SPEA student, alumna receive awards at Statehouse visit

IU President Michael McRobbie presented the Sue H. Talbot Distinguished Hoosiers for Higher Education Member Award to HHE community captain Sara Laycock Tuesday.

Laycock graduated from IU in 2003 with a degree from the School of Public and Environmental Affairs. She then worked in areas of economic development in Bloomington and Indianapolis. Currently, she works for the Metropolitan Indianapolis Board of Realtors.

The Distinguished HHE Member Award was developed in honor of founding HHE director and current IU Board of Trustees member Sue H. Tabolt.

Tabolt helped create one of the first university-based grassroots organizations in the country. Due to her contributions, HHE became one of the “best practices” of government relation programs, according to an IU press release.

Sophomore Iris Summers also won the Sue H. Tabolt HHE Volunteer Award Scholarship.

Summers is majoring in management in SPEA with a minor in apparel merchandising. She has been serving as a legislative intern in the Indiana State Senate. Currently, she serves as the external philanthropy chair for Phi Mu sorority.

McRobbie also presented Sen. Connie Sipes, D-New Albany, with the Welsh-Bowen Distinguished Public Official Award on Tuesday. She was recognized for her “significant contributions to higher education and Indiana University,” according to the release.

The award is in honor of former Indiana governors Matthew Welsh and Otis “Doc” Bowen, who has worked for HHE since 1991.

Sipes was appointed to the Indiana Senate in 1997. She has also worked as a teacher at East Spring Street School and principal at Fairmont Elementary School.

Senior Alison Grover won the Welsh-Bowen Distinguished Public Official Scholarship.
Grover is majoring in secondary education-English at IU-Southeast New Albany. She is a member of the Phi Eta Sigma National Honor Society and has been on the Dean’s and Chancellor’s list every semester.

The awards were given during a ceremony in Indianapolis as part of the 19th annual Hoosiers for Higher Education Statehouse Visit.