Eligibility: AllGraduate
Area of Interest: General
The recipient can have any academic major but must have demonstrated interest, competence, and active participation in the areas of English Composition, Journalism, Creative Writing, Language Arts, Forensics, or Speech. Consideration will be given to students who are taking French Composition courses. He/she shall have maintained a high school and/or college GPA of at least 3.0. Faculty representing Speech, Creative Writing, Journalism, English Composition, and Writing shall determine the recipient.
Richard A. (Dick) Hildreth and his wife Paulette (of 50 years) currently reside in sunny Orlando Florida. He met Paulette while liberating her French town from the Nazis during WWII. After the War he returned home to Nebraska with his new bride and graduated from Chadron State College in 1946. Richard has taught at schools all over the west including Hot Springs, South Dakota, Hutchinson Kansas Junior College and California State in Long Beach. He and his wife later moved to Denver, Colorado where he helped found Metropolitan State College of Denver. There he was a professor of Speech before founding the Hospitality, Meeting and Travel Administration Department. During this time he was also president of Meeting Planners International (MPI). Richard retired as Professor Emeritus in 1998 to finish his book Elements of Meeting Management (Prentice Hall 1990) which is still considered a landmark must for meeting planners and professors alike.