October 1, 2026 — Hendrix College will present five alumni with the Odyssey Medal at a private luncheon and awards ceremony on October 30.
The Odyssey Medal is presented to alumni whose life achievements exemplify the ideals of the Hendrix Odyssey Program. Medalists are selected by the Hendrix Board of Trustees for their accomplishments in one of the six Odyssey categories: Artistic Creativity, Global Awareness, Professional and Leadership Development, Research, Service to the World, or Special Projects.
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Those receiving Odyssey Medals and their Odyssey categories are:
Bradley J. Crain '96 – 2026 Odyssey Medal for Professional Leadership & Development
Brad Crain is regional executive for enhanced banking services and a member of the Executive Committee for Arvest Bank, where he provides executive oversight for a broad portfolio of banking and financial services. Since joining Arvest in 2006, Crain has held numerous leadership positions, including President and CEO of the bank’s Benton County and Springfield regions and leadership roles with Arvest Wealth Management.
Before joining Arvest, Crain was senior vice president for SunTrust Bank in Atlanta, where he led a team serving more than 350 nonprofit organizations with assets exceeding $24 billion. Earlier in his career, he served as a chief fundraising officer for two higher education institutions.
Crain graduated cum laude from Hendrix in 1996 with a Bachelor of Arts in History. Active in Northwest Arkansas, he serves on the boards of Single Parent Scholarship Fund of Northwest Arkansas and Mercy Northwest Arkansas and on the Air Service Development Advisory Committee. He and his wife, Jeannette ’98, have three children, Sam, Owen, and Maggie.
Rose Thomson Gastler '12 – 2026 Odyssey Medal for Global Awareness
Rose Thomson Gastler is education director of Yuwa, a nonprofit in rural Jharkhand, India, that uses football and education to empower girls and expand their opportunities. Following her graduation from Hendrix in 2012, Gastler received a Walker Fellowship to study the use of sport to support girls, an experience that took her to Jharkhand and introduced her to Yuwa.
Gastler later joined the organization and founded Yuwa School, its English-medium college-preparatory school, serving as principal from 2015 to 2022. Today, she supports Yuwa’s program leadership while overseeing monitoring and evaluation, fundraising, donor relations, grant writing, and communications. Yuwa now reaches 800 girls across 35 village teams, with 147 students attending Yuwa School. Eighty-three percent of the school’s graduates have earned full scholarships to competitive universities in India and abroad.
Originally from St. Louis, Gastler now lives in Portugal with her family and travels regularly to Jharkhand.
Chelsey Bryant Krug '01 – 2026 Odyssey Medal for Research
Chelsey Bryant Krug is an aerospace engineer and production manager at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado Boulder, where she has spent more than two decades developing and producing hardware for spaceflight missions.
Krug graduated from Hendrix in 2001 with a degree in physics and began her research career as an undergraduate, working on projects involving a large ring laser and hybrid rocket propulsion. She later earned degrees in mechanical and aerospace engineering and, as a graduate student, served as lead design engineer for the dust detectors on the Student Dust Counter aboard NASA’s New Horizons mission to Pluto.
Today, Krug leads production activities supporting spaceflight hardware, coordinating internal manufacturing and assembly capabilities as well as outside manufacturers. Throughout her career, she has contributed to numerous NASA and spaceflight programs, including New Horizons, MAVEN, MMS, GOES-R, SUDA, IMAP, and TSIS-2.
Kevin L. Matthews '87 – 2026 Odyssey Medal for Service to the World
Kevin Matthews is head of electrification at First Student, where he leads the strategy and deployment of electric transportation initiatives across the company’s North American operations. Under his leadership, First Student has secured more than $600 million in government funding to add approximately 1,100 electric buses to its fleet and has developed innovative infrastructure and programs to make electrification more accessible to school districts.
Matthews has spent much of his career advancing environmental and energy initiatives in the public and private sectors. His work has helped shape electric school bus programs, vehicle-to-grid technology, renewable energy projects, and brownfield redevelopment. He began his career at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, rising from an EPA management intern to senior advisor for Administrator Carol M. Browner. His leadership there included developing, launching, and administering the EPA Brownfields Program.
Matthews graduated from Hendrix in 1987 with a Bachelor of Arts with distinction and later earned a Master of Public Affairs from the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin.
R. Madison Murphy '80 – 2026 Odyssey Medal for Special Projects
Madison Murphy is a business and civic leader whose career has spanned energy, finance, transportation, philanthropy, agriculture, and the arts. Over more than four decades, he has held numerous leadership positions with Murphy Oil Corporation and currently serves as chairman of Murphy USA and as a director of Murphy Oil Corporation. He is also president of The Murphy Foundation, managing member of Murphy Family Holdings, and a co-founder of Presqu’ile Winery in California.
Murphy’s service to Arkansas includes a decade on the Arkansas Highway Commission, including service as chairman, and extensive involvement with civic, arts, conservation, and business organizations. He also served on the Hendrix Board of Trustees, including as chairman from 2001 to 2011. Hendrix conferred an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters upon him in 2014 in recognition of his leadership and service.
Murphy and his wife, Suzanne, are both native Arkansans and 1980 graduates of Hendrix. They have three children, Matt, Jonathan, and Anna, and six grandchildren.
About Hendrix College
Founded in 1876, Hendrix College is featured in Colleges That Change Lives: 45 Schools That Will Change the Way You Think About Colleges and celebrated among the country’s leading liberal arts colleges for academic quality, engaged learning opportunities and career preparation, vibrant campus life, and value. The College’s signature career-readiness initiative, Via Hendrix, connects a transformative liberal arts education with a four-year plan for life after college. Via Hendrix, every student completes a full-time, semester-long professional co-op experience before graduation.
The Hendrix experience extends beyond the classroom, with students participating in 21 NCAA Division III sports and a campus community shaped in part by the College’s longstanding affiliation with the United Methodist Church, dating to 1884. As Hendrix celebrates its Sesquicentennial in 2026–2027, the College is marking 150 years of educating students while looking ahead to its next chapter. Learn more at via.hendrix.edu.
“… Through engagement that links the classroom with the world, and a commitment to diversity, inclusion, justice, and sustainable living, the Hendrix community inspires students to lead lives of accomplishment, integrity, service, and joy.” –Hendrix College Statement of Purpose