W. P. SANDFORD AWARD

Sandford served as President in 1930 and 1931. He was a Professor of English and Rhetoric at University of Illinois at Champaign/Urbana.  Sandford published numerous scholarly articles in a variety of journals, including the Quarterly Journal of Speech, throughout the 1930s and 1940s.  The Sandford award is in recognition of exceptional service to the Association over an extended period of years and significant contributions to the field of speech and theatre.

2024 W.P. Sandford Award Winner

Ken Carter

Ken earned his BA in English Education, with a minor in Psychology, at Western Illinois University in 1993.  In 2005, he earned a MA in Communication from the University of Illinois at Springfield. 

Professionally, he began his teaching career at Glenwood High School in Chatham, Il, in August of 1993 as an English and speech instructor.  During this entire time, he has remained the head speech coach.  After two years of coaching junior high track and field as an assistant coach, he added group interpretation/ contest drama to his yearly coaching duties.  In 2017, he started adding debate events into the competitive schedule.  In order to help facilitate this new program, he successfully lobbied his school to allow him to create a debate course.   Coaching has allowed him to explore his passions while facilitating a means for his students to become IHSA state qualifiers, IHSA state finalists, and National qualifiers.  

His desire to give back to the communication and theater community has led him to seek other experiences connected to our field.  Not long after he joined ICTA (then ISTA), he became a SCOTIE representative, who eventually served as the SCOTIE Assistant Chair (2006-2007) followed by the SCOTIE Chair (2007-2008).  Since 2005, he has served as an adjunct instructor and dual credit instructor for Lincoln Land Community College.  He has served on the Speech Advisory Committee 2013-2016 and 2021-present.  Additionally, he has served on IHSA Drama and Group Interpretation State Committee since 2019, and he served as the student volunteer coordinator for its state tournament while the tournament was hosted in UIS.  Finally, he served as the ICTA Treasurer from 2021.  All of these experiences have allowed him to earn two different prized awards:  the National Federation of High Schools Outstanding Speech and Debate Educator Award for Section 4 for 2022-23 and this year’s W.P. Sandford Award.   Both of these honors are due to the mentorship, guidance, and friendship that this ICTA community provides to its members. 

Throughout all this time, he enjoyed the support from his wife Tammy who introduced him to her former teacher Dave Bishop and the speech/ theater community.  He is blessed with a family who lives speech/ drama with him, and he is blessed to work with Lorie Rude who is an incredible coach and friend.   When he is not coaching or teaching, you may find him in community performances or hiking in the mountains.