The Morningside College chapter of Alpha Lambda Delta recently received an award for continued efforts to pursue excellence, one of its members received a $1,000 scholarship and one of its advisors was honored.

Sabrina Guerra Madison Harpenau Missy Morenz Allie Van Houten Marty Knepper

The Morningside College chapter of Alpha Lambda Delta (ALD) recently received an award for continued efforts to pursue excellence, one of its members received a $1,000 scholarship and one of its advisors was honored.

ALD is a national honor society that recognizes and encourages academic excellence among first-year college and university students. There are chapters at over 280 colleges and universities.

In 2015, the Morningside chapter was one of nine in the nation to receive an Order of the Torch Award from the National Council of ALD for outstanding chapter work in programming, internal communications, campus visibility and overall presentation of the application in a scrapbook. Torch award recipients are not eligible to compete for the award again for four years, so this year Morningside received a Maintaining the Flame Award for continuing to pursue excellence, based on its scrapbook.

Student Sabrina Guerra of Red Oak, Iowa, served as president of the Morningside chapter last year. The chapter’s co-historians were Madison Harpenau of Omaha, Neb.; Allie Van Houten of Kansas City, Mo.; and Missy Morenz of Newell, Iowa.

Harpenau also was one of 36 students across the country to receive a Jo Anne J. Trow Scholarship from ALD. Harpenau is a 2014 graduate of Millard South High School and the daughter of Tim and Chris Harpenau of Omaha. She is majoring in nursing.

Marty Knepper, professor of English and chair of English and modern languages, was one of six ALD advisors honored as the Executive Director’s Outstanding Advisors of the Year. She will serve on the National Council this year as editor of ALD’s “The Flame” magazine.

Terri Curry, vice president for student life and enrollment at Morningside College, also serves as an advisor for the Morningside chapter.