Four are Honored by Alumni Association
	Herman E. Muller Jr. '51, Tom Nugent '36, Joseph Olefirowicz '94, and Charles Werly have been honored by the Ithaca College Alumni Association for their contributions to the institution. The four were recognized May 30 during the Reunion weekend banquet. Muller, chairman of the Ithaca College Board of Trustees since 1993 and a member of that board for more than 30 years, is the recipient of the alumni association's Distinguished Alumni Award. Muller, who now serves as a private financial consultant, was formerly affiliated with the accounting firm of Pannell Kerr Forster of New York City; served as a senior partner with Milligan, Muller, and Company, certified public accountants; and was a partner in the management consultant firm of Muller, Bennett, and Associates. He holds a bachelor of science degree in management from Ithaca College and a master's degree from Columbia University's Graduate School of Business. In addition to his consulting activities, Muller currently serves on the advisory board of HRE Properties, Inc., and has served as a member of the Empire Housing Foundation of New York. With a keen interest in the arts, Muller has also served as a director/trustee of the National Institute for Music Theatre, the Lake George Opera Festival, the International Leopold Stokowski Society, the American Symphony Orchestra, and the Manhattan School of Music. At Ithaca, Muller has served with distinction both as board chair and as a member of committees on audit and finance, buildings and grounds, compensation and benefits, educational policy, resource planning, and trusteeship. He and his wife, Evelyn, live in Diamond Point, New York. Nugent is the recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award. A 1970 inductee into the Ithaca College Sports Hall of Fame, he is regarded as one of college football's greatest innovators for the work he did over 17-year coaching career at the Virginia Military Institute, Florida State University, and the University of Maryland. It was at VMI that Nugent developed the famed 'I' formation, a development that has linked his name with the likes of football legends Knute Rockne, Pop Warner, and Amos Alonzo Stagg. At Ithaca, Nugent won 10 letters in football, basketball, baseball, and track. A captain in the Army Air Corps during World War II, he served as a fitness trainer for officers heading overseas, and later as a director of entertainment for a base in Missouri. Following the war, he coached high school football teams in Virginia before accepting the position at VMI in 1949. He coached until 1966, when he began a four-year stint as a television color analyst with ABC. In addition to his Ithaca honors, Nugent is a member of the Florida State University Sports Hall of Fame and the state of Florida's hall of fame. The Outstanding Young Alumni Award went to Olefirowicz, a rising young star who concurrently serves as the associate music director for the German company of Miss Saigon and as conductor for the German company of Disney's Beauty and the Beast. Olefirowicz previously served as music director of one of the world's top musical extravaganzas, the German version of Andrew Lloyd Webber's Starlight Express. Olefirowicz gained national attention at age 11 after singing in a contemporary opera performed with the Boston Musica Viva chamber ensemble. By age 14 he was conducting his own 30-voice choir. At Ithaca, Olefirowicz performed as a vocalist and instrumentalist and worked on producing, directing, and even doing lighting design for a number of College productions. His College credits include music direction for The All Night Strut (the first main-stage musical to be conducted by an undergraduate), The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, and student productions including Three Guys Naked from the Waist Down. Olefirowicz has now set his sights on a Broadway career. Werly was the recipient of the James J. Whalen Meritorious Service Award, established last year in recognition of Whalen's 22 years of leadership and service as president of Ithaca College. An Ithaca native, Werly established the Jane Woods Werly Endowed Scholarship Fund, which is awarded to students majoring in theater arts or music, and concentrating in musical theater. Werly set up the scholarship in 1982 as a 50th wedding anniversary gift to his wife, who attended the Ithaca Conservatory of Music and had a lifelong appreciation for music and the theater. The fund now has a market value of more than $1.4 million. Werly received a B.S. degree in agriculture from Cornell University in 1927 and later earned an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School before embarking on a career in finance. He retired in 1975 as chairman of the board of the Putnam Group of Mutual Funds in Boston. He is also a trustee of the Saquish Foundation, which he had established with his wife as a vehicle for their philanthropy. Werly served on the Cornell board of trustees from 1966 to 1972, and was chairman of its investment committee. A life member of the Cornell University Council, he is also a past president of the Cornell Alumni Association. In 1965, in honor of his mother, he established the Margaret E. Werly Fellowship Fund at Cornell, which provides graduate fellowships in the humanities. Werly maintains a close relationship with Ithaca College and continues his enthusiastic support for the scholarship fund in the name of his late wife.