Four Lamar University students attained perfect 4.0 grade-point averages to become co-recipients of the Plummer Award, honoring them as the top academic graduates in Lamar’s class of December 2007.
The female Plummer winners and their majors are Rachel Klauss of Fannett, English, and Luyen Thi Pham of Port Arthur, interdisciplinary studies. The male recipients are Andrew Blanton of Groves, political science, and James West of Mont Belvieu, interdisciplinary studies.
President James Simmons presented the awards during commencement Saturday, Dec. 15, in the Montagne Center. Lamar conferred 682 degrees during the ceremony, which featured a keynote address by Michael Truncale, a regent of The Texas State University System. A Lamar alumnus, Truncale is a senior partner of Orgain Bell & Tucker in Beaumont and The Woodlands.
Simmons said the class was one of the largest fall graduating classes in Lamar history.
Plummer Awards are named in honor of the late Otho Plummer, who was chairman emeritus of the Lamar board of regents and a board member from 1949 to 1990. The award recipients are among 27 students who graduated summa cum laude – with highest honors.
Klauss, the daughter of Rebekah and Arthur Klauss, is a graduate of Hamshire-Fannett High School. She is a member of Phi Kappa Phi national honor society, Sigma Tau Delta English honor society and Sigma Delta Pi Spanish honor society. She was recipient of the Language Scholars Endowed Scholarship in English, French or Spanish and the Charles and Susan Gordon and Julia Gordon Gray Memorial Scholarship. Klauss plans to attend graduate school.
Pham is the daughter of Nancy and Van Pham and a graduate of St. Joan Antida High School in Milwaukee, Wis. She is a member of Kappa Delta Pi education honor society and the Lamar Student Education Association. Pham plans to teach elementary students. She lists her hobbies as reading, playing and listening to music, volunteer teaching and movies.
Blanton is the son of Wanda and Marvin Blanton and graduated from Bel Air High School in Bel Air, Md. He is a member of Pi Sigma Alpha political science honor society and was inducted into Alpha Lambda Delta and Phi Eta Sigma freshman honor societies. He also was a member of Lamar’s College Republicans. Blanton earned the 2007 Best Undergraduate Paper Award from Pi Sigma Alpha and the Carl D. Levy Memorial Scholarship in Arts and Sciences. He plans to enter graduate school to work toward a master of business administration. Blanton lists his hobby as music.
West, a graduate of Robert E. Lee High School in Baytown, is the son of Kathryn and Michael Cunningham and Larry and Christine West. He and his wife, Emily, have a son, Garrett. West has accepted a teaching position at his old high school – Baytown Lee. He lists his hobbies as fishing, hunting and riding an all-terrain vehicle with his son.
