? The Kansas Board of Accountancy announced that 34 candidates successfully passed the July/August 2013 CPA exam, with three candidates coming out of Lawrence. With passage of the exam, Cassandra Post, Jason Ross and Erika Schnittker have completed the first step to becoming certified public accountants.

? The Mary Kay Foundation has awarded a $20,000 grant to the Willow Domestic Violence Center. The non-profit Willow center provides shelter, counseling, advocacy and other serves for women and children facing domestic violence in Douglas County. The grant money will go toward educational and outreach programs.

Allison Gowing.

? Truity Credit Union introduced Allison Gowing as the new branch manager at the 23rd and Naismith location. Gowing is a graduate of Lawrence High School and Johnson County Community College. She is the founding member and current president of the Lawrence Referral Network and the president of the Lawrence Women’s Network.

? Lawrence Memorial Hospital will host the final seminar of its “Healthy, Wealthy and Wise” series on Nov. 6. The forum, titled “Your Virtual Afterlife: How to Get Your Digital Ducks in a Row,” will be held at Kansas University’s Lied Center Pavilion. Attorney Lauren Bristow Williams and Director of MyDucks.org Amy Gonzales will conduct the seminar. To attend, RSVP by Nov. 1 to Caroline Trowbridge, at 785-505-3313 or caroline.trowbridge@lmh.org.

? Kansas University researcher Ehsan Hosseini received the Best Graduate Student Paper Award at last week’s International Telemetering Conference. He will receive a $1,000 award for his research on synchronizing bursts of data transferred between base stations and aircraft traveling at Mach speeds over thousands of miles. This is the third Best Graduate Award won by a KU student in five years.

? Lawrence farmers Pat and Mary Ross, who grow corn and soybeans, played host this month to a nine-member team from Latin America visiting Kansas to learn about the use of grain as co-products for livestock, pork and poultry feeds, according to the Kansas Corn Commisison. Pat, a corn commissioner, and Mary gave a history of their family farm and talked about their crop production and cattle feeding operation. The Ross family raises corn and soybeans and also feeds cattle using corn and distillers grains in their rations. The group also visited a field of corn being harvested by the Nunemaker-Ross Farm. The Kansas Corn Commission and Grain Sorghum Commission sponsored the tour as an opportunity for people who have a direct impact on the demand for specialty grains to see firsthand how crops are grown in Kansas.