Knox Stories
Drake Sykes ’17 Returns as Prairie Fire Assistant Baseball Coach
This is Sykes' second stint on the athletics staff having served in this role for the 2019-20 academic year.
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by Elise Goitia '18
Knox's Phi Beta Kappa chapter began a new page in its history this spring with its most recently inducted members, who signed their names in a brand-new book.
Phi Beta Kappa is the nation's most prestigious academic honor society. Knox's chapter is the fourth oldest in Illinois and the first at an exclusively undergraduate, four-year liberal arts college in the state.
At Knox's first Phi Beta Kappa induction ceremony in 1917, the inaugural members signed a small, leather-bound book, a practice that's continued for the last 100 years. At the 2016 ceremony, the signatures of 2,028 Knox College Phi Beta Kappa members filled its pages.
To mark its 100-year anniversary at the 2017 induction ceremony on June 3, incoming members added their signatures to a new black leather-bound book with the Phi Beta Kappa key embossed on the cover.
"It's very rewarding to see the College reach its centennial observation," said Rothwell C. Stephens Distinguished Service Chair in Mathematics Kevin Hastings, who was inducted as a junior into the 58th Knox class of PBK and has been a Knox professor since 1981. "It's a testament to the quality of what we do here."
A number of notable figures can be counted among the ranks of PBK members, including 17 U.S. Presidents, 39 U.S. Supreme Court Justices, and 136 Nobel laureates. Notable Knox alumni members include the co-creator of the foundational language of computing, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, and the director of the International Women's Human Rights Clinic.
The new members are as follows:
Published on June 21, 2017