Phi Beta Delta chapter inducts 17 new members

ISSUED: 17 April 2024
MEDIA CONTACT: Cecelia Mason

SHEPHERDSTOWN, WV - Shepherd's Theta Epsilon Chapter of the Phi Beta Delta Honor Society for International Scholars inducted 15 students, two staff members, one faculty member during a ceremony on April 3.

Phi Beta Delta recognizes scholarly achievement in international involvement and education. Shepherd's chapter started in 2016 and encourages interdisciplinary and inter-generational contacts and promotes the exchange of ideas and information among students, staff, faculty, the community, and other institutions and organizations.

Pictured (l. to r.) are Lillan Gross, Mirian Hernandez, Kiara Rakestraw, Yildiz Nuredinoski, Kitanna Rakestraw, Barbara Kandalis, Lois Turco, Ravyn Weirich, Mary Buktaw, Josiah Wink, and Nick Olsen.

Undergraduate students who were inducted include global studies major Lillan Gross, Martinsburg, West Virginia; political science majors Mirian Hernandez, Kearneysville, West Virginia, Nick Olsen, Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, Riley Barry, Inwood, West Virginia, Kaelyn Corun, Hedgesville, West Virginia, and Phoenix Herman, Bunker Hill, West Virginia; Appalachian studies major Ravyn Weirich, Elkins, West Virginia; biology major Mary Buktaw, Chantilly, Virginia; sociology major Josiah Wink, Inwood, West Virginia; English major Taylor Beam, Jane Lew, West Virginia; psychology major Rebeca Bevan, Charles Town, West Virginia; and secondary education major Keely Humphries, Norton, West Virginia.

Graduate students in the masters in college student development and administration program who were inducted are Kiara Rakestraw, graduate assistant for Title IX and multicultural student affairs, and Kitanna Rakestraw, graduate assistant for student affairs, both from Uhrichsville, Ohio; and Wes Jackson, Hagerstown, Maryland.

Faculty and staff inducted were Caitlin McClelland, assistant professor of Spanish; Yildiz Nuredinoski, instructional designer; and Barbara Kandalis, coordinator for dual enrollment.

Lois Turco, Shepherdstown, West Virginia, was the keynote speaker. She served in five overseas posts alongside her husband Fred from 1967-1985 in Pakistan, India, Afghanistan, and Jordan. In Afghanistan she taught English as a second language and helped start a community support group after the assassination of the American ambassador in 1979. She was the U.S. State Department community liaison officer at the U.S. embassy in Jordan. After returning to the United States, Turco co-founded a support group for State Department spouses and worked as a cross-cultural facilitator for the Overseas Briefing Center at the Foreign Service Institute in Arlington, Virginia.

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