Langford to Receive Outstanding Senior Award (5/4/06)

BILLINGS, MT – For the second year in a row, a Montana State University-Billings women’s basketball player will be the recipient of the school’s Outstanding Senior Award.  Jenny Langford, a senior guard from Reed Point, Mont., will receive one of the university’s three Outstanding Senior Awards during commencement ceremonies this weekend.  Last year, Lady Yellowjacket Robyn Milne was honored as an Outstanding Senior. 

Jenny Langford: Epitome of focus --- 2006 Outstanding Senior Award Winner
By Dan Carter, University Relations

Ask any student who takes a load of history classes: It takes a certain amount of focus to read a six-inch pile of textbooks, keep up with lectures and write enough papers to fill the back seat of a mid-sized American car.

Try tossing in some student teaching classroom work and a special education clinical experience and that single-mindedness gets taxed to a new level.

And if you add 30 college basketball games and the requisite number of practices and travel, you get Jenny Langford.

“What really impressed me was her focus,” said Dr. Matt Redinger, chairman of the Department of History, whom Langford said taught many of her favorite classes. “She seemed to have her priorities straight.”

Langford, a 23-year-old daughter of a Reed Point area cattle ranching family, is known to women’s basketball fans as a long-range shooter that could put the dagger in the heart of any opponent’s comeback hopes. In the classroom, she was known as a hard-working, conscientious student

She will graduate this weekend with a bachelor of arts in history with a teaching option and a bachelor of science in special education and will finish her college career with a 3.95 grade point average.

“She has the best work ethic that there could possibly be,” said Dr. Kathy Kelker, assistant professor in the Department of Special Education, Counseling, Reading and Early Childhood Development. “Clearly, her values have been shaped by Montana.”

Kelker, who supervised Langford in a special education clinical setting, said the slightly-built and calm senior demonstrated strength and composure while dealing with a group of particularly challenging special education students. For a relative novice in that field, the quality of Langford’s work was remarkable, Kelker said.

Easy with a smile, Langford models a gregarious, easy-to-talk-to style. Being a student-athlete is hard work, she said, but can be done with good planning and communication with the professors.

“The university is small enough that you get to know your professors pretty well,” she said. “The professors here care about you and are willing to work with you if you talk with them.”

Langford found a home at MSU Billings after transferring from UM-Western in 2002. The decision was made for basketball reasons, but her academic career flourished at MSU Billings as well.

Calling her an “active learner” who was never afraid to speak up, Redinger said Langford was a “delight” in class and understood that she was a student first and an athlete second.

“She never made excuses that she would have to travel and couldn’t get her work done,” he said. “She always had it taken care of or had it done early.”

As a member of the Lady Yellowjacket Basketball team for four years, Langford filled a number of roles, including that of captain this past year. She provided strong leadership to the team and made a mark in the record books. Here are some.

Career:
21st for points scored (842)
3rd for free throw percentage (80.5)
2nd for 3-pointers made (184)
9th for 3-point percentage (35.9)
7th for assists (291)

Single season:
2nd for 3-pointers made (68 in 2003-04)
10th for 3-pointers made (50 in 2005-06)
13th for 3-pointers made (44 in 2004-05)
10th for 3-point percentage (40.7 in 2003-04)

Single game:
Tied for 2nd for 3-pointers made (6, three times in 2004-05)
T-3rd for 3-pointers made (5, once in 2004-05, once in 05-06)

Kevin Woodin, head women’s basketball coach, said much of the success of the young team this past season was due to Langford’s leadership.

“She’s a real solid person and that transcends onto the court,” he said.

During spring semester, Langford completed student teaching both in her content area of history and in special education at Castle Rock, while also leading the Lady Yellowjackets to the Heartland Conference championship.

Her additional activities have included Billings Bees basketball camps, Adopt-a-School Elementary program, Vacation Bible School Assistant and Volunteer scorekeeper for MSU Billings volleyball games.

Langford is interested in teaching in a small school so that she can maintain a ranch setting. She would like to stay close to home, but would not rule out Alaska, she said.

Eventually, however, she wants to start her own family, settle down and raise organic vegetables and beef.

Langford, as well as fellow Outstanding Senior Award winners Jacquelyn Weitz and Nadeen Falagan, will cross the stage during the MSU Billings 79th annual Commencement ceremony this Saturday, May 6, at 10:00 a.m., at MetraPark.