Featured below are the recipients of the top four Distinguished Alumni Awards – the William E. Morgan Alumni Achievement Award, the Charles A. Lory Public Service Award, the Jim and Nadine Henry Award, and the Distinguished Graduate of the Last Decade Award – along with award recipients from CSU Athletics and each of the eight colleges.

Congratulations to these outstanding honorees who will be celebrated on Oct. 12, 2023 during the Distinguished Alumni Awards as part of Homecoming and Family Weekend.

Click or tap here to learn more about the 2023 Distinguished Alumni Awards, including recipient bios, event registration info and more. And for further Homecoming and Family Weekend details, visit, homecoming.colostate.edu.

William E. Morgan Alumni Achievement Award

Jim Benemann (B.S., technical journalism, ’78)

The Emmy-award-winning journalist, Jim Benemann, has worked as a reporter and news anchor around the country and on five continents. A Chicago native, his career in TV news began after he graduated from CSU and went to work as a reporter in Davenport, Iowa. His first on-air job in Denver came in 1981, as the inaugural Boulder County reporter for Channel 9 KUSA. Station owner Gannett then offered to send Jim, then 25 years old, to Washington, D.C., to help open a new national news bureau there. After returning to Denver, he reported on weekend sports and morning news at 9News before becoming a co-anchor for Denver’s CBS4 KCNC-TV in 1989.

While most of his career has been in Colorado, he also served as one of the main news anchors at Portland’s KGW-TV from 1994 to 1997. But a call from KUSA brought him back to Denver, as that station was looking to replace longtime anchor, Ed Sardella, with a familiar presence. Jim’s tenure with 9News spanned six years before he moved back to CBS4 in 2002, where he became the face of the station’s primetime news broadcasts and began co-anchoring that station’s nightly news with Karen Leigh in 2008. When he retired at the end of 2022, he had more than four decades on the air and 36 years in the Denver TV market.

During Jim’s career, he earned a reputation for being an outstanding journalist and an exceptional communicator. His passion for his work and his commitment to this community made him one of the most respected broadcasters in Colorado. Jim’s anchoring and reporting background has included major assignments on local, national, and international stories, including walking through French villages with World War II veterans for the 40th anniversary of D-Day, reporting from Vietnamese jungles in the aftermath of the war there, and covering the Columbine High School shooting in 1999. Jim received eight Emmy awards for his work, most recently for a story about the marijuana industry in Colorado. He also has volunteered to emcee hundreds of events for nonprofit organizations, including CSU. In retirement, Jim is traveling with his wife, Karen, and checking off items on their “bucket list,” in addition to spending more time with their growing family, which includes eight adult children and five grandchildren.

About the award: Named for the eighth president of the University, Dr. William E. Morgan, this award is the highest honor given by the Alumni Association and is reserved for individuals who have excelled at the national or international level. The purpose of this award is to recognize a graduate who has attained extraordinary distinction and success in their field of endeavor and whose achievements have brought credit to CSU and benefited their fellow citizens.

Charles A. Lory Public Service Award

Mike Liggett (B.S., psychology, ’73)

Mike Liggett has been a trial attorney in Colorado for 46 years. He has represented clients statewide and has argued two cases before the Colorado Supreme Court. In 1964, Mike’s family relocated to Fort Collins, where he graduated from Fort Collins High School. While attending CSU as a first-generation student, he had the good fortune to become friends with philosophy professor Holmes Rolston III, Ph.D., who was a big influence on Mike’s view of the world and being a lifelong learner. He also met and later married Ann Stephenson (B.A., ’74) before moving to the Pacific Northwest to attend the Seattle University School of Law in Washington.

In 1977, Ann and Mike returned to Fort Collins where he opened a law firm. Business was good enough to allow Ann to stay home when their two children, Sarah and Morgan, were born. Once their kids were both in school, Ann put her English degree to work as a literacy teacher at Eyestone Elementary School in Wellington, Colorado. Woven throughout Mike’s law career was a vision of civic engagement based on the Platonic proposition that a functioning democracy needs an educated and healthy citizenry. During the past 25 years, he has served on the boards of directors of several organizations including the Board of Education for the Poudre School District, the Poudre River Library District, the Health District of Northern Larimer County, and currently, the Poudre River Library Trust.

Despite his busy schedule, Mike found time to periodically teach continuing legal education classes and be a guest speaker at CSU law classes. Over the years, Ann and Mike have supported programs across the campus that aligned with their passions, including the arts. Ann’s health began to deteriorate in 2018, and Mike retired in August of that year to care for her. She passed away Dec. 31, 2018.

In the past three decades, Mike has fly-fished most of the major rivers in the Western United States. In 2021, he helped form a discussion group composed of current and former civic leaders who have breakfast once a month and explore divisive issues. He now works part time facilitating court-mandated mediations and, on several occasions, he has also served as a special prosecutor for the 8th Judicial District in Northern Colorado.

About the award: This award is named for Dr. Charles A. Lory, the fifth president of the University, whose leadership helped the institution attain a vital balance of teaching, research, and service. It is given to alumni who have demonstrated exceptional and sustained leadership in their community, professional field, or personal commitments and have given a significant contribution of time and talent to the University.

Jim and Nadine Henry Award

Neyla (B.A., speech and theatre arts, ’79) and Mark Driscoll (B.S., management, ’76; M.S., business, ’88)

Neyla (Allen) and Mark Driscoll met in high school in La Junta, Colorado, where he was the quarterback of the football team and she was a cheerleader. Mark was recruited to play for CSU, and Neyla followed him to Fort Collins a year later. He was the quarterback for the Rams from 1972-75 and still holds the University’s oldest passing record of throwing six touchdown passes on Oct. 19, 1974, in a 66-17 win over the University of Nevada. Neyla and Mark were married in 1975, and after graduation, Mark tried out for the Dallas Cowboys and San Francisco 49ers, but neither team kept him on their rosters, so he and Neyla returned to Fort Collins. Mark had the opportunity to be a Rams assistant football coach for four seasons between 1976 and 1979. Although he enjoyed coaching, Mark’s interest in business and in using his degree was his long-term goal. In 1979, Mark accepted a position with First National Bank, one of the state’s leading financial institutions.

The couple’s three children were born in the late 1970s and early 1980s. After they were in school, Neyla served as a piano accompanist, music assistant, and choreographer for the Poudre School District for more than 15 years. She learned to tap dance in her teens and performed with several dance groups, including The Big Noise, a tap company based in Boulder. In the early 1990s, she became a faculty member at Canyon Concert Ballet, which offers dance training and performances, and worked for many years with children in the Centennial Children’s Chorus as a drama coach and choreographer.

Mark became president of First National Bank in 1994. He stepped away from his banking career from 2003 to 2006 to serve as the athletics director for CSU Athletics, before returning to his previous position as Colorado market president of First National Bank (now FNBO). Mark also served as a Rams football color commentator, providing expert analysis and background information on radio broadcasts for the Colorado State Sports Network, between 2015 and 2021. Over his working career, Mark served on numerous nonprofit and community boards.

After 37 years with First National Bank, Mark retired in January 2020. The couple enjoys traveling and spending time with their five grandchildren. Mark remains an active part of the Fort Collins community, currently serving on the board of the Food Bank for Larimer County, as an adviser to the Noel Barrett Shuler Foundation, and as co-chair for the Neighbor to Neighbor capital campaign. For more than 50 years, following the Rams and being a part of the CSU family has been an important part of Neyla and Mark’s life together.

About the award: This award is given in honor of Jim (’40) and Nadine (Hartshorn) (’41) Henry of Longmont, Colorado, to alumni who exemplify extraordinary service to the University and its academic, athletics, and alumni programs. This award is presented annually to alumni who represent the highest goals of the Alumni Association and the University and who have given significant support and service to both.

Distinguished Graduate of the Last Decade Award

Nigel Daniels (B.A., political science, ’14)

Nigel Daniels is a Denver native raised by a single mother, his maternal grandmother, and a network of community supporters. When Nigel was a child, his mother, Cora, prioritized health, safety, and shelter and always emphasized the importance of education. She enrolled him in Denver Kids Inc., a nonprofit organization that equips students with educational counseling, life skills, and mentors to help them balance the pressures of life, graduate from high school, and pursue postsecondary opportunities. Nigel now serves as a board member for Denver Kids Inc.

The source of Nigel’s inspiration to attend law school came from watching his mother navigate the state’s complicated social services and judicial system to advocate for his younger brother, who had several emotional and mental challenges. Unfortunately, in 2010, when Nigel was a 17-year-old high school senior, his mother suffered a heart attack and passed away. With support of his community, Nigel moved forward and received the Daniels Fund Scholarship, which enabled him to attend Colorado State University as a first-generation student. During his time on campus, Nigel traveled twice to Samburu, Kenya, to participate in service projects, helped increase membership in the pre-law club by 25 percent, assisted in the startup of the pre-law minor, and was elected president of ASCSU in 2013.

After graduation, Nigel worked in Washington, D.C., as a special assistant to U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet and later as a political assistant in Colorado on Bennet’s 2016 re-election campaign. That experience prepared him to serve for nearly seven years as a special aide to Denver Mayor Michael B. Hancock and then as a senior adviser to the mayor. Working on the mayor’s team exposed Nigel to a broader spectrum of the Denver Metro area and permitted him to work on some of the city’s most complex challenges, such as homelessness.

In 2022, Nigel received his Juris Doctorate from the University of Denver’s Sturm College of Law. He currently works as a law clerk and policy adviser with Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, where one of his clients is CSU. Nigel fundamentally believes in providing a voice to the voiceless and expanding access to education, which inspired him to serve on the boards for the Global Livingston Institute and the Urban Peak homeless youth shelter in Denver.

About the award: The purpose of the GOLD award is to recognize a CSU graduate from the past 10 years for accomplishments made in the areas of career, service, and/or volunteer efforts that have brought honor to the individual and the University.