Butler Announces Graduates of Advance Kansas

The 14th Advance Kansas class culminated on Friday, June 10, as 44 area business and community leaders were welcomed by previous graduates. Advance Kansas is a program designed to bring together leaders from all demographic groups and across all sectors of society – business, nonprofit, education, faith based, government – and to educate them in effective ways to engage pressing diversity issues in their communities.

Class members meet over the course of five months to form relationships and develop skills to become better leaders in increasingly diverse organizations and communities. Between class sessions they work in teams to create community-action projects. Between class sessions, they worked in teams to accomplish community-action projects benefiting area not-for-profit organizations. The project organizations for this year were Sunlight Children’s Services, Giving the Basics, Habitat for Humanity Wichita, Kansas Leadership Center and The Treehouse.

This new class brings the total number of Advance Kansas graduates to 557, representing 165 organizations in the area. This year’s graduates are:

Keith Allen, Sedgwick County Sheriff’s Office

Ami Alvidrez, WSU Tech

Eddie Andreo, Cowley College

Krissy Buck, WSU Tech

Alan Burkett, Cox Communications

Junnae Campbell, Boys & Girls Club of South Central Kansas

Hannah Christenson, Envision, Inc.

Jon Craig, Butler Community College

Stephanie Dyer, Koch Industries, Inc.

Michelle Eastman, Rainbows United

Gina Evans, Credit Union of America

Donnie Featherston, Butler Community College

Shareika Fisher, Rise Up For Youth, Inc.

Abel Frederic, United Way of the Plains

Ennidh Garcia, Evergy

Laura Gossman, EmberHope Youthville

Donnell Hadley, City of Andover

Cody Hastings, Evergy

Brierra Hubbard, Meritrust Credit Union

Vanessa Keith, IMA Financial Group Inc.

Maria Kury, USD 259 Wichita

Lindsey Lankford, Keycentrix

Jonathan Lebeda, Envision, Inc.

Emily Lopez, Spirit AeroSystems, Inc.

Sarah Lopez, Sedgwick County

Idalia Loya, Empower

Dimitra Maderafont, T-Mobile

Kim Mai, Spirit AeroSystems, Inc.

Jennifer Marshall, Spirit AeroSystems, Inc.

Lem Moore, Wichita Police Department

Christie Murray, McConnell Air Force Base

Tom Nevill, Butler Community College

Penny Olsen, The Pando Initiative

Taylor Parlier, City of Rose Hill

Ronnie Price, Wheat State Distilling / City of Andover

Laura Rainwater, Workforce Alliance of South Central Kansas

Micaela Ramirez, Kansas Hispanic Education and Development Foundation

Ariel Rodriguez, Empower

Moji Rosson, Meritrust Credit Union

Lashawn Taylor, Communities in Schools MidAmerica

Niomi Thompson, Butler Community College

Hanale Vincent, Wichita Collegiate School

James Williams, Black Hills Energy

Monica Wilson, T-Mobile

Hosted by Butler Community College with support from Spirit AeroSystems, Evergy, Meritrust Credit Union, Cox and Envision, Advance Kansas is facilitated by Juan Johnson, president of Diversity Leadership in Action, of Atlanta.