DISTINGUISHED AND OUTSTANDING
Dana honored two new Distinguished Alumni, Rev. Ried Neve D’48
T’51 and Dr. Larrie Stone ’57, and one Outstanding Young
Alumna, Julie Howland ’91, during Homecoming festivities.
Rev. Ried Neve D’48 T’51
Rev. Ried Neve’s dedicated service to Habitat for Humanity
began in the late 1980s when the then unheard of organization came
to Greeley, Colo.
Service was not new for Neve. During World War II, Neve entered
the Naval Officer Training Program. He then came to Dana, where
he studied psychology and was choir president and a Hermes staff
member. As an ELCA pastor for four decades, Neve served in Nebraska,
Iowa and Colorado in community churches, hospitals and charity organizations.
When he and his wife, Eunice (Petersen ’49) Neve retired in
1990, they moved back to Omaha. Neve brought his passion for Habitat
for Humanity with him.
He started with the goal of bringing churches into active participation
with the Omaha chapter of Habitat. He helped form five coalitions,
composed entirely of churches, who committed to providing both the
labor and the money necessary to build one Habitat house each. Neve
was so successful at bridging between Habitat and Omaha churches
that an entire committee, the Church Relations Committee, now works
with him to push the effort further.
In 2000, Neve was awarded the Omaha Habitat for Humanity Volunteer
of the Year Award for “dramatically increasing Habitat’s
ability to fulfill its mission.” At the end of 2002, Omaha
Habitat for Humanity had built 150 houses and placed families in
them.
Dr. Larrie Stone ’57
In the beginning, freshman Larrie Stone planned to attend Dana
for just a couple of years before transferring to a university.
In the end, Dr. Larrie Stone retired from Dana’s faculty after
37 years of teaching biology.
In the middle, Stone earned his bachelor’s in biology from
Dana and a master’s and doctorate from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
He also spent nearly four decades instilling a love of science in
his students at Dana.
“I worked in Dana Hall of Science with Larrie for over 32
years prior to my retirement in 1995,” Dr. Gene Lindblad said
in his nomination of Stone for this award. “I became aware
from personal observation about his continuing and ‘beyond
the call of duty’ concerns for and about his students —
his academic advising, mentoring and encouragement as he presented
the academic material of his field in challenging ways and with
high expectations for and of his students.”
Lindblad also cited Stone’s tireless efforts in recruiting
students for Dana and those students’ continuing devotion
to him as testament to his impact. “The most complete list
(of references for Stone) would be a collection of those names found
on Dana Commencement programs whose major is listed as ‘biology,’
for there are few who would not bear testimony on the positive effects
that Dr. Stone had on their lives and careers.”
Julie Howland ’91
Americans entrust their money with institutions that are FDIC
insured. The FDIC (Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation) trusts
Julie Howland with making sure all those Americans can rest assured.
Howland has been in leadership roles since her days at Dana, when
she served as president of the Student Senate and a resident assistant.
She also worked for three years for the business faculty.
“They made each student they interacted with feel as if they
were their most important priority,” Howland said. “Their
compassion to teach people has rubbed off on me.”
Now Howland is the teacher. In her time at the FDIC she has trained
and mentored green examiners and even participated in the development
of examination systems that will be used by regulatory agencies
across the country.
She has been awarded the agency’s Sustained Superior Performance
Award for her work as an examiner in charge of a billion-dollar
financial institution. For this project she supervised more than
50 examiners from two regulatory agencies. In the same year, she
was given the Special Act Award for her dedication and commitment
to a project analyzing the credit quality at financial institutions.
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