College of Liberal Arts honors 3 as distinguished alumni

By Ann Friou
University News Service
May 3, 2012

Three alumni of the College of Liberal Arts at Texas State University-San Marcos were honored with the College’s 2012 Distinguished Alumni Achievement Award Saturday, April 28. The award, which has been given since 2008, recognizes the accomplishments of alumni in their professions and communities.

The honorees included:

State Representative Veronica Gonzales of McAllen graduated with a BA in English/Spanish in 1986. Gonzales is serving her fourth term in the Texas House of Representatives and is the first female to represent District 41. She is chair of the House Border and Intergovernmental Affairs Committee and is serving her third session on the House Public Health Committee. She has been elected to several leadership positions in the State Democratic Caucus and in the Mexican-American Legislative Caucus. The United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce has named her an Ultimate Latina Legislator, and she was selected as one of 24 Democrats and Republicans from across the country to receive the Aspen Institute-Rodel Fellowship in Public Leadership, honoring rising stars in American politics. Gonzales is a member of the board of directors of the Texas Lyceum Association, a leadership organization that studies critical issues affecting Texas and the nation.

Del Kolbe of Austin graduated with a BA in Sociology/History 1981. A property tax consultant and entrepreneur, Kolbe has built several successful tax consulting businesses in Texas and in other states. His current business, Paradigm Property Tax Practice, has 28 offices nationally that provide property assessment and tax management services to owners of commercial, industrial, multi-residential, and special-purpose properties. Kolbe served in the U.S. Air Force 1972-1976, and he and his wife Janice (BS Education ’81) raise money for several veterans’ groups, including the Wounded Warriors Project, Operation Homefront and the Coalition to Salute America’s Heroes. Recently, the couple made a gift to Texas State to create a Veterans’ Resource Center.

Roger Spiller of Fort Leavenworth, Kan., graduated with a BA in Political Science/English in 1969 and earned his MA in History in 1971. One of the nation’s foremost military historians, Spiller was the first civilian to hold a permanent faculty appointment at the U.S. Army’s Command and General Staff College (CGSC) at Fort Leavenworth, where he has taught a generation of America’s leading professional soldiers and published more than a dozen books. He became the college’s first George C. Marshall Chair of Military History and was a Distinguished Visiting Professor of Military History at West Point. Now retired from the CGSC as George C. Marshall Distinguished Professor of Military History Emeritus, he continues to teach at the University of Kansas. He consulted on filmmaker Ken Burns’ 2009 documentary on World War II and is currently consulting on Burns’ 10-part series on the Vietnam War, to be aired in 2016. He was named a Distinguished Alumnus of Texas State in 1998.