Jac and Sherri Kirkpatrick

Distinguished Service Award

Decades of service to the world’s neediest people have led Sherri and Jac Kirkpatrick to work with and create humanitarian organizations. They have spent their lives saving lives.

Those efforts recently earned them Graceland University’s highest honor, the 2009 Distinguished Service Award, presented by the Alumni Board of Directors.

Sherri, class of ’65, and Jac, class of ’62, served thousands of children and young adults around the globe. Recently Jac retired after careers with NASA and Community of Christ. Sherri retired in August after 30 years of outstanding service to Graceland.

The Kirkpatricks returned to Independence in 1976, when Jac became a full-time minister. He received a call in 1988 and spent 20 years on the Council of Twelve Apostles, leading efforts in Africa, Asia, Europe, the British Isles, and parts of the USA. He helped found and develop World Service Corps, which has placed more than 300 young-adult volunteers in cross-cultural learning experiences around the world.

Jac’s commitment inspired him to direct the first International Youth Forum outside the USA (2005 Hong Kong) and manage the recent IYF in Bangkok, Thailand.

Sherri joined the Graceland faculty in 1980. She played a key role in several Graceland “firsts.” Among them she helped develop Graceland’s first distance-education program, first master’s program, and first administrative unit organized as a school rather than a division.

She also helped design the facility that became Graceland’s Independence Campus.

In their retirement, Jac and Sherri are devoting themselves to a joint venture: working for HealthEd Connect, a Graceland-affiliated group they created. Its mission is to empower women and children in some of the poorest regions of Sub-Sahara Africa, Nepal, and India through evidence-based health care, education, and advocacy groups.

—Nancy Wallace reporting