-2007), Treasurer (2008-2009), and President (2012-2013).  She is also a member of several honor societies such as Eta Kappa Nu, Tau Beta Pi, ASEE, Society of Women Engineers, and National Society of Black Engineers.  Along with her memberships, she has also published numerous papers, articles and a book chapter.

Lt. General Richard J. Seitz, age 95, completed a storied life on June 8, 2013 after suffering congestive heart failure. Born in Leavenworth, February 18, 1918, he grew up in that city and then attended Kansas State University where in 1939 as a junior he began dating his first wife, Bettie Jean Merrill, a freshman.
That same year Dick, foreseeing WWII looming on the horizon, accepted a commission as a 2nd Lieutenant in the US Army. Once in the Army he went through the sixth jump school class the Army ever had thus becoming one of its first paratroopers.
With the advent of the war, Dick rose rapidly until at the age of only 25 in March 1942, as a Major, he was given command of the 2nd Battalion of the 517th Parachute Infantry Regimental Combat Team. Thereafter, he was promoted to Lt. Colonel and, as the Army’s youngest battalion commander, led his battalion throughout its historic combat operations in Europe with the personal radio call sign of “Dangerous Dick.”
The 517th was flung into combat at Anzio at the time of the breakout from that beachhead followed by fighting up the Italian Peninsula. They then made the combat jump into the southern invasion of France at 4 a.m., August 15, 1944 as the airborne element of Operation Dragoon with its subsequent heavy combat in the French Maritime Alps. Finally, put in reserve in Northeastern France in December 1944, Dick was drawing up Paris leave rosters for his men when Hitler launched the Battle of the Bulge.
At that point, Dick’s 2nd Battalion was married with a Regiment of the 7th Armored Division to form what became known as Task Force Seitz.
It was pushed in to plug the gaps on the north slope of the Bulge every time the Germans tried to make a breakout. In doing so, his battalion went from 691 men to 380 through combat losses in some of the worst fighting of WWII. The battalion went on from the Bulge to see even further bloody combat in the subsequent battles of the Huertigen Forrest.
Before shipping out to Europe, Dick and Bettie continued to see each other whenever they had a chance to do so. In 1942, after graduating from Kansas State, Bettie joined the Red Cross and was subsequently sent to England in late 1943 to support the bomber groups of the Army Air Corp’s 8th Air Force.
In the fall of 1944, she was moved to Holland to run an Army rest and rehabilitation center. There in January 1945, she read in Stars and Stripes that Task Force Seitz was heavily engaged in the fighting around St. Vith. By herself, she drove from Holland to the front in Belgium and managed to find the Regimental HQ of the 517th.
But they would not allow her to go on to the very front lines where Dick was. However, this put them back in personal touch which led to their marriage in June 1945 in Joigny, France with one Red Cross bridesmaid and 1800 paratroopers in attendance in one of the greatest love stores of WWII.
Dick ended the war with the Silver Star, two Bronze Stars and the Purple Heart plus what he most treasured besides his Parachute Wings, the Combat Infantryman’s Badge.
Thereafter, during his lifelong Army career including nearly 37 years of active duty he also received numerous other decorations and awards including the Distinguished Service Medal, Legion of Merit, the French Croix de Guerre, and Legion of Honor.
Along with these awards, his commands included the 2nd Airborne Battle Group, 503rd Infantry Regiment and the 82nd Airborne Division, which he led into Detroit and Washington, DC in 1967 to quell those cities’ riots.
He also commanded the XVIII Airborne Corps and was Chief of Staff US Army Vietnam in 1965 through 1967 under General Westmoreland. As a Portuguese speaker he served two tours in Brazil, the last as Chief of the Joint US/Brazilian Military Commission and one year in Iran as a military advisor. He likewise served in Japan with the occupation forces immediately after World War II.
Dick and Bettie retired to Junction City in 1975. Unfortunately, Bettie died of a heart attack June 1, 1978. Thereafter, Dick was blessed to marry Virginia Crane, a widow, in 1980. She also predeceased him in 2006. In retirement, Dick remained extremely active with the Army through Fort Riley as well as in the Junction City Community and in Kansas generally.
During the Iraqi and Afghanistan Wars he would go out to Ft. Riley to see off and greet the deploying and redeploying units from those fights, no matter the hour day or night.
He was past Chairman of the Ft. Riley National Bank, very active with the Coronado Council of the Boy Scouts, a Trustee of St. John’s Military Academy, on the Board of the Eisenhower Presidential Library, President of the Fort Riley-Central Kansas Chapter of the Association of the U.S. Army, and Chaired Junction City’s Economic Redevelopment Study Commission among many other activities. He was also honored as an Outstanding Citizen of Kansas, received the prestigious AUSA Creighton Abrams Award, and most recently had the General Richard J. Seitz Elementary School named in his honor on the post at Fort Riley.
He felt a particular affection for the faculty and students of that school whom he visited as often as he could. The best way to describe Dick is that he lived his life “Airborne all the way!” to the very end.
Chronological Biographical Sketch
1918, Born, February 18, Leavenworth, Kansas
1937, Graduated from Leavenworth High School; Enrolled at Kansas State College of Agriculture and Applied Science
1939, May, completed the ROTC program, left Kansas State and commissioned as Second Lieutenant Infantry Reserve
1940, February, called to active duty, sent to Camp Bullis, Texas, and assigned to the 38th Infantry
1941, September 6, assigned to the 503rd Parachute Infantry Battalion as assistant platoon leader; November 1, promoted to First Lieutenant
1942, August 11, promoted to Captain
1943, Temporary 2nd Battalion Commander at Camp Toccoa, Georgia; April 12, promoted to Major; Placed in command of 2nd Battalion, 517th Parachute Infantry Regiment
1944, February 21 promoted to Lieutenant Colonel; May 31 deployed to Italy; Awarded the Purple Heart; August parachuted into France; Awarded the Silver Star and the French Croiz de Guerre with Palm; December 21 moved to Werbomont, Belgium joined the fight of the Battle of the Bulge; Awarded the Bronze Star
1945, June 23 married Bette Merrill in Joigny, France; August 22 arrived in the United States; November, assigned to the Special Training Section, Headquarters Army Ground Forces, Washington, D.C.
1946, September 2, Patricia Ann Seitz was born in Washington, D.C.
1947, January, moved to Hokkaido, Japan, and assigned to the 11th Airborne Division as Assistant G-3, later assigned Deputy Chief of Staff
1948, October 30, Catherine Seitze was born in Sapporo, Japan; December, appointed Chief of Staff of the 11th Division
1949, January, returned to the United Stated; July, attended the Command and General Staff School at Fort Leavenworth
1950, June 30, graduated and assigned Director of Airborne Training Department of the Infantry School at Fort Benning, Georgia
1953, August 24, entered the Armed Forces Staff College at Norfolk, Virginia
1954, January 21, competed in Joint Operations and Armed Forces Staff College, Norfolk, Virginia; September 13, departed for Rio de Janerio, Brazil, for assignment as the Chief of the Infantry and Airborne Sections; December 10, promoted to colonel
1956, August 7, Richard M. Seitz and Victoria Seitz were born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
1957, July 15, returned to the United States
1958, June 19, graduated Army War College; Assigned to command the 2nd Battle Group, 503rd Airborne Infantry of the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, North Carolina
1959, January 3, deployed to Alaska for three months of training and exercises; July, became Assistant Chief of Staff for Operations and Training, Headquarters XVIII Airborne Corps
1960, June, departed for Iran as training team chief in Mahabad
1961, June, arrived back in the United States
1962, January 27, graduated from the University of Omaha with a Bachelors in General Education and assigned as Executive Officer to Deputy Chief of Staff Personnel on the Army General Staff, Washington, D.C.
1963, December, promoted to Brigadier General and assigned as Director of Combat Arms Officers and later promoted to Acting Director of Officer Personnel
1965, June 12, assigned to Vietnam as Deputy Commander U. S. Support Command, served under General William Westmoreland; August, assigned Chief of Staff and Assistant Deputy Commander
1967, Promoted to Major General; March, left Vietnam to return to the United States (While in Vietnam he received the Legion of Merit, Air Medal, and Distinguished Service Medal); May 24, assigned to take command of the 82nd Airborne Division
1968, February 14, escorted President Lyndon B. Johnson around Fort Bragg to speak with troops deploying to Vietnam; September, received the Distinguished Service Medal upon completing his tour with the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg; Assigned Chairman of the U. S. delegation and Chief of the U. S. Military Assistant Group in Brazil
1970, April, assigned as the Assistant Chief of Army Personnel in the Pentagon
1973, June, promoted to Lieutenant General and took comman of the 18th Airborne, Fort Bragg
1975, June 30, retired from the U. S. Army; July, moved to Junction City, Kansas, where he became active in the community and with Fort Riley and Kansas State University/ The General Richard J. Seitz Elementary School was named in his honor on the post at Fort Riley. He was also honored as an Outstanding Citizen of Kansas and received the prestigious AUSA Creighton Abrams Award.
2013, Died June 8, at Junction City, Kansa

Currin V. Shields was a political scientist and leading consumer advocate. Shields received his A.B. degree from the University of Nebraska in 1941, followed by his Ph.M. from the University of Wisconsin in 1943. From 1944 to 1946, he served in the U.S. Army as a 2nd Lieutenant. After his time in the military, Shields was an instructor at Yale University until he earned his Ph.D. from Yale in 1950. From 1950 to 1960, Shields was a professor of Political Science at UCLA. He also served on the 22nd Congressional District, Democratic Council of California and host of a radio program entitled “What’s the issue?” at station KFWB in Hollywood. Shields was co-chairman of the California Democratic Council Political Action Committee from 1955 to 1957, and in 1958, he published his book “Democracy and Catholicism in America.” From 1960 to 1984, Shields was a professor in the Department of Government at the University of Arizona. Shields was a failed candidate for Governor of Arizona in the 1968 Democratic primary. Shields’s work as a consumer advocate began in 1969 when he became a board member of the Consumer Federation of America, as well as president of the Arizona Consumers Council, a position he would hold until 1980. Throughout the 1970s and 80s, Shields was a member and director of several consumer groups, including the Consumer Advisory Committee, the National Conference of Consumer Organizations, the President’s Consumer Advertising Council, the National Consumer Affairs Internship Program, and the National Consumer Symposium, Inc. Shields died in 1984 at the age of 66.

Born in 1945, Robert Simonsen is a life long resident of Kansas. He received an undergraduate degree in history/political science from Washburn University in 1976.

Simonsen joined the U.S. Army in 1966 and achieved the rank of Seargent-Major in the medical field. He retired after 31 years of combined active and reserve service.

Since elementary school, collecting photographs autographed by political leaders in the United States has been an avocation of Simonsen's. While serving in Vietnam in 1969-70, he began collecting in earnest and expanded his focus to include political and military figures from the United States and countries throughout the world. The collection contains over 7,500 portrait photographs signed by political and military leaders from approximately 75 countries, including the United States.

Roderic Simpson, born in 1922, worked in cooperative agriculture.  He was among the first to complete a pilot program under the aegis of the United States Department of Agriculture through Dodge City Community College (previously Dodge City Junior College) and received a certification in lieu of a Bachelor of Science degree in agriculture, making him eligible to be a county Extension Service Agent.    This program entailed 60 credit hours of science coursework at Dodge City Community College followed by three years of employment under the supervision of an Extension Agent. 
After completing the certification, he worked for three months as Gray County Extension Agent in Cimarron, Kansas before receiving his draft notice in December 1944.  After serving in the Navy, Simpson was brought on by his father to a series of cooperative projects in Mullinville, Kansas.  Galvanized by the attacks of the National Tax Equality Association on cooperatives, he embarked on a career in cooperative agriculture. 
Roderic Simpson began working in a management position at a general purpose cooperative in Peetz, Colorado; and then transitioned into work as a fieldman in eastern Nebraska and western Wyoming for the CCA (Consumers Cooperative Association, predecessor of Farmland Industries).  He then worked for the Dodge City Cooperative Exchange for 15 years as a local cooperative fieldman, and later joined FAR-MAR-CO in 1971 as a territory fieldman based out of Hutchinson, Kansas.

George Smith was born January 15, 1809 in Burlington, Chittendon County, Vermont, the son of John and Mary Smith. In 1832, he began his law career in Vermont, Moved to Illinois, and eventually settled in the Iowa Territory. Mr. Smith served as a county judge from 1837-1841 in Tipton, Cedar County, Iowa and then resumed his law practice. On March 26, 1845, he married Elizabeth Davy Richards, whose family had recently immigrated from Devonshire, England. They had six children: Mary Eliza, Marcia Emma, Flora Ella, Frank Melville, Rollin George, and Jenny Lind. In 1871, George Smith set out alone to settle a homestead in smith County, Kansas. He died of suffocation on September 4, 1872 when the dug-out he was living in caved-in. His youngest daughter, Jenny Lind Smith, was born December 26, 1856 in Tipton, Iowa. She taught school at Dubuque High School in Dubuque, Iowa from 1875-79 and then moved to Kansas with her mother and brother Frank in 1880. In Kansas, she met and married Volney Bottomly in November 1882. They had two children, Herbert Jefferson and Helen Elizabeth. Mrs. Bottomly died on March 20, 1950. Helen Elizabeth Bottomly was born December 9, 1886 in Cedarville, Smith County, Kansas. She graduated from Kansas State Agricultural College in 1905. She taught school for a year in Cleburne, a country school north of Manhattan, Kansas. She then attended Kansas Wesleyan College in Salina the next year. On May 6, 1908 she married Percy Eugene Lill, son of Michael and Joanna Lill of rural Mt. Hope, Kansas. Percy had two brothers, Harry and Joe, and two sisters, Genevieve and Gertrude. Percy and Elizabeth Lill lived on a farm near Mt. Hope for most of their lives but moved to Oxford in 1947. They had seven children including Marjorie Elizabeth, Eugene Michael, Volney Bottomly, Wayne Percy, Gordon Grigsby, Dean Thomas, and Richard Alan. All but one, Volney, received degrees at Kansas State and he alone of the brothers did not fight in World War II. Dean Lill was killed in action in November 1944, in Germany and was buried in Holland. The rest of the family are all married and living in various locations in the U.S. Their parents, Percy and Helen Lill, have both passed away, he on July 28, 1967, and her on October 22, 1977.

The Shirley Smith Papers (1937-2011) contain a wide array of information regarding the unique life and career path, from rural Kansas to New York City, of Kansas State alumnus Shirley Smith. Smith’s papers are of importance not only as a record of personal history, but history within the modeling, art, and acting worlds as well. The collection includes a variety of formats into which most of the papers are organized according to series and subseries. Research strengths of the collection include the regional and biographical history of Smith’s hometown, Whitewater, Kansas, as well as more substantial documentation of Smith’s career as a model, actress, and artist.
Shirley Smith died in New York in October 2013.
Shirley Smith was born in Whitewater, Kansas in 1929. By the time she graduated high school in 1947, her career as a model was already beginning as she entered (and won) several beauty pageants in her hometown. Soon, she moved on to Kansas State College, becoming heavily involved in theater, and graduating in 1951.
After graduating, Smith began her modeling career by modeling in advertisements for Kansas City’s Helzberg Diamonds in 1952. Soon, Smith moved to New York to continue to model for several major lingerie companies, including Maidenform. Following her modeling career, Smith moved on to acting in shows on Broadway and soon took roles on television and in a movie as well. Several of her most notable appearances include a play entitled The Highest Tree, which also featured Robert Redford and Paul Newman, and a starring role in a 1956 episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents (“Alibi Me”). Smith also appeared alongside Peter Falk in the motion picture film Pretty Boy Floyd.
In her early 30s, Smith began to suffer hearing loss and turned her focus toward her art career. Beginning with collages and other forms of abstract art, Smith moved on to “lyrical abstraction,” a form of post-modern art, which included fabrics and various other mediums. Later in her career, she returned to her roots, painting pastoral scenes of rural Kansas and farm animals, especially pigs. Smith spent several summers in a trailer studio outside of Whitewater, Kansas as inspiration for her work.

The Society for Military History is an organization dedicated to the scholarship and study of military history amongst scholars, soldiers, and citizens. The Society was first established in 1933 in Washington, D.C. as the American Military History Foundation (AMHF), and in April 1937 the AMHF first published the Journal of the American Military History Foundation. The organization’s name was changed to the American Military Institute (AMI) in 1939, while the Journal was renamed as Military Affairs in 1941. In 1948, the AMI merged with the Order of the Indian Wars. For one year, from 1948 to 1949, paid editors from the Office of the Chief of Military History were in charge of the Military Affairs publication, but this was suspended by U.S. Secretary of Defense Louis Johnson. Beginning in 1968, Kansas State University was in charge of the publication of Military Affairs. This continued until 1988, when the Virginia Military Institute assumed publication. In 1989, Military Affairs was renamed as the Journal of Military History, and in 1990, the AMI was renamed as the Society for Military History.

Stuart McGregor Pady was born in Arnprior, Ontario, Canada, on November 15, 1905.  Educated in Ontario, he graduated from McMaster University in Toronto with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1928 and a Master of Arts degree in 1929.  As a doctoral student at the University of Toronto, he married Rose Annie Maw in 1931.  Two years later, Stuart received his Ph.D. in Mycology, Plant Pathology.
Pady received a Fellowship in Botany from the National Research Council and did his work at the New York Botanical Gardens between 1933 and 1935.  He then joined the faculty at McMaster University for one year, and then became Head of the Biology Department at Ottawa University, in Ottawa, Kansas, from 1936 to 1945.  During this time, Pady and his wife adopted two children: Donald in 1937 and Helen in 1942.
In 1945, Stuart taught botany at Kansas State College in Manhattan, Kansas, for one year.  Then, the Padys moved to Montreal, Quebec, Canada, where Stuart joined the McGill University faculty and taught botany.  During this time, he received research grants from the Defence Research Board, Ottawa, Canada, on Arctic Aerobiology.
In 1952, the Padys returned to Manhattan, Kansas, as Stuart became Head of the Department of Botany and Plant Pathology at Kansas State College, now Kansas State University.  He served in this capacity until 1967, when he returned to the classroom.  During his tenure he recevied several research grants from the United States Department of Health Education and Welfare, National Center for Air Pollution Control, to study airborne fungi.
Pady enjoyed a sabbatical from July 1969 to March 1970 at Waite Agricultural Institute, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, Australia.  During this time he also was a consultant for the USAID program at Andhra Pradesh University, Hyderabad, India.
Rose Annie Maw was born in Kingston-upon-Hull, Yorkshire, United Kingdom, on January 28, 1900.  While not a college graduate, she was important to Stuart's academic life by often typing his research papers and attending academic functions with him.
Stuart retired from Kansas State University in 1973 and they moved to Ottawa, Kansas, the following year.  After living in Ottawa for twenty years, they returned to Manhattan in 1994.  Rose died there in June 1997, followed by Stuart's death in January 2004.

Russell I. Thackrey was a journalist, university professor, and educational administrator. Thackrey earned his B.S. in journalism from Kansas State in 1927 and his M.S. in 1932. Simultaneously, Thackrey worked as an instructor at K-State from 1928 to 1935, while he also revived and edited Kansas Magazine from 1933 to 1935. After working as a reporter for the Associated Press for one year from 1935 to 1936, Thackrey taught at the University of Minnesota from 1937 to 1940, but he returned to K-State as Head of the Journalism Department from 1940 to 1944. This was followed by his work as Dean of Administration at K-State from 1944 to 1947. Thackrey’s work in education continued as he served as Director of the National Association of State Universities and Land Grant Colleges from 1947 to 1970. He also served on the John F. Kennedy Task Force on Education in 1960, and in 1969, he was awarded the Presidential award of American College Public Relations Association. After leaving education, Thackrey spent his time writing, and in 1971, he published “The Future of the State University” through the Illinois Press. Thackrey died in Manhattan, Kansas on March 11, 1990.