In the countless media guides published by the Kansas University sports information office, you can find the written history of just about anything.

But not everything.

With the athletic department’s annual KU Senior Awards function scheduled Monday night, I was hoping to find a list of some of the past winners of the prestigious senior academic awards.

I struck out in the media guides, so, to obtain the names, I called Paul Buskirk, the man who runs the athletic department’s student support services. Buskirk didn’t have them on paper, but he graciously copied the names off the plaques displayed in his office and supplied them to me.

To begin at the beginning, the KU athletic department began recognizing its top male and female senior scholar-athletes in 1992. The initial honorees were trackman Donnie Anderson and Barb Pranger, a swimmer.

A year later, the athletic department began conducting luncheons to fete its best and brightest scholar-athletes. Then the venue changed to the Lied Center. For the last couple of years, it has been a sit-down dinner.

In other words, KU’s commitment to its scholarship athletes who shine in the classroom has become more and more of a big deal. That’s inflation you can live with.

A few of the past winners are household names. Jacque Vaughn and Jerod Haase, both academic All-Americans, became the first men’s basketball players to win the award and the only ones to share it when they were tapped in 1997.

Vaughn, as you know, is still playing in the NBA with the Atlanta Hawks, while Haase went with Roy Williams to North Carolina as an assistant coach. Also in ’97, Angie Halbleib became the first and last women’s basketball player to earn the honor.

The other men’s basketball honorees have been Ryan Robertston (1999) and Nick Collison (2003).

A couple of other years have produced coincidences. In 2002, for example, Andrea Bulat and Scott Russell were the selections. Both were javelin throwers from Windsor, Ontario, Canada. And in 2000, the common thread was Lawrence High. Rower Risa Petty and football player Greg Erb were former Lions.

Of all the duos selected, arguably the brainiest were 1998’s Lisa Beran and Josh Dimmick.

Beran, a Hays product who put the shot and threw the discus on the track team, compiled a 3.92 grade-point average and went on to graduate from the KU School of Medicine in 2002.

Dimmick, a switch-hitting catcher, had a 3.91 GPA in genetics, certainly belying the old saw that baseball backstops wore the “tools of ignorance.” Dimmick was also a late-round draft choice of the Houston Astros and gave minor-league baseball a short whirl. Today he is enrolled in the University of Texas School of Medicine in Houston, his hometown.

Dimmick, a Rhodes Scholar candidate, is one of five baseballers to earn the male senior scholar award. Two of the others — pitcher Jimmy Walker (1993) and Darryl Monroe (1994) — played on the Jayhawks’ 1993 College World Series team. The others are Pete Smart, a left-handed pitcher who walked off with the 2001 prize, and Ryan Baty, this year’s pick.

Monroe, like Petty and Erb, is a Lawrence High grad, which means the Lions have produced more KU senior scholar-athletes than any other high school. By sport, baseball with its five selections is the cumulative leader, followed by women’s swimming and women’s track with four apiece.

If you’re wondering, yes, a football player indeed has had his name etched on the plaque. That would be Darrin Simmons, a punter who was the choice in 1996. Today, Simmons is the special-teams coach of the NFL’s Cincinnati Bengals.

Probably what surprises me the most is that of the 26 KU senior scholar-athletes honored to this point, not a single one has been a golfer. Maybe next year.