Four Individuals Earn BVU Hall of Fame Enshrinement
Homecoming Weekend Sees Student-Athletes Celebrate Record Accomplishments
Buena Vista University inducted four individual student-athletes into the BVU Athletics Hall of Fame as part of the Homecoming celebration on Oct. 13-14 on the main campus in Storm Lake. A Hall of Fame Banquet on Friday night was followed by a dance as the band Bound2Be played in the Forum. New inductees were recognized during halftime of the Beaver football victory over Luther College on Peterson Field.
The Class of 2023 includes the following individuals: Jason Evers ’96, Dr. Ben Lickteig ’05, Jennifer (Stork) List ’07, and Shawn Olorundami ’09. Additionally, the 1983 BV softball team was enshrined into the BVU Athletics Hall of Fame (see separate story).
During his senior season, Jason Evers established the career scoring record in men’s basketball, a season in which he averaged 21.6 points and 8.8 rebounds. One year earlier, Evers and his teammates pushed BV to a 13-12 record which represented the first time in 16 years the Beavers finished over the .500 mark.
“The hall of fame isn’t something you think about while you play,” Jason said. “But now that I’m a part of it, it is fantastic, and I really appreciate it.”
Jason and his wife, Emily (Heath) Evers ’99, are the parents of two children. The family resides in Huxley. Jason serves Wells Fargo, the firm for which he has worked since his graduation from BVU.
Dr. Ben Lickteig traveled to Homecoming with his wife, Kelly, from their residence in Massachusetts, where they are raising their three children.
Ben started all 157 games of his BV baseball career and left as the school’s all-time hits leader with 193. Ben, according to Coach Steve Eddie ’00 MSE ’07, gave Beaver baseball immediate legitimacy among Northwest Iowans when he enrolled and joined the team.
“Thank you, Coach Eddie, for giving me the opportunity to play for you, and for being a foundational piece of the program you built,” Lickteig said. “It’s the thing I’m most proud of being a Beaver.”
Ben, an optometrist who majored in biology, owns and operates Lickteig Family Eyecare.
Jennifer (Stork) List won the Iowa Conference Women’s Golf Tournament by nine strokes in her MVP senior season for the Beavers. As a freshman, Jennifer was a part of the league title team at BV. In her middle two years as an undergraduate, she finished fourth and second, respectively.
An accounting major, Jennifer, a CPA, serves as a Managing Director at Ernst & Young, and last returned to campus in March as part of the Second Annual BVU Women Making History Alumni Panel during Women’s History Month.
“Golf is a remarkable teacher,” she said of her sport. “There are lots of life lessons in golf. It teaches patience; the importance of honesty in counting every stroke; it teaches us respect and perseverance, and all of those are life lessons I’ve used in my profession.”
She and husband Justin List ’07 have two children and reside in West Des Moines.
Like Ben and Jennifer, Shawn Olorundami ’09 followed a sibling to BVU. Only with Shawn, he followed his younger sister, Natalie Olorundami-Hughes ’09, who transferred from Iowa State to BV as a freshman. Shawn was a sophomore at the University of Iowa at the time.
“My success (at BVU) was due to the knowledge I was getting from professors I had, coupled with the technical skills of the coaching staff who gifted me with their time, and supported by the athletes that sharpened my skills,” Shawn said. “These things created a special alchemy that led to my success and to this honor tonight.”
Shawn ended up earning 14 all-conference honors in track and field. He became an All-American in both indoor and outdoor track and field, and still holds or is part of seven BVU records.
Shawn and his wife, Mary, are the parents of two children and have twin boys coming in December.