Grays receive Community Cornerstone Award

CornerBank has announced that Dr. Wallace Gray and Ina Turner Gray are the Community Cornerstone Award recipients for the months of June and July. In recognition of their accomplishments, CornerBank will contribute $200 to the non-profit organization of their choice.
A reception honoring Dr. and Mrs. Gray will be held at 10 a.m., Friday, July 23, in the CornerBank lobby, 900 Main. The public is invited to attend the reception.

The Grays have worked as a team on numerous volunteer endeavors. For 10 years, they have taught Sunday school at First United Methodist Church, tutored students at Whittier and Irving schools and served as a foster family for international students at Southwestern College. They have served on the FACT Board to reduce teen pregnancy in Cowley County more than five years, delivered federal food commodities in Winfield when needed and picked up trash along the highway with the Rotary Club for several years.

Wallace has participated in United Methodist Men 10 years and the First United Methodist Church Prison Ministry Team 5 years. He has volunteered with the Cowley County Council on Aging, Chautauqua, Rotary youth job-shadowing, Isle of Lights and William Newton Memorial Hospital ethics committee. He chaired the Winfield committee on the Bicentennial of the Constitution in 1987.

He received the Distinguished Alumni Award from Central Methodist University in 2008 and was a People to People Philosopher-Ambassador to China in 1993. Wallace earned a Ph.D from Vanderbilt University. He served on the Southwestern College faculty 40 years and is a United Methodist minister. He was a visiting professor at Kitakyushu University in Japan in 1997-98. He has more than 5,000 former students from universities in Kansas, Missouri, Tennessee, Texas and Japan. He has 181 published items, including two books translated from Japanese.

Ina has participated in United Methodist Women 12 years and served as a board member and volunteer for the Cowley County Historical Society 12 years. She has served on the Board for Winfield Childcare Center and tutored students at Winfield High School. She has served as archivist at First United Methodist Church many years, as well as working on the church missions and fellowship committees and chairing the employment services group. Since 1982 in the church’s Kansas West Conference, there is an annual local church history award named for Ina and presented to churches that have created their histories.

Ina earned a Master of Arts degree from Scarritt College. She was the director of archives and history for the Kansas West Conference of the United Methodist Church for 18 years. She was the executive director of Pi Gamma Mu, International Honor Society in Social Science for 20 years. She served as an instructor at Kitakyushu University in Japan in 1997-98.

The couple has traveled to 64 countries, but they always are happy to return home to Winfield.

The Grays were selected for the award by the Community Cornerstone Award selection committee, which includes Cindy Goertz, Ned Graham, Ralph Hanna, Roger Lungren, Sheryle Ohm and Nancy Tredway. All are previous recipients of the Cornerstone Award. Volunteers are the cornerstones of healthy communities. The Community Cornerstone Award recognizes the time and effort of volunteers dedicated to serving people and enhancing the quality of life in Cowley County. To make a nomination contact Ev Bowman at 221-1650 or evelynb@cornerbanks.com for nomination guidelines.

Make a nomination via PDF.