MSU-Northern Founders’ Excellence Awards were presented to Charles Nelson, Mary Franklin and Gary Funk. The presentations took place during the Founders’ Excellence Dinner Friday, May 8th, 2009.

Charles Nelson, MSU-Bozeman’s registrar, was born and raised in Whitefish, Montana. In 1966 he graduated from Whitefish High School and came to Northern because his father had died and Charles had free transportation on the railroad from Whitefish to Havre.

In 1970, he graduated from Northern Montana College with a Bachelor of Science in Secondary Education majoring in History and Social Science. At the time he was influenced by many of the faculty and staff at Northern, including Cindy Bryson, Keith Clawson, Bill Erickson, Hans Peterson, and Joe Crowley.

Charles Nelson graduated during the Vietnam War and was drafted directly out of college. He served two years in the US Army and received an Honorable Discharge in 1972.

In 1973, Joe Crowley asked Charles to serve as the Public Information Director at Northern and in July he also took the role of Registrar and Director of Admissions. He held the role of Public Information Director until 1975 and continued the role of Registrar and Director of Admissions until 1979. Charles then took a leave of absence in 1980 from Northern to finish a Masters in Education at the University of Montana.

After completing his Masters, Charles decided not to return to Northern, but to gain more experience as the Registrar and Director of Admissions at the College of Great Falls (now the University of Great Falls), where he served until 1984.

In 1984, he accepted the Registrar position at Montana Tech in Butte. While at Tech, Charles served for a year as acting Academic Vice President and when he finally left in 1991 was the Registrar and Assistant Academic Vice President.

Following his role at Montana Tech, Charles accepted the Registrars position at MSU Bozeman. From 1993 to 2006, he was also the Director of Admissions and is currently serving as the Registrar.

Nelson and his wife, Mary, of thirty two years, also a Northern Graduate, currently reside in Bozeman. He says “The time as a student and administrator at Northern and the influences of the people I met there gave me the foundation to have a successful 36 year career in higher education and allowed me to have the opportunity to stay in Montana of which I feel very fortunate.”

Mary Franklin came to MSU-Northern after an early career as a cowhand on commercial beef ranches south of Chinook. After graduation, she and her late husband Kevin Holmes, also a graduate of Northern, went back to Alaska to work “one more summer.” Thirteen years later, after enjoying careers as varied as commercial fisherman, weight training instructor, environmental & wild salmon promoter, cocktail waitress & bartender, and Antarctic penguin wrangler, Franklin moved from rural Alaska to the San Francisco Bay area to accept a position at Lucasfilm.

Currently the Events Manager for the movie and entertainment company, Franklin produces events large and small around the world, from television appearances for Darth Vader to huge Star Wars conventions for tens of thousands of fans. She is Editor of the Official Star Wars Fan Club newsletter Bantha Tracks, and is a co-author on the recently-released Star Wars Encyclopedia.