Three Kansas University graduates next weekend will receive the highest honor presented by the KU Alumni Association.

Gary W. Padgett, Charles W. Oswald and Robert T. Stephan will receive the Fred Ellsworth Medallion during a dinner at 7:30 p.m. Friday at the Adams Alumni Center. It will be preceded by a 6 p.m. reception at The Outlook, the chancellor’s residence.

The presentations coincide with the annual meeting of the Alumni Association’s board of directors.

The award has been given annually since 1975 to honor service to KU. It is as a tribute to Fred Ellsworth, a KU graduate who served as executive secretary of the Alumni Association for 39 years before retiring in 1963.

A committee of representatives from the Chancellor’s Office and the alumni, athletics and endowment associations meets annually to choose winners.

Padgett, who lives in Greenleaf, is a 1955 graduate of the school of business. He is president and CEO of The Citizens National Bank in Belleville, Concordia, Lansing, Leavenworth and Greenleaf. He has received the Small Business Administration’s Advocate of the Year Award for Kansas.

He helped establish the Alumni Association’s Kansas Honors Program, which honors the top 10 percent of high school graduates, in Washington and Marshall counties.

Padgett served on the Alumni Association’s board from 1983 to 1988, has been involved in Jayhawks for Higher Education and was chairman of the Audit Committee.

Oswald, who lives in Edina, Minn., graduated from KU in 1951 with a degree in economics. He is chairman of Rotherwood Ventures LLC in Minnetonka, Minn. He was founder, chairman and CEO of National Computer Systems, now NCS Pearson, until he retired in 1994.

Oswald recently donated $10 million — the largest single donation in university history — to KU’s economics department and business school.

He is a trustee of the KU Endowment Association and has served on the school of business board of advisers.

Stephan, an attorney in Lenexa, is a 1954 KU graduate. He served 16 years as Kansas attorney general. Before that, he was a district judge in Wichita for 13 years.

His honors include the President’s Citation from the National Association of Attorneys General and the Four Avenues of Service Citation Award from Rotary International.

Stephan has served on several Alumni Association committees and as a volunteer consultant.