Five Pirates Earn Daktronics-NAIA Track and Field Scholar-Athlete Honors
KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Five members from the Park University Track and Field program earned Daktronics-NAIA Track and Field Scholar-Athlete honors for their superb work in the classroom, announced over the weekend at the NAIA National Headquarters.
Park's Devin Haddix earned the Daktronics-NAIA Scholar Athlete award over the weekend.
Sophomore Micah Conkling, senior Devin Haddix, junior Luke Wolkers, senior Rachel Fessenden and senior Melinda Jansen all earned the award for Park.
To be honored as a Daktronics-NAIA Scholar-Athlete, a student-athlete must hold junior or senior academic standing and have a minimum 3.5 grade-point average on a 4.0 scale.
In all, a total of 208 student-athletes have earned the award on the men’s side, while 322 earned the distinction on the women’s side.
There are also 76 different NAIA institutions represented on the Daktronics-NAIA Scholar-Athlete men’s squad and 88 different institutions are featured on the women’s squad.
The recipients are listed alphabetically by school and each student-athlete was officially submitted from individual schools to the NAIA-MSCA Scholar-Athlete Coordinator.
Conkling hails from Smithville, Mo. and earned the 2008 MCAC Men’s Cross Country Runner of the Year award in the fall and is currently a Print-Journalism major.
Haddix led the way in many sprinting events for Park this season including the 400-meter run, in which he ran the fastest time of any Pirate with a time of 49.40.
Like Haddix, Wolkers ran the fastest time of any other Pirate in his event this season, running a Pirate best, 57.74, in the 400-meter hurdles back on April 17.
On the Women’s side, Fessenden ran numerous races for the Pirates during both the indoor and outdoor seasons and ran the fastest time of any Pirate in the 3000-meter and 1-Mile Run during the indoor season.
Jansen, who was also awarded the Scholar-Athlete honor in the Fall for Cross Country, ran in many races during Park’s Indoor season but saw limited action in the Outdoor season.
NAIA Sports Information also contributed to this release
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