PSU honors 2013 Outstanding Alumni

  Thursday, October 3, 2013 2:00 AM
  News

Pittsburg, KS

Pittsburg State University will honor four alumni with its 2013 Kenneth K. Bateman Outstanding Alumni Awards during Homecoming activities Oct. 4-5.

The recipients were selected based on their professional achievements, as well as their community and organizational involvement. They will be recognized at a reception at 4:30 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 4, in the Wilkinson Alumni Center, as well as at the Homecoming game on Saturday, Oct. 5.

This year’s recipients are: Gaberiel S. Bever, a research scientist at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City and a member of the anatomy faculty at the New York Institute of Technology; Dottie R. Bringle, former chief operating officer and chief nursing officer at St. John’s Hospital in Joplin; David M. Harrison, a Jerry S. Rawls professor of finance at Texas Tech University; and Angela Moriconi, a freelance photojournalist with KCBS/KCAL-TV and KNBC-TV in Los Angeles.

Gaberiel S. Bever

Gaberiel Bever grew up in rural Farlington, Kan., and attended Girard High School before graduating from PSU in 1996 with a degree in biology. He earned his doctorate from the University of Texas at Austin and was subsequently awarded an interdepartmental research fellowship at Yale University. He is currently a research scientist at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City and a member of the anatomy faculty at the New York Institute of Technology. He recently was elected an honorary research scientist at the Evolutionary Studies Institute in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Bever’s publications on major evolutionary transitions have been covered by more than 200 media outlets including the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, CNN, and the BBC. He is an active field researcher and has collected fossils in some of the most remote parts of the world, including western China, the Gobi Desert of Mongolia and across southern Africa.

Bever and his wife, Amy Michelle Balanoff, who is a resident research associate in paleontology at the American Museum of Natural History, live in New York.

Dottie R. Bringle

Dottie R. Bringle earned a bachelor of science degree in nursing from PSU in 1990. At the time she earned her degree, she was employed as a staff nurse in the Emergency Department of St. John’s Regional Medical Center in Joplin. Bringle went on to earn a master’s degree in health science administration at Southwest Baptist University in 1993.

Bringle worked for St. John’s for 25 years, where she took on increasing responsibilities. She served as the first trauma coordinator and was instrumental in development of the trauma program.  She also was director of Emergency/Trauma/Flight services and later ICU and Surgical Services before being named chief nursing officer in 2004, becoming responsible for all nursing functions in the hospital. In 2010, she was named Chief Operating Officer, which added all other clinical departments to her responsibilities.

Bringle was serving in that position when a devastating tornado struck the hospital in 2011. She played a major role in the hospital’s reaction to the disaster and its recovery.

Bringle left Mercy in August 2012 to return to PSU where she will complete a degree as an advanced nurse practitioner in May 2014.

Bringle lives in Diamond, Mo., where she is engaged to be married to Brian Murphy, M.D.  She has three children: Shawn Dodson, Brieanna Blackledge and Michelle Hucke. Her parents, John and Derotha Hetherington, live in Cameron, Okla.

David M. Harrison

David M. Harrison grew up just blocks from the PSU campus and earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Pittsburg State in 1992. At PSU, he earned a Presidential Scholarship and was a member of the Honors College.

Harrison went on to earn an MBA from Wichita State University in 1994 and a Ph.D. in finance from the University of Florida in 1998.

Harrison began his teaching career as an assistant professor at the University of Vermont in 1998. In 2007, he moved to Texas Tech University, where today he serves as Jerry S. Rawls professor of finance in the College of Business.

Harrison’s areas of specialty are real estate investment trusts, mortgage markets, real estate finance and housing policy issues. He has written scores of articles for journals in his field and is the editor of the Journal of Real Estate Literature. He is also the recipient of numerous awards for both teaching and research.

Harrison and his wife, Amy (Rosenbaum), have three children: Aaron, Katarina and Kamdon. They live in Lubbock, Texas, where Harrison has served as a volunteer youth football and baseball coach and has served on the board of Western Little League Baseball.

Angela Moriconi

Angela Moriconi grew up in Frontenac and graduated from Pittsburg High School in 1993. At Pittsburg State, she majored in communication and took classes in broadcasting where she worked at CAPS-13, PSU’s student-run television channel.

Moriconi began her career as a photojournalist with KOAM-TV in Pittsburg in 1995. She joined KBAK-TV in Bakersfield, Calif., in 1997. Moriconi worked at stations in Las Vegas and San Francisco before moving to WFOR-TV in Miami, Fla., in 2004. Since 2007, she has been a freelance photojournalist for KCAL-TV and KCBS-TV in Los Angeles. In 2012, she also began freelance work for KNBC-TV in Los Angeles.

In her career, Moriconi has covered a wide range of national, dramatic news stories ranging from Hurricane Katrina to the mass shootings in an Aurora, Colo., movie theater. She has covered the Oscars and the Emmy Awards as well as major sporting events like the Pro-Bowl and Superbowl.

She has won more than a score of professional awards, including an NPPA best of photojournalism national award in 2004 and Suncoast Emmy Awards in 2005 and 2006 and a Pacific Southwest Emmy Award in 2004.

Moriconi lives in Los Angeles, Calif. Her parents, Charles and Sharon Moriconi, live in Frontenac.