Regents History: May 21-22, 1997
Board Membership
- Owen Newlin, President, Waverly
- James Arenson, Cedar Rapids
- David Fisher, West Des Moines
- Dr. Clarkson Kelly Jr., Charles City
- Ellengray Kennedy, Bancroft
- Roger Lande, Muscatine
- Nancy Pellett, Atlantic
- Lisa (Ahrens) Peterson, Osage
- Beverly Smith, Waterloo
Highlights
- Three Regents, Lisa Ahrens, David Fisher and Clarkson Kelly Jr., began their tenure as Board members at this meeting. Ahrens, the student Regent from Iowa State, succeeded Aileen Sullivan of UNI. Fisher, president of Onthank Company, also served as president of the National I-Club, the University of Iowa’s Athletics development organization. Kelly, a surgeon and United States Army veteran, also served as chair of the Comprehensive Systems Foundation. All three served six-year terms and left the Board in 2003.
- The Regents approved FY 1998 appropriations, including infrastructure appropriations included in House File 733. Notably, these infrastructure appropriations included $20.9 million for phase two of Iowa State’s Engineering Teaching and Research Complex, the largest building project in ISU history. Phase one, which included the $34 million Howe Hall building, would break ground a month after the meeting and open for general use in 1999. Phase two, which included Hoover Hall, would open for general use in 2004.
- The Board began preliminary actions to begin the search for a new executive director, replacing R. Wayne Richey, who would retire the following year. Richey, the Board’s longest-serving executive director, began his Board service November 1, 1966 as Assistant Executive Secretary. Richey assumed the role of executive secretary of the Board upon the retirement of previous executive secretary David Dancer. Richey would hold the executive secretary title – updated to executive director in 1989 – for 32 years. Frank Stork succeed Richey as the Board’s executive director at the July 1998 meeting.
