Neosho High School alumna Sherry Buchanan has been appointed to the Missouri Southern Board of Governors.
“I’ve been an educator since the beginning. I’ve been a teacher and I continue to teach off and on,” Buchanan said. “Higher education is a real value in our family.”
She went to school in Goodman and Springfield, moving back to the area to spend her last two years of high school at Neosho. She graduated in 1965 as Sherry Lefler before attending Southwest Missouri State College, then graduating from University of Missouri in Kansas City.
She became a high school English teacher in Kansas City. An interest in school counseling prompted her to return to the University of Missouri for a master’s degree in guidance and counseling then her doctorate in counseling and psychology. After receiving her Ph.D, she went into clinical practice, but Buchanan remembers those days as a commuter student who worked and went to school at night.
She heard the seat was open at MSSU and in the late summer of this year submitted her application.
Buchanan said that after she retired at the beginning of this year, she wanted a way to be involved with the community.
She is currently a member of the Newton County Democratic Club and formerly a member of the Joplin Area Chamber of Commerce, Rotary International and Soroptimist International. She has worked with the Lafayette House with a domestic violence intervention program and the Children’s Center of Southwest Missouri.
“My career has been a combination of teaching, clinical and administrative work, mainly in the community not-for-profit organizations,” Buchanan said.
Many of the current board members are alumni. Buchanan expects she will add a little bit different perspective as a former instructor. She taught a class on family violence in the criminal justice department at MSSU.
“I need to be oriented and aware of the university as a community member,” Buchanan said. “Having taught there – even though it’s been a while back – I know lots of the students and several of the faculty out there.”
Buchanan will take the seat left by Jane Wyman in September of 2008. Douglas Davis, publisher of the Lamar Democrat, was appointed to the board by then-Gov. Matt Blunt, but when Blunt left office his unconfirmed appointees were negated and Wyman’s seat was open again. Terms for two other board members – Rod Anderson of Monett and David Ansley of Springfield – have expired, but they will likely continue to serve until either another candidate is appointed or the governor extends their term.
The position is not without its challenges. Buchanan admits that when she first applied for the board seat she knew the university faced financial challenges, but more recent developments like the controversy between the university president and faculty were not a matter of public discussion.
She says she’s confident that things will be worked out and that there are opportunities – like the medical school under consideration – in MSSU’s future.
“I think Southern is a wonderful institution,” she said. “We’ve got so many things that have been accomplished already and so many more possibilities.”
