Gordon Scribner Award

The Gordon Scribner Award for Distinguished Service, created to honor Gordon Scribner ’42, former dean of students and director of alumni, is given to an individual who has made a major contribution of volunteer time and effort to Whitman College over an extended period of time and possesses the ability to inspire.

The 2023 Gordon Scribner Award Winner, Nancy Simon, ‘63

Nancy has hosted and spoken at numerous Alumni events, taught for Senior Alumni College, and greeted Alumni Reunion groups on campus, most recently former students who were celebrating their 50^th reunion

A world traveler, she has seized the opportunity to meet with fellow Whitties around the globe.  She has participated in a number of Alumni trips, including stepping in at the last minute to lead an Oregon Shakespeare Festival excursion when the original host was injured. 

Nancy directed and/or produced many Harper Joy Theatre productions which toured to various theatres in Washington and Oregon to perform for alums, parents, and prospective students.  She remembers that she and then Alumni Director Gordon Scribner, who was driving a College van for one of these sojourns, ran out of gas on the Ellensburg grade. 

Nancy maintains close contact with many of the myriad of students with whom she has worked since joining the Whitman faculty in 1967.  She often takes the opportunity to work on theatre productions with HJT alums, most recently arranging for and directing a production of The Comfort to Come, a play by Lisa Battle ’07, featuring Julie Jones ’79, Shauna Lilly Bogley ’83, Kevin Loomer ’84, and Kathryn Bogley ’15, at Walla Walla’s Gesa Power House Theatre.