Wall Of Fame Ken Davis Class of 1930
While on the staff of The Manhattan Mentor, Ken Davis won a national award for the Best Extemporaneous Editorial by a U.S. high school student.  After two years in chemistry at K-State, he changed to Agricultural Journalism and graduated in 1934. After an MS degree from the University of Wisconsin, he worked for the US Conservation Service until he won a contract for his first novel in 1940. Quitting his job to write full time in Kansas,  his first novel won the Friends of American Writers Award for “Best Literary Work of a Western or Midwestern Author.”   As speechwriter to Milton S. Eisenhower, K-State President, Davis published a biography of Gen. Dwight Eisenhower and two more novels.   Next in Chicago, Davis wrote for Governor and Presidential Candidate Adlai Stevenson, and authored several biographies and many, wide-ranging articles.  

In 1963 KSU awarded Davis its Centennial Award for Distinguished Services and Assumption College awarded him an Honorary Doctorate of Letters in 1968.   He was a journalism instructor at New York University, adjunct professor of English at Clark University and of history at both the University of Kansas and Kansas State University.   Davis authored more than 20 non-fiction books including the official Kansas: A Bicentennial History.   The first of Davis’ masterwork five-volume biography of President Franklin D. Roosevelt won the prestigious Francis Parkman Prize in 1973 and was a finalist for the National Book Award.  Kenneth S. Davis died in 1999.