Contact:  Rick Peterson, Manager of News Services, 920/832-6590
For Immediate Release				June 14, 1999

Lawrence University Honors Six Alumni During Reunion Celebration June 18-20

APPLETON, WIS. -- Kaukauna native Dr. Robert Nagan, a nationally-
recognized pioneer in the surgical use of the laparoscope, will be among six
Lawrence University graduates honored during the college's annual Reunion
Weekend celebration June 18-20.  

     More than 800 alumni and guests from 35 states and four countries,
including Japan and India, are expected to return to Appleton for the weekend
activities.
     
     Lawrence will recognize two alumni with distinguished achievement awards
and four alumni with service awards during its annual reunion convocation
Saturday, June 19 at 11:10 a.m. in the Lawrence Memorial Chapel.  
     
     The traditional "parade of colors" across College Avenue prior to the
reunion convocation will be led by Appleton's Murna Weller, class of 1927, as
the representative of the oldest class in attendance. 	

     Nagan, a 1944 graduate of Lawrence now retired and living in Indianapolis,
will receive the Lucia R. Briggs Distinguished Achievement Award in recognition
of outstanding contributions and achievements in a chosen field.  Nagan earned
his medical degree at Marquette University before establishing his practice in
Indianapolis, where he eventually became head of the medical staffs of both St.
Vincent and St. Francis hospitals. 

     He is credited with pioneering the use of the laparoscope for removing the
gall bladder and has organized and hosted major international teaching
conferences on advanced laparoscopic surgical techniques.  During his career,
Nagan served as diplomat of the American Board of Surgery, president of the
Indiana College of Surgeons and governor of the American College of Surgeons.

     In addition to practicing medicine, Nagan has been a leader and advocate 
of medical education.  He co-founded the Finneran Lectureship at Indiana
University, which provides on-going education for medical professionals, and he
established the Nagan College Scholarship Fund at Kaukauna High School to 
assist students pursuing careers in medicine.  St. Vincent Hospital founded The
Robert F. Nagan Surgical Education and Research Fellowship Fund in his honor 
to assist physicians expand their experience and conduct clinical research in
surgery.

     Architect Jefferson Riley, a 1968 graduate and designer of Lawrence's
own Wriston Art Center, also will receive the Briggs Distinguished
Achievement Award.

     Riley is a founding partner and current executive vice-president of
Centerbrook Architects and Planners in Essex, Conn., which received last
year's American Institute of Architects Firm Award.  

     A fellow of the American Institute of Architects, Riley has designed
homes, museums and churches, but is perhaps best known for his work on
college and university campuses.  In addition to the Wriston Art Center,
Riley designed the Colby College Student Center and his award-winning
buildings on the Quinnipiac College campus in Hamden, Conn., has been
described as "an in-place body of work virtually unprecedented in the
profession."

     David Toycen, president and chief executive officer of World Vision
Canada, and George Larsen, former choral director at Sheboygan North High
School, will receive the George B. Walter Service to Society Award.
Established in 1997 in honor of the late George Walter, a Lawrence education
professor from 1946-75, the award recognizes contributions to socially
useful ends in the community.

     A 1969 Lawrence graduate, Toycen, Mississauga, Ontario, has been
associated with World Vision since 1974.  The largest private relief agency
in the United States and Canada, World Vision provides international
campaigns of caring, including emergency relief, long-term development
efforts, health projects and education. 

     As head of WVC, Toycen has traveled the world in a humanitarian role,
helping bring relief to those suffering from injustice in places such as
Ethiopia, Sudan, Bosnia and Kosovo as well as victims of famine, hurricanes
and earthquakes in North Korea, Central America and Columbia.      

     Larsen, a long-time teacher and tireless volunteer, believed strongly
in getting all students interested in music.  He provided opportunities for
them by directing an a cappella choir, boys' choir, girls' choir, junior
choir, madrigals, musicals and an alumni chorus at Sheboygan North.  He also
initiated a senior honor recital for outstanding graduates, directed a
church choir and was instrumental in founding the Chair of Music and
Performing Arts at the Kohler Art Center in Sheboygan.

     Now retired and living in Sister Bay, Larsen founded the Peninsula
Chamber Singers and served as their conductor, led the movement to build the
Door County Auditorium and was a leader in a campaign to found the Scandia
Village Good Samaritan Retirement Center in Sister Bay.  He's currently
involved in efforts to add a wing devoted to the care of patients suffering
from Alzheimer's Disease.   

     Colleen Held-Messana and Stephanie Samuel will receive service awards
for exemplary dedication, leadership, commitment and volunteerism to
Lawrence.  

     Held-Messana, Menomonee Falls, who graduated in 1968, spent 10 years as
a class secretary, served as a member of the alumni association board of
directors and volunteered as an admissions representative. 

     Samuel, Maywood, Ill., a 1989 graduate, helped coordinate Lawrence's
first National Service Day in 1995 and recently completed a four-year term
on the alumni association board of directors.