Alumna/us of Merit Award 2016

The Alumna/us of Merit Award is the highest honor the Alumni Association bestows on an alumna/us of Whitman College. This award is given to alumni who have achieved distinction in their chosen field, or rendered outstanding service to their community, or rendered outstanding service to, and demonstrated loyal interest in, Whitman College. Members of the Board of Trustees, the Board of Overseers, and the Board of Directors of the Alumni Association are eligible three years after their last term has been served.

Recipient for 2016 is Robert R. “Pete” Reid ’49

Robert R. “Pete” Reid ’49 graduated from Whitman with a degree in economics and business, and served as student body president during his senior year. Immediately after graduation, Pete served the College in career services, admission, alumni office work, special fundraising projects, as business manager, treasurer, chief financial officer and, after retirement in 1989, special assistant to the president through June of 2009. Pete has served the College longer than any president, administrator, faculty or staff member in its history.

In addition to his 61 years on staff, Pete has demonstrated a loyalty to Whitman, ranging from working, along with his wife Hedda Jorgenson Reid ’49, as Class Representative for Annual Giving, to 50th reunion co-chair, to serving on the Whitman Farm Committee. He has given back to the Walla Walla community as well, as a charter member of the Sherwood Trust board, volunteering through United Way, the American Red Cross, the Noon Rotary Club and serving on the boards of the Walla Walla General Hospital and Borleske Sports Complex. The City of Walla Walla even declared a “Pete Reid Day.”

In 1990, the Alumni Association established the Pete Reid Award for Young Alumni, in honor of Pete’s youthful exuberance demonstrated toward his career, community and college. In 2000, the Board of Trustees voted to name the soon-to-be-built campus center after him, and the Reid Campus Center is now the heart of the campus. In further recognition, the Whitman Town-Gown award, given annually to a staff or faculty member for outstanding college and community service, was renamed The Pete and Hedda Reid Award upon his final, for-real-this-time retirement in 2009.

Through his outstanding loyalty to Whitman College and dedication to serving the greater Walla Walla community, it is only fitting that Pete has earned the highest honor the Alumni Association bestows on an alumnus of the College as the 2016 recipient of the Alumnus of Merit Award.