Ashland City Schools Foundation announces Distinguished Alumnus Award Class of 2023
The Ashland City Schools Foundation (ACSF) and members of the Distinguished Alumnus Award Committee have reviewed the nominations and selected five inductees to be honored as members of the Ashland High School Distinguished Alumnus Award Class of 2023.
The inductees are Sanford Keith Bowen, Class of 1937; Jennifer L. Gottfried, Class of 1996; Kim Knight Jacobs, Class of 1975; Dr. Anand Murthi, Class of 1987; and Cheryll Sponsler Welch, Class of 1963.
The 12th biennial event honors AHS graduates who have made significant achievements as adults in their careers and/or have served as benefactors to others. Candidates for special honorary recognition may also include individuals who have not graduated from Ashland High School but have made significant contributions to the Ashland City Schools. Organized in 2002, the Distinguished Alumnus Award has recognized 55 graduates and honorary recipients.
The inductees will be honored Homecoming Weekend (Sept. 22-23) beginning with an invitation to visit Ashland High School on Friday and attend the football game. The induction dinner will be held Sept. 23 at the Ashland University JC Myers Convocation Center. Tickets for the banquet are available for purchase at the Ashland City Schools Administrative Offices, 1407 Claremont Ave., or online at https://ticketstripe.com/ticket-ahs-2023daa through Sept. 8.
The honorees
Private First Class Sanford Keith Bowen (‘37) killed January 20, 1945, during World War II, was accounted for March 21, 2022. A homecoming and funeral with full military honors was held in Ashland, July 2022.
After high school, Bowen furthered his education as a business major at Ohio University for three years until wartime labor shortages brought him back to Ashland to work for his brother-in-law at Hess and Clark. He was employed as a department supervisor and attended Ashland College when he was drafted into the United States Army, June 1942.
Bowen trained for Quartermaster duties at Camp Perry and the Lake Erie Proving Grounds. In February 1943, he was re-assigned to the Infantry and transferred to Camp McCain in Mississippi and then to Fort Jackson in South Carolina.
Bowen arrived in Italy, June 4, 1944, as a replacement in I Company, 3rd Battalion, 157th Infantry Regiment, 45th Infantry Division. He was assigned as a rifleman and later also served as a radioman. Following the liberation of Rome, the regiment trained in Marseilles for Operation Dragoon. The invasion of Southern France began five months of steady fighting for Bowen.
In January, 1945, Bowen’s unit was attempting to secure terrain near Reipertswiller, France, when it was surrounded by German forces. Company I and the four other companies surrounded with it were given the order to attempt a break-out, but only two men made it through German lines. The rest were either captured or killed. Bowen was among those killed, but his body could not be recovered because of the fighting. Bowen was officially declared unrecoverable in 1951.
In June 2022, DPAA historians conducting on-going research into soldiers missing from combat around Reipertswiller disinterred a set of the previously unidentified remains from the Lorraine American Cemetery in St Avold, France and transferred to the DPAA Laboratory at Offutt Air Force base, Nebraska for analysis. Scientists used anthropological and mitochondrial DNA analysis to identify Bowen’s remains.
Bowen has been laid to rest in Mount Hope Cemetery, Shiloh. His name is memorialized on the Walls of the Missing at Epinal American Cemetery in Dinoze, France. A bronze rosette has been placed next to his name to indicate he has been accounted for.
Bowen married Virginia Page in November 1943. One year later, his bride would welcome the couple’s only son, Sanford Reed “Sandy” Bowen. Today, he is survived by two granddaughters, Lisa Simpson and Lori Reinbolt, and great grandson, Austin Miller.
Jennifer L. Gottfried, Ph.D. (AHS Class of ’96) is a senior research scientist for the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command Army Research Laboratory (ARL) at Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland. After high school, she obtained a B.S. in chemistry with minors in math and physics from Ohio Northern University, receiving multiple awards and honors as the highest-ranking graduate in her class. She earned her M.S. and Ph.D. in physical chemistry from the University of Chicago, where she received numerous awards including a National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship and the William Rainey Harper Dissertation Fellowship.
Gottfried began her career at ARL as a postdoctoral fellow and was subsequently hired as a civilian employee for the U.S. Army. She was named the Gold medal winner for Rookie Employee of the Year in Technical Scientific and Program Support by the Baltimore Federal Executive Board and was a co-recipient of a Research and Development Award for “Standoff Detection of Explosives.”
She is the lead investigator at ARL developing new methods for the laboratory-scale characterization of novel energetic materials necessary to protect our soldiers. Her pioneering work led to the development of the now patented laser-induced air shock from energetic materials (LASEM) method. In 2020, she received a Civilian Service Commendation Medal from the Department of the Army for outstanding technical excellence and significant accomplishments.
Gottfried is listed as one of Stanford’s Top 2% of Scientists in the world and has presented her work at over 200 conferences and meetings across U.S. and around the world. She served as an elected member-at-large for the Executive Committee of the American Physical Society Topical Group on Shock Compression of Condensed Matter and was elected chair of the 2026 Gordon Research Conference on Energetic Materials by the scientific community.
She has contributed to four books, over 100 Army technical reports, and has 70 peer-reviewed journal articles. As a recognized expert in laser spectroscopy and explosives characterization, she actively shapes scientific progress in these areas through volunteer service in scientific societies and as a reviewer for journal publications and research proposals.
Kim Jacobs grew up in Ashland and attended Edison Elementary School and Ashland Junior High. At Ashland High School, she participated in several sports teams (volleyball, basketball and track), and school activities including choir and marching band, and graduated from Ashland High School in 1975. She then went on to graduate from The Ohio State University, where she was a four-year letter winner in Track. She began her career as a police officer in 1979 for the City of Columbus Division of Police.
In 2012, Jacobs was promoted to chief of police and served as chief until her retirement in 2019. She served in numerous assignments throughout her nearly 40-year career including patrol, communications, internal affairs and jraining. Jacobs served as a commissioner on the Ohio Peace Officer Training Commission, was a board member for the Major Cities Chiefs Association and the Center for Family Safety and Healing.
Jacobs is a member of the King Avenue UMC Administrative Council, a cirector of the CME Federal Credit Union Board and a trustee of the Field Stone Lake Association, a neighborhood HOA. She has a bachelor of arts degree in sociology from The Ohio State University.
Jacobs has two adult sons and three grandchildren, and lives in Worthington with her wife, Bobbi.
Dr. Anand Murthi was born in Worcester Massachusetts and moved as a youngster to Ashland, Ohio. Currently, he is the Chief of Shoulder and Elbow Orthopaedic Surgery, at MedStar Union Memorial Hospital in Baltimore Maryland. He is also a Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery at Georgetown University School of Medicine.
Murthi graduated from Ashland High School in 1987. He was a three-year Varsity Tennis Letterman, won numerous awards for scientific research and was President of the National Honor Society. He received his undergraduate and medical degree in 1995 from Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine thru a combined program. He then matriculated to Washington, D.C., to complete his general surgery internship and orthopaedic surgery residency at George Washington University Medical Center where he was chief resident in 2000. He completed the internationally recognized fellowship in shoulder and elbow reconstruction at the New York Orthopaedic Hospital-Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center.
He is the editor in-chief for the journal Current Orthopaedic Practice. He has published and presented numerous research papers on a national and international stage. He has co-authored numerous book chapters and has been editor of two orthopaedic textbooks. As a teacher, he has been involved in teaching physicians around the country surgical techniques in shoulder and elbow surgery.
He is former president and founding member of the Association of Clinical Elbow and Shoulder Surgeons (ACESS) group. He is also an elected active member of the prestigious American Shoulder and Elbow Surgeons Society (ASES), an international group of shoulder and elbow surgeons dedicated to the mission of teaching and research.
He is married to Sarah Murthi, a physician/surgeon working at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. They have two children, Valon a sophomore at Virginia Tech and is studying economics, and Nina, a senior in high school who excels at computer coding.
A 1963 graduate of Ashland High School, Cheryll Sponsler Welch enrolled at Ohio University where she received a bachelor of science degree in education in 1967. Employed in the Springfield Local School District in 1967-68, she taught physical education and health at Ontario Junior High School. In the fall of 1968, she returned to Ohio University as a full time student, completing her master’s degree in guidance and counseling in 1969.
From 1969-1971, she was employed as a school counselor in South-Western City School District in Grove City, Ohio. In 1971-73, she was in Newport, Rhode Island, substitute teaching and working in a Navy commissary store. In Somerdale, New Jersey, from 1973-77, she was a guidance counselor at Highland High School in the Black Horse Pike Regional School District. In 1977, she moved to Waterville, Ohio and until 1980, worked as a middle school counselor in the Anthony Wayne School District.
In 1980, her family settled in Loudonville for 20 years before relocating to Ashland in 2001. In August 1980, Welch began her tenure of 29 years as a guidance counselor at Wooster High School in Wooster. Her duties included personal and group counseling, scheduling, verifying graduation credits, testing, college and career counseling, interaction with parents and colleagues and collaboration with community resources. After 38 years in education, Cheryll retired in 2009.
Welch's family has hosted three Rotary International exchange students hailing from Honduras, Turkey and Indonesia. They also volunteered as a “one on one” family to provide family experiences for young men from The Village Network, a correctional facility near Wooster. An annual supporter of Associated Charities, she has volunteered in the Christmas Adopt a Family program. She has served on the Smith Dairy Scholarship committee for 15 years. She is co-chairwoman of her Ashland High School class of 1963 60th reunion to be held in September.
She and her husband, Don, have a daughter and son-in-law, Kirstin and Andy Large, and two grandchildren, Cooper and Macey.
This article originally appeared on Ashland Times Gazette: Ashland City Schools Foundation honors AHS graduates
