KU recreation center celebrates first year

The Student Recreation Fitness Center at Kansas University will celebrate its first birthday Wednesday.

The building will be open for tours, prize drawings and other events throughout the day. Cake will be served at 1 p.m.

The $17 million, 98,000-square-foot facility, funded by student fees, opened last fall.

KU professor named to national board

A Kansas University professor has been named to the board of directors of the National Academy of Public Administration.

H. George Frederickson, professor of public administration, has been a fellow with the academy since 1979.

Frederickson is editor of the Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, and was co-author of the books “The Public Administration Theory Primer” and “The Adapted City.”

KU graduate wins children’s book honor

A Kansas University graduate has become the first Kansan to win a William Allen White Children’s Book Award.

Andrea Warren, who lives in Prairie Village, won one of two 2004 awards for “Surviving Hitler: A Boy in the Nazi Death Camps.”

Her book was selected in the sixth- to eighth-grade category, while “Ghost Sitter” by Peni R. Griffin won in the third- to fifth-grade category.

Warren, who received her master’s degree in journalism from KU in 1993, wrote about a 12-year-old boy who survives the Nazi concentration camps.

The White awards, in their 52nd year, were selected by votes by more than 55,000 Kansas children. They are administered by Emporia State University.

Warren and Griffin will be honored with a series of events this weekend in Emporia. For more on the events, visit http://waw.emporia.edu.