Maurers lauded for dedication to children

UNMC Chancellor Harold M. Maurer, M.D., and his wife, Beverly, with the Children’s Square U.S.A.’s 2006 Jason Award

UNMC Chancellor Harold M. Maurer, M.D., and his wife, Beverly, were honored recently by Children’s Square U.S.A., an organization dedicated to providing care, education and treatment services to children and families in need.

At a dinner last Tuesday night at the Mid-America Center in Council Bluffs, Iowa, the Maurers were given the organization’s Jason Award, which is presented to those who demonstrate extraordinary commitment to children, families and communities or to a cause that benefits children, families, communities and the country.

The Maurers were one of three couples to receive the Jason Award that night.

The other two couples were Ted Kooser and his wife, Kathleen Rutledge, of Garland, Neb., and Dr. Robert and Marylin Looft of Council Bluffs.

Kooser is a Pulitzer Prize winner for his poetry who just finished a term as U.S. Poet Lauerate and Rutledge is editor of the Lincoln Journal Star.

Dr. Looft is the founding president of Iowa Western Community College and Marylin is former president of the Children’s Square U.S.A. board of directors.

The Jason Award is a 14-inch bronze sculpture showing a young boy running full tilt toward the future. It was modeled after a photograph taken of a 4-year-old Children’s Square student, Jason Schumann, as he ran across Children’s Square’s campus in Council Bluffs.