Alumni Achievement Award Recipients
The Alumni Achievement Award, given annually by Stephens College, recognizes alumni who have distinguished themselves in their field and their community and have a steadfast commitment to the Ten Ideals of Stephens. This award is the highest honor bestowed on our alumni and is presented during Alumni Weekend.
2023 Alumni Achievement Award
Lynda Clugston Webster ’78
Lynda C. Webster is one of the most sought-after event, development and relationship strategists in Washington, D.C. who has connected her clients with thought leaders and decision-makers at the highest levels of business and government, both domestically and abroad. Her ability to create strategic partnerships between nonprofit and for-profit organizations comes from her wide-ranging experience as a business and community leader.
Ms. Webster is skilled in managing a wide range of events, from non-profit galas to precisely timed events of heads of state and other high-level business executives, politicians, and senior government officials.
Her exposure to the international community began in 1984, when she became opening director of sales for the historic Willard Inter-Continental Hotel in Washington, D.C. Throughout her hotel career she was often the hotel’s point person for official and nonofficial government visits by heads of state or royalty.
Ms. Webster gained insight into the specific needs of VIPs as the spouse of a senior government official, CIA Director William Webster. She was privileged to attend numerous high-level events and ceremonies at the White House, State Department, Pentagon, CIA, FBI, embassies, and countless other venues in the U.S. and abroad. Through her travels with Judge Webster on official government business, she gained valuable understanding into how many countries host diplomatic and senior government guests.
In 1995, Ms. Webster founded The Webster Group, initially to support the work of important non-profit organizations such as Save the Children, American Red Cross, and numerous other U.S. and international organizations. More than two decades later, TWG has expanded to work globally and has planned and produced over 800 events, including memorial dedications, commissioning ceremonies, major stage productions, conferences, board meetings and orchestrated many beautiful and financially successful fundraising galas.
Following the horrible tragedy on September 11, 2001, The Webster Group worked with the dedicated families who came together to create the Pentagon Memorial. The Webster Group was hired to help raise the $22 million needed for the memorial and to coordinate with the Pentagon and others on the events needed to do so. One of her proudest moments was the day the memorial was dedicated--that morning the President, Vice President, senior military, most of Congress and the Diplomatic Corps at the Pentagon joined with victims' families in a full demonstration of American resilience.
During that same timeframe, TWG was also engaged to design and produce five big events over three days surrounding the dedication of the Air Force Memorial. The dedication itself involved the President, Secretary of Defense, Secretary of the Air Force, and many other VIPs, including 38,000 patriotic Americans, most of them Air Force veterans and their families, who made the trip to DC to take part in the ceremony and other activities created for them.
The Webster Group has also been privileged to produce a number of events for Medal of Honor recipients – men in uniform who have earned the nation’s highest award for gallantry.
Ms. Webster has worked on numerous nonprofit committees, serving as chair of American Forests, the National Symphony Cadence Organization, the Ronald Reagan Center of Emergency Management, and as regional co-chair of Mayo Clinic’s first capital campaign. She also led the effort to raise the funding for the Salvation Army’s Turning Point Center in Washington, D.C., serving homeless women and children.
After being the target of a Jamaican lottery scammer, Ms. Webster and her husband worked closely with the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation on elder fraud issues. Their case caught national attention and sent an important reminder to older people, their families, and caregivers that they need to maintain their guard against sophisticated schemes. The couple assisted the FBI in creating a public service announcement warning the public of scams against senior citizens.
Ms. Webster earned her Master of International Management from the American Graduate School of International Management, Glendale, AZ (1980), a Master of Business degree from Southern Methodist University, Dallas, TX (1979), and a Bachelor of Arts from Stephens College, Columbia, MO (1978). She has certificates of study from three universities in Spain.
Lynda is married to Judge William H. Webster. In addition to Bill’s three grown kids, they have seven grandchildren and will soon have nine great grandchildren. Other members of their family include a golden retriever, a tabby cat, and three horses.
In recognition of incredible professional accomplishment, mentoring, and a lifetime of showcasing the very best of Stephens College’s ten ideals, Lynda Clugston Webster ’78 is awarded the 2023 Stephens College Alumnae Achievement Award.
Past Alumnae Achievement Award Recipients
2023
Lynda Clugston Webster ’78
2022
Karen Meek ’95
2021
Mattie Carolyn Hall ’67, ’69
2020
Jen Svrcek '90 (awarded in 2021)
2019
VADM Nancy Brown USN (RET) ’73
2018
Donna Ensign Marshall ’58
2017
Melanie May ’77
2016
M. Anne Murphy ’78
2015
Toni Leach Reinis ’67
2014
Ginny Hawley McSwain ’73
2013
Alanna Nash ’72
2012
Jill Griffith ’72
2011
Becca Ayers ’96
2010
Deborah Hamilton ’63
2009
Leslie Foster ’79
2008
Doris Painter Littrell ’58
2007
Mary Josie Cain Blanchard ’67
2006
Ying Li-Oshrin ’89
2005
Katherine Henry
2004
Corky Hale Stoller
2003
Teresa Rouse-Maledy ’78
2002
Bonneau (Bonnie) McElveen Hunter ’72
2001
Jean McFaddin ’62
2000
Toni Grant Verstandig ’74
1999
Alana Smith Shepherd ’49
1998
Mary Mel French ’58
1997
Tomima Edmark Polley ’79
1996
Wendy Manasse Wiese ’81
1995
Annie Potts
1994
Laura Steele Evans ’71
1993
Paula Zahn
1992
Catherine Barton Para ’77
Anne Louise Wallace ’82
1991
Judith Doyen Taylor ’73
1990
Sonja Dabkovich Caproni ’62
Sally Bullard Thornton ’53
1989
Sally Morgan Fitzgerald ’35
1988
Ann Wrobleski ’73
Joyce A. Mitchell ’72
1987
Jill Butler ’64
Margaret Elizabeth McIntosh ’77
1986
Janet Fowler Shaw ’57
1985
Peggy S. Gott Ph.D. ’64
Jean Muir (hon. ’73) ’79
1984
Joyce McClure ’69
Ardys Hogle Thayer ’45
1983
Nell Plopper Euruch Lazarus ’39
Dawn Wells
1982
Jeannette Korab Kalogridis ’71
Lorraine Chambers-McCarty ’40
1981
Leila Bromberg Andrews ’58
Bettye Maxwell Krolick ’46
1980
Laurelle Sheedy Mathis ’70
Sylvia Stone ’55
1979
Kathryn Myer Budzak ’59
Anna Siegelbaum Moldafsky ’50
1978
Madolyn Youse Babcock ’44
M. Susan Hays-Stern ’66-’68
Jeane Jordan Kirkpatrick ’46
1977
Patricia Craddock ’57
Lucille Garber Ford ’42
Margaret A. Kilgore ’55
Anita Marie Martini ’58
Martha Naset ’68
Martha Fuller Owens ’51
1976
Diane Lain Murray ’53
Phyllis Walden ’68
Gerridee Stenehjem Wheeler ’47
1975
Sabra Eagan
1974
Bernice Linderman Williamson ’32
1973
Sara Mumma Harral ’32
Jackie Fleisher-Wood ’69
1972
Barbara Rippel Gordon ’63
Marion Cox Lichty ’35
Mary Louise Green Madigan ’42
Peggy Hitchcock Ransom ’47
1970
Doralys Arias ’50
Selma Jeanne Cohen ’39
Geneva Drinkwater ’15
Dorian Hunter ’52
1968
Eleanor Cleveland Anderson ’35
Mary Ellen Stribling Bouldin ’50
Genevieve Miller Esgar ’48
Beatrice Burton Middleton ’18
1967
Ann Case Drummond ’28
Virginia Ralles Parker ’51
Betty Goetz Lall ’45
Eualine Uhl Wright ’31
1966
Mary Ann Calcott D.D.S. ’58
Helen Gregory ’25
Kathryn Wilson Jordan ’28
Patricia Spaulding ’42
1965
Ruth Bundy Armsby ’23
Anita Farlow Blakeslee ’42
Irene Meinershagen Bleckschmidt ’26
Jeannene Thompson Booher ’56
Mary Adelaide Gardner ’40
Janet Garlough ’41
Wilda Tinsley Moening ’34
Wanda Yvonne White ’45
1964
Adrienne Adams Anderson ’25
Wally Funk ’58
Virginia Neville Robertson ’33
Mary (Mimi) Allen Smitten ’43
1963
Patricia White Barry
Dorothy Harcourt Hickerson ’39
Frances Lea McCurdy ’25
Gerda Mehwald Picco ’50
1962
Mary B. Anderson ’29
Nell Plopper Eurich Lazarus ’39
Beulah Winstel Dechert ’37
Margaret Sandzen Greenough ’28
Janet R. Kern ’43
Vivian Saunders Kleinkopf ’54
Jean Clinton Roeschlaub ’44
1961
Phyllis Joan Burline ’48
Madeline Darling Harp ’31
Mildred Benjegerdes Hays ’45
Irmgard Grossman Johnson ’35
Esther Replogle ’23
Helen Ross Staley ’41
Kay Johnson Williams ’24
1960
Margaret Barbee ’18
(Mary) Jane Smisor Bastien ’55
Martha Brian ’50
Shirley A. Field ’42
Gloria Kenney Jones ’44
Carla Shriner Williams ’40
1959
Susanna Laun Alexander ’36
Virginia Carpernter Christ-Janer ’33
Helen Froelich Holt ’32
Marilyn Ellis Keene ’38
Jeanne Butcher Shaffer ’44
1958
Margaret Wolf Dagen ’38
Esther Winifred Daley Kaasa ’30
1957
Betsy Snyder Dew ’37
Olivia Noel Robertson ’22
1956
Frances Jenkins Holter ’44
Jean Cravens Leyda ’20
1955
Evalyn King Joachim ’29
Eudora Vance Scott ’37
Glad Robinson Youse ’20
1954
Eugenia Moore Anderson ’28
Ethlyn Wisegarver Bott ’18
Cordelia Trimble Robinson ’22
1953
Ardenia Chapman ’13
Ina Estes Hubbard ’13
Ruth Lovelace Courteol ’19
1952
Marie Kuhns Hardy ’20
Pauline Brannock Moore ’23
1951
Alice Jones Ewing ’27