Steven, Susan Beebe honored with Pi Kappa Delta Order of Attainment

Steven A. Beebe, Texas State University System Regents' Professor and University Distinguished Professor Emeritus, and Susan J. Beebe, retired lecturer in the Department of English at Texas State University, have been awarded the Pi Kappa Delta Order of Attainment.

The Order of Attainment was established in 2007 to honor the societal contributions of Pi Kappa Delta Alumni. These contributions may be global, national or local in scope and reflect the role of forensics and Pi Kappa Delta in building life-long citizens.

"Sue and I met 50 years ago at a semester-opening picnic sponsored by the forensics program," Steven Beebe said. "We were assigned to be debate partners and became members of Pi Kappa Delta, the national forensics honorary society. We have remained partners ever since. We had little idea that 50 years later we would receive this recognition."

Steven Beebe served as chair of the Department of Communication Studies for 28 years and concurrently as associate dean of the College of Fine Arts and Communication for 25 years. Prior to joining the faculty at Texas State he was a tenured member of the communication faculty at the University of Miami for 10 years. He made international headlines when conducting research at Oxford University when he discovered an unpublished manuscript written by C.S. Lewis that was the partial opening chapter of a book that was to be co-authored with J.R.R. Tolkien called Language and Human Nature. In 2016 and 2019 he also discovered unknown and unpublished poems by Lewis in the Oxford University Bodleian Library. His most recent book, C.S. Lewis and the Craft of Communication, was published in 2020.

Susan Beebe served as director of Lower-Division Studies in English for 11 years prior to her retirement in 2014. She has co-authored three books and has published a number of articles and teaching materials in both English and communication studies. She has received the Texas State University Presidential Awards for Excellence in Teaching and in Service and the College of Liberal Arts Awards for Excellence in Scholarly/Creative Activities, in Teaching and in Service. She was the founding coordinator of the San Marcos Volunteers in Public Schools Program and has served on the San Marcos School Board, the Education Foundation Board and the San Marcos Lifelong Learning Advisory Committee. In 1993 she was named the statewide Friend of Education by the Texas Classroom Teachers’ Association; in 2000 the San Marcos school district presented her with its Lifetime Achievement Award.

Pi Kappa Delta is a national forensics honor society that is dedicated to promoting excellence in speech and debate. For more than 100 years, its 80,000 members have pursued "The Art of Persuasion, Beautiful and Just." In addition to its civic engagement and advocacy activities, Pi Kappa Delta hosts a comprehensive national tournament each year, sponsors a professional development conference and publishes a scholarly journal, The Forensic.