The Graven Award is funded by the Judge Henry N. and Helen T. Graven Endowment for The Ministry of the Laity: The Church in the World and goes to a person “whose life is nurtured and guided by a strong sense of Christian calling and who is making a significant contribution to community, church and society.”
Judge Henry N. and his wife, Helen T. Graven, were lay people from Greene, Iowa, who made significant contributions to the church, including the outline for the first pension plan for workers of the church. Mr. Graven, a federal Judge in Iowa, along with his brother, did much of the legal work in the combining of three separate Wartburg College sites into one.
The Gravens’ son Lloyd, an economic research consultant, spoke about his father’s work as a federal district judge. He said, “Long before the U.S. Supreme Court started ruling on Civil Rights issues, my father fined the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake for not letting a black man in.” He also said that his father believed it was important for Christians to contribute to society.
Wartburg College Graven Award Recipients:
- 1990 Arnold R. Mickelson, general secretary, American Lutheran Church
- 1991 Anne H. Carlsen, superintendent, Lutheran Hospitals and Homes Societies, champion of rights for children and adults with physical handicaps
- 1992 Reinhold P. Marxhausen, educator (art and biology at Concordia, Seward)
- 1993 William H. Foege, physician, Centers for Disease Control, credited with the global strategy that led to the eradication of smallpox and national education about vaccines
- 1994 Ralston Deffenbaugh Jr., president of Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services and Lutheran World Federation’s assistant general secretary for International Affairs and Human Rights, Department for Theology and Public Witness
- 1995 Weston H. Noble, musician, educator, entrepreneur
- 1996 James J. Raun, executive director of Lutheran Services
- 1997 Henry W. Foster, physician, educator, provided national model for providing prenatal and postnatal care to thousands of poor families
- 1998 Anne Knutson Kanten, Secretary of Agriculture for state of Minnesota
- 1999 Her Excellency Anna Josephine Mkapa, first lady of Tanzania and advocate for children
- 2000 Gen. John W. Vessey, United States Army, served as chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
- 2001 Neil and Lillian Williams, medical missionaries in Tanzania
- 2002 William Fintel, oncologist, educator, writer
- 2003 Gaylord Thomas, director of ELCA’s Hunger Grants and Loan programs and director of Africa Continental Desk/program director for East Africa Global Mission of the ELCA
- 2004 Carl Schalk, hymn writer, educator, musician
- 2005 David Scheie, Iowa broadcast journalist, community service, congregational service
- 2006 Robert D. Ray, former governor of Iowa
- 2007 K.D. Briner, judge, educator, champion of liberal arts education
- 2008 Greg Mortenson, author and activist who built schools for girls in Pakistan
- 2009 Robert F. Kennedy Jr., recognized for environmental work and his children’s book about St. Francis
- 2010 Lane Shetterly, served as Oregon State House representative and director of the Oregon Department of Land Conservation and Development
- 2011 Jane K. Rodeheffer, philosopher, educator, involvement in Catholic Workers House movement
- 2012 Kenneth Inskeep, sociologist, director of Research and Evaluation, ELCA
- 2013 James C. Ellefson, federal judge in Iowa, congregational leadership, community service
- 2014 Michael Dennis Browne, poet, educator, librettist
- 2015 Dr. Elijah Anderson, urban ethnologist, educator about racism, Yale University
- 2016 Bruce Weber, men’s basketball coach, Kansas State University
- 2017 Diane Levy Jacobson, professor emerita, Luther Seminary
- 2018 Gloria Kirkland Holmes, associate professor of early childhood education, University of Northern Iowa
- 2019 Adrian Miller, executive director of the Colorado Council of Churches, historian, lawyer, public policy advisor, author
- 2020 Felecia Boone, diversity, equity, and inclusion consultant, Hennepin County, Minnesota
