Denison University student Erika Johnson from Essex Junction honored for service

GRANVILLE, OH (04/29/2013)(readMedia)-- Since 1947 Denison University students have been formally honored with the Louis Kussmaul Friendship Award for their service to the Granville community. This year, senior Erika Johnson from Essex Junction, Vt., is one of two awardees. The Kussmaul award is presented to Denison students "who have contributed most to the friendly relations between Granville and the college." The students were recognized at the Kussmaul Award Luncheon held on Wednesday, April 17, at Denison. Denison President Dale Knobel and Maggie Barno, executive director of the Granville Area Chamber of Commerce, presented the award certificates.

Johnson, a philosophy, politics and economics major, was nominated by Jesse Yeager, assistant director of admissions at Denison. Yeager applauded Johnson for her role as a leader for YoungLife, a nondenominational Christian outreach ministry, saying "Erika has spent hundreds of hours selflessly serving the students in the Granville High School community. For all four years of her time at Denison, Erika has shared her life with Granville High School students, conducting weekly Bible studies, meeting for coffee, and hanging out with them after school, at school dances, and football games." Johnson also volunteers on the Denison campus. She is active in the Student Appeals Board and Denison's Moot Court team. After graduation, Johnson will work with the Jesuit Volunteer Corps in Baltimore as and as a paralegal at the Public Justice Center there. She plans to attend law school.

Denison University, founded in 1831, is an independent, residential liberal arts institution located in Granville, Ohio. A highly selective college enrolling about 2,100 full-time undergraduate students from all 50 states and dozens of foreign countries, Denison is a place where innovative faculty and motivated students collaborate in rigorous scholarship, civic engagement, and the cultivation of independent thinking.