Thomas More University has announced it will honor three outstanding community members at the 27th Bishop William A. Hughes Award Dinner on Wednesday, April 2.
The awards are presented each year to individuals who have demonstrated leadership in the community and made a significant impact on Catholic education. Honorees at this year’s dinner include Melissa Lueke, Kathleen Siobhan Barone, Ph.D., and Garren Colvin.
• Melissa Lueke will receive the Bishop William A. Hughes Award, which recognizes those who have made significant contributions to Catholic higher education in the region. Lueke is a graduate of Notre Dame Academy and Xavier University, and her service to Catholic education spans both sides of the Ohio River. At Thomas More, she has served as chair of the finance committee, chair of the board of trustees, co-chair of the Second Century Campaign, and is the benefactor of an endowed scholarship which honors her late sister who attended Thomas More.
Lueke has also served on numerous boards and committees in the community, including the Josephine Heck Foundation, the Diocese of Covington Financial Council, Sisters of Notre Dame U.S.A., and serves as president of the board of trustees for New Perceptions, Inc., a nonprofit dedicated to promoting the welfare of children and adults with intellectual and/or developmental disabilities. Professionally, Lueke served as executive vice president, chief financial officer and secretary of Meridian Bioscience, Inc., a global medical diagnostics and life science company. Prior to joining Meridian, she was a member of the audit practice at Arthur Andersen.
• Kathleen Siobhan Barone, Ph.D. will receive the Dr. Raymond Hebert Distinguished Service Award, which honors those who have made outstanding contributions within the University. Barone served Thomas More from 1994 through her retirement in 2022 as an instructor, researcher, and chair of the biology department. During her time as chair, the biology department saw the highest level of external funding in its history.
Barone obtained two competitive National Science Foundation (NSF) grants, Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR) grants and two National Institute of Health (NIH) grants. She also served as the primary advisor and champion of the pre-medical program and established the University’s pre-med society. Decades of Thomas More graduates have gone on to careers in medicine due to Barone’s leadership, support, mentorship, and disciplined preparation.
Barone received the outstanding full-time faculty of the year award in 2009, and Thomas More recognized her by naming its cell culture laboratory in her honor in 2022, with much of the equipment obtained from her research and grant awards.
• Garren Colvin will receive the St. Thomas More Medallion, which is the highest dedicated service award granted to a member of the Thomas More community, recognizing that individual’s extraordinary service to the University and to the larger community it serves. Colvin will be honored with the award for 2025, a testament to his leadership both in the University community and the impact he makes across Northern Kentucky as president and CEO of St. Elizabeth Healthcare.
Colvin received a strong foundational education at Thomas More, earning a Bachelor of Arts in accountancy and business administration. His career at St. Elizabeth began in 1983 as a co-op student from Thomas More. Across nearly four decades, Colvin has held various roles and titles for the organization, including chief financial officer and chief operating officer.
Since being named president and CEO in 2015, Colvin has guided St. Elizabeth through the opening of a state-of-the-art cancer center and a regional heart and vascular center adjacent to its Edgewood campus to address critical health care needs in the region. In 2024, two of St. Elizabeth Healthcare’s hospitals – Lawrenceburg and Edgewood – each received five-star ratings from The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), two of only three hospitals in the Greater Cincinnati region to do so.
In 2022, Colvin was bestowed an honorary doctoral degree in medicine from Thomas More. Colvin and his wife, Susan (Kelsch) Colvin, were previously the recipients of a Bishop Hughes Award in recognition of the outstanding support they have demonstrated to Catholic education in the region.
To purchase tickets, or for information on sponsorship and gift opportunities for the 27th Bishop William A. Hughes Award Dinner, please visit tmuky.us/bhadrsvp.
Thomas More University