Court of Honor

The Court of Honor, established in 1988, is one of the Foundation’s most prestigious awards. The recognition is given annually to individuals who have excelled in one of the following categories: Agriculture, Arts, Business and Industry, Community Service, Education, Philanthropy, Professions, Public Service, Sports or Youth.

Business & Industry - Alice & Paul Gutierrez

Like many great American business stories, the origins of Alice and Paul Gutierrez’s Midwest Maintenance Inc. was in a garage. The couple, originally from just outside San Antonio, came to Omaha in the early 1960s. Paul was stationed at Offutt Air Force Base and the two exchanged daily letters.

They married on August 11, 1962, and Alice joined Paul in Omaha. The couple left behind all their family and their tightknit, culturally rich community to begin a new life in Nebraska. While Paul was finishing out his Air Force commitment, he began working part time for Haskin’s Maintenance janitorial service. A few years later they bought part of the business and called it Paul’s Building Maintenance Inc.

Armed with little more than $7 vacuum from Goodwill and working out of the family garage, the couple took on all the work they could get. When children entered the picture – Mark was first, followed by Jamie and then Mona – the couple brought the kids along on cleaning jobs as they couldn’t afford babysitters.

Those early days were “chaotic,” the couple said. “We’d finish cleaning around 3 in the morning, go home to sleep for three hours and get up and do it all over again.”

Midwest Maintenance has become Nebraska’s largest minority-owned business and now has locations in seven states. The business, headed by daughter Jamie, who took over in 1999, was built on Paul and Alice’s core values: assuming responsibility for one’s actions, keeping the lines of communication open, taking pride in a job well done, exceeding expectations and cultivating positivity.

Midwest Maintenance offers a full range of cleaning, disinfecting, and sanitizing services and has earned national accreditations not only as a minority-owned business, but also as a woman-owned business entity.

Faith and education are two of the tenets Paul and Alice hold in highest regard. They credit their former parish priest, Rev. Anthony Milone, who later became bishop of Great Falls-Billings, Montana, with keeping their spirits buoyant when they needed to rely on the strength of their Catholic faith.

All three children graduated with degrees from college, and later, Paul and Alice earned degrees from Bellevue University. Paul earned a Bachelor of Science in business and Alice was awarded a Bachelor of Arts in art with a minor in psychology.

Even though they are now retired, the couple remain active with volunteer work. Alice is on the board of a nonprofit resale store that raises funds to help prevent homelessness, and Paul is President of the Board of Directors of Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Monterey. They have enjoyed traveling and are both art and history buffs. They also dote on their grandchildren and great-granddaughter.

Over the years the couple has been involved in a number of organizations including Paul’s volunteer work with the Catholic Campaign for Human Development, a national organization directed at breaking the cycle of poverty by helping low-income people participate in decisions that affect their lives, families and communities throughout the country. He also was on the group’s board of directors.

Paul served 15 years as Board President of the Chicano Awareness Center, now known as the Latino Center of the Midlands. He was also instrumental in getting United Way funding to shift the mission of the center to education and advocacy and from strictly a cultural awareness agency to a more services-oriented agency.

Alice was active in raising funds for Head Start and in starting a Head Start program at the Chicano Awareness Center. Together with Sister Jan Mengenhauser, Alice formed the Esperanza program to help new immigrant women orient themselves in the community, economy, and medical services and help in finding jobs. Later, Esperanza was passed on to and run by Catholic Charities.

Paul and Alice also served on the Catholic Hispanic Ministry Committee, a group dedicated to bringing Spanish Mass to the Omaha community. In addition, the couple has been involved in projects for the new Indian Chicano Center, now known as One World Community Health Centers. Alice volunteered at the organization to help women in poverty. From its humble beginnings to today, One World now employs over 400 medical professionals and staff.

For Alice and Paul, it is a love story that goes back longer than their 60th wedding anniversary, which they celebrated in August 2022. “From the moment I saw her, I knew she was the one,” he said. “Of course, it took a bit longer to convince her. But I was content to wait… I was only in the fourth grade, after all.”

Never mind Alice didn’t actually speak to Paul until their junior year in high school. Growing a small business into a success story all while raising three children wasn’t always easy. But they provided the park for each other to keep it all moving even when they’d feel overwhelmed. Alice and Paul’s isn’t just a great American dream story, it’s also a great love story.

Public Service - Mike Morgan

Since 2005, Kearney City Manager and Boone, Iowa native, Mike Morgan has seized every opportunity he could to grow his city and improve life for its residents, no matter how much work it entailed.

That work ethic, along with learning that sometimes a less bureaucratic approach in government, has been one of the keys to Morgan’s and, in turn, Kearney’s success. While he won’t take credit for it, Morgan’s efforts on behalf of Kearney have helped the city achieve an unemployment rate of 1%, believed to be the lowest in the nation.

And Kearney’s 14.8-cent municipal levy is lowest of all first-class cities in the state. “I believe in a solution-based city culture,” he said. “How do we make things happen instead of how do we stop it?”

Morgan has been involved in a long list of economic development efforts that reads like a greatest hits list for the area. Among them are establishing the Development Review Team that has provided one-stop development review of over $837 million in development projects since 2009. Major projects include the relocation of the Central Nebraska Veterans Home, expansion of the Buckle, a 5-megawatt (MW) solar facility, the Compute North 100-MW data center, the Younes Conference Center facilities and downtown revitalization.

Morgan has also worked to help revive passenger traffic to and from Kearney Regional Airport. In 2021, the 25, 238 outbound passengers was the highest number ever for the airport, and July’s air travel forecast was expected to be the highest it has been since the Pandemic.

In July 2021, Morgan announced his plans to retire but has stayed on as the city looks for his replacement. Work remains to be done and Morgan is doing all he can to move projects along, like The Gardens a Yanney Park. The $8 million botanical garden – a multiphase project – is something the community and visitors will appreciate for years to come.

Plans are also underway to complete a $9 million indoor tennis complex on the University of Nebraska Kearney campus at University Village, a collaboration that unites the University and community into one integration to benefit the state and region. And a voter-approved $34 million recreational field house is under design and expected to be completed in 2024.

Once retired, Morgan plans on staying in Kearney. He and his wife, Jill, have two daughters and five grandchildren close by whom they spend a lot of time with. Kearney is home to the Morgans through Mike’s career has taken him across the U.S., from his college years at Northwest Missouri State and then Drake University for graduate school to jobs in Dallas, Delaware, Ohio and 15 years in Salina, Kansas.

In Salina, his last stop before coming to Kearney, Morgan was Deputy City Manager and said he was fortunate to work under great municipal leaders. All those experiences helped shape Morgan to become the man Kearney needed to thrive.

In the future, Morgan wants to spend more time with his vintage truck, working on landscaping projects, and further exploring his family genealogy, especially his Welsh and English ancestors. But a big part of the days will be spent with his grandchildren, Keagan, Avery, Harrison, Henly, and Holden. They range in age from 10 months to 12 years old.

“There is a quote I like and that’s how I feel about the coming years; Harry Emerson Fosdick said, ‘Don’t simply retire from something; have something to retire to,” Morgan said.

And through the multi-million-dollar municipal projects will be behind him, there is plenty that’s going to keep him fully occupied for many years to come.

Business & Industry - Bill Kubly

If you’re a golfer, chances are you’ve played a course designed by Bill Kubly. Or maybe more accurately, you’ve dreamed of, or plan to someday play a course designed by Kubly. He is behind some of the world’s most well-known courses including many area courses.

Kubly’s company, Landscapes Unlimited, based in Lincoln, has built more than 300 golf courses around the world. If you watch golf on TV, you’ve seen his work. If you love to golf, you’ve admired his craft up close from the tee box and putting greens his company has built.

The Wisconsin native is a lifelong lover of the game. When he was attending the University of Wisconsin in Madison in the early 1970s, the school didn’t offer the program he hoped would be his major – golf course architecture, so he created his own curriculum. About that time, he also met his future wife, Myrna Leibfried.

The couple married in 1971 and pursued their respective career paths – Myrna as a retail merchandiser and Bill in golf course design and construction. His first job was in Nebraska with Watson Golf Course Construction and it gave him the chance to learn the business from the ground up. And he did it all, from back-office responsibilities to the hands-on work of grading, drainage; rough shaping; green, tee and bunker construction; grassing and seedbed prep – he got to know the business inside and out.

Ready to strike out on his own, Kubly created Landscapes Unlimited in 1976 and Myrna started her job at Hovland-Swanson department store, where she was a buyer and merchandise manager.

“The success of Landscapes Unlimited has a lot to do with hiring the best people and fostering an innovative, collaborative culture,” he said.

Now with more than 45 years in the golfing industry, the company has achieved an international reputation, and not just for their technical expertise and engineering capabilities, but also for the across-the-board approach to bringing together all the aggregate elements of a golf facility.

Landscapes Unlimited has completed over 2,300 projects across the world including golf course construction, renovation and recreational development. Kubly has built courses in 45 of the 50 states in the U.S., as well as in Dubai, Canada, Mexico, Scotland and China. In addition, their Landscapes Management Company has been responsible for the development and management of more than 65 golf courses since 1990 with more than 2,000 employees.

And Kubly hasn’t lost his love for the game or his craft.

“I can still become exhilarated at the prospect of creating a new course, and everything that goes with it. Especially if all the elements line up – great terrain, beautiful view from the tees and clubhouse, and a talented team of designers.”

His next project – Lost Rail Golf Course in Omaha – has all the hallmarks of what could be one of the top 100 golf courses in the U.S. It’s a dream enterprise for Kubly.

“When I first saw the site, saw the team, I couldn’t have been more excited. It’s going to be first rate – a big draw.”

Kubly – who counted golf legend Arnold Palmer as one of his dearest friends – spends time with his family between their residences in Chicago and Palm Desert, California. But Lincoln is still home and the Kubly’s cherish their time there, especially with their four grandchildren: Ava, 17; Sophie 15, and Jack Flynn, 9 (daughters of Paige and her husband, Jim Flynn); and Bear Pugliese, 5 (son of Lauren and her husband, John Pugliese). Jack Flynn and John Pugliese work in the family business.

And the grandchildren? Of course they are avid golfers. How could they not be?

Business & Industry - Ruth Thomas

The Thomas Funeral Home has helped many North Omaha residents get through their families’ darkest days. So it’s fitting that Ruth Patrick Thomas has been a sources of light and inspiration to so many during her 102 years.

She has been a pioneer, an innovator, groundbreaker and social justice torchbearer. She’s been described as fearless, intrepid, a “rugged individual,” and, though it goes without saying, a “champion multitasker.”

Aksarben Court of Honor recipient, Thomas is all of those things and so much more.

From a very early age, it was clear that Thomas was in charge of her own destiny and already well down path of marching to a different drummer’s beat. Born in Lincoln on April 18, 1920, to James Arthur and Odessa Hillman Patrick, Thomas was the eldest of three daughters and the granddaughter of David Patrick, a former slave and the first Black resident of Aurora, Nebraska.

Grandfather raised Hambletonians – a breed of horse known for the strength of a plow horse and the grace of a pacer. Thomas raised more than a few alarms by riding the family horse. Doll, bareback through the orchard. And long before she was old enough to be a licensed drive, she was driving a car in the fields.

Throughout her life, Thomas maintained an interest in combustion engines and was well-acquainted with their inner workings. To her sisters’ delight, Thomas built the other girls go-karts using spare parts she found around the family farm.

Unfortunately, that free-spirited country lifestyle came to an end when the Great Depression forced the family to move to Lincoln where her father found work on WPA projects. Thomas graduated from Lincoln High in 1939 and from the University of Nebraska in 1943.

She met Francis Edgar Thomas at church, fell in love and eloped on November 29, 1943. He was on leave from the military and the couple returned to his base in Fresno, California, where the following year they had their first child, Janet Ruth. The couple moved back to Omaha after he was discharged from the U.S. Army, and Francis joined his brother Wendell in the family business, Thomas Funeral Home.

In 1954, nine months after the couple’s second child was born, Thomas enrolled in the College of Mortuary Science in St. Louis, bucking the trend of women staying home to care for the family rather than pursuing advanced degrees. “That was unheard of in those days – Ruth just did whatever she wanted to,” her mother said.

In 1955, she graduated and was the only female and the only African American in her class. She returned to working as a Douglas County child welfare caseworker but was also a licensed Embalmer and the Funeral Director at Thomas Funeral Home.

The 1960s found her involved with the Committee for Civil Liberties working to desegregate area restaurants and promote corporate employment opportunities for African Americans. She felt it was important for her children to see firsthand the historic significance of the work being done for racial equality.

From 1965 to 1970 she was the Director of the North Omaha YWCA and participated in “Get Out the Vote” activities for years. Later years found her serving on the Omaha School Board, was appointed to serve on the Board of Governors for Metro State College and served on the Board of Directors at Charles Drew Health Center.

In 2003, she was awarded the NAACP Freedom Fighters Award.

And when there was a free moment, not that there were many raising a family, being active in church and social justice and running the family business, Thomas still found time to get under the hood of her beloved Peugeot to change spark plugs and do other routine maintenance. If ever there was a renaissance woman in Nebraska, Ruth Thomas fits that bill and so much more.

Leadership in Philanthropy/Community Service - Dr. Candace Gregory

For nearly 30 years, Dr. Candace Gregory’s name has been synonymous with the organization she leads – the Open Door Mission. Probably no one exemplifies the commitment and everlasting work on behalf of the area’s most vulnerable like Gregory.

Since her first days at the Mission, her scope of influence has been evident and expanded exponentially. Recognized as a national advocate for the homeless, she has been sought out for her experience in implementing community prevention programs that help end the cycle of homelessness and poverty.

Gregory is noted for creating and implementing the Individual Program Plan (IPP) for more effective case management on behalf of men, women, and families, as well as a long-term recovery program for the Mission to better serve those who are ready to build lasting solutions to the problems that placed them in crisis.

And yet, it wasn’t supposed to work out like this for her. In 1995, Gregory , then a young social worker from New Brunswick, Canada, made a one-year commitment to the Open Door Mission in Omaha. It was to be just a temporary trade between her beautiful native Canada with its sandy beaches, colorful fishing village, incredible marine wildlife, and all that fresh seafood, and landlocked Nebraska in the middle of the U.S. Just one year, right?

Hardly, now 27 years later, Gregory is still here and helping the mission thrive. All because she fell in love – with the place, the people, the challenge and the chance to build that sense of hope for society’s most marginalized people.

She said what guides her each day is the Biblical quote from Matthew that states, “Whatever you do for the least of my brethren, you do for me.”

That sentiment is really what defines her.

“From the jump I’ve been enamored with the clients who sought out the organization for help and with their subsequent success stories,” she said, “It is an incredible blessing to be able to observe their transformations from individuals at risk, to successful members of the community. It’s what keeps me focused and excited to do this work after 27 years.”

For Gregory, it is all about wearing a number of different hats. That’s what it takes to guide the 40-plus programs the mission offers. From ensuring responsible fiscal oversight, to devising marketing strategies to growing more than 5,000 pounds of fruits and vegetables that the Mission uses to feed its residents each year, Gregory sees it all on a daily basis. That’s not to mention the public speaking engagements and taking scheduled turns at the Mission’s street ministry as well.

She cites the partnership she’s developed with an ever-growing number of Omaha businesses and service organizations as well as like-institutions internationally among the keys to the Mission’s success.

Supervising the administration of the 917-bed facility is a job that requires attention, devotion, and consistency, all with little downtime. But luckily, there is expert help on the Gregory home front. Clearly, she not only fell head-over-heels for the Mission and its clientele, she also fell in love with her colleague, Steve Gregory.

The couple married in summer 1996 in Canada, and three years later, after their second son was born, Steve retired from full-time ministry and became the primary caregiver of their children and home.

“We both realized our family and the Open Door Mission would require nothing less than a 24-7 commitment from each of us,” she said.

Though her awards, accolades, and accomplishments are innumerable, she and Steve take special pride in their three sons and one daughter. Steven, the oldest, is an accountant at BerganKDV in Grimes, Iowa, and working to complete his CPA requirements. Samuel, their second son, is married to his junior high sweetheart, Emily, and both are full-time students at the University of Iowa where he is in the Master of Social Work program. Their third child, Chloe, attends Grandview University in Des Moines, where she competes in track and field and is pursuing a nursing degree. Youngest child, Daniel, is a senior in high school and competes in wrestling, football, and golf and is a volunteer firefighter.

Public Service - Brad Ashford

In April, Nebraska lost one of the state’s most effective and unique political leaders when Brad Ashford, a former member of the U.S. Congress and the Nebraska Legislature, died at the age of 72.

Ashford is remembered for his consensus-building and for fighting for the welfare of others. He began his political career as a registered Republican, then a Democrat, then an independent, and finally a Democrat again in 2014.

“You couldn’t tell if he was a Democrat or a Republican,” said former Nebraska Corrections Director, Bob Houston. “He wasn’t outspoken about politics. Brad Ashford just wanted to do the right thing… and get things done.”

Ashford was born November 10, 1949, in Omaha to Ellen Swanson and Donald Ashford. The Ashford family’s roots are firmly embedded in Nebraska soil going back generations. The Swansons had recently arrived in Nebraska from Sweden, but quickly found their footing W. Otto Swanson, Brad’s maternal grandfather, was a city leader and President and CEO of the Nebraska Clothing Company.

Long fascinated by teams and their inner workings, along with his family background in retail (the customer’s needs always come first) helped make Ashford incredibly effective at reaching across the aisle. He is remembered by colleagues from both parties as a consensus builder who could accomplish positive outcomes.

After graduating from Westside High School, he attended Colgate University in New York and returned to Omaha where he graduated Law School at Creighton University. Ashford served two eight-year stints in the Nebraska Legislature and then two years in the U.S. House of Representatives.

As head of the Omaha Housing Authority, Ashford served the city’s poorest and most diverse populations, becoming a mentor and advisor to many individuals in the art of public-private partnerships and collaboration. And as a guest columnist for the Omaha World-Herald, he was able to share decades of experience with readers.

But as dedicated as he was to public service and advocacy for others, he was an even more devoted husband and father. In 1993 he married Ann Ferlic, and Omaha lawyer and health care executive, and the two had three children. Oldest son, John is a city prosecutor and the father of 2-year old Rose. Daughter Ellie lives in Brooklyn and works for Tiffany & Co., in marketing and social media. Youngest son, Tom lives in Kansas City and is employed by Kiewit Corp.

Ashford loved nothing more than spending time with his family, especially chilling out at their vacation home in Ely, Minnesota. And his family’s involvement with Aksarben was also generational. Grandfather, Otto was crowned King in 1939; his father, Don, was an Escort; his father-in-law, Randy Ferlic, was a Court of Honor recipient for his groundbreaking work in thoracic and heart surgery; and Ellie Ashford was an Aksarben Princess and John and Tom have both served as Escorts.

Ashford wrote a final Facebook post on Easter Sunday, two days before his death from brain cancer, and his message was a familiar one to all who knew him saying he was “grateful for so many things, like family, excellent healthcare, and the new hope this season brings. I hope you all find joy with family and friends and that we continue to care for one another.”

Brad Ashford is honored posthumously as an Aksarben Court of Honor recipient for his passion and public service and his time serving the state as an elected official.