By FHSU SPORTS INFORMATION
KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Fort Hays State women’s basketball student-athlete Katie Wagner was named the 2024 women’s recipient of the MIAA’s annual Ken B. Jones Award, presented by Summit Pointe Financial Group. The honor was announced on Monday (June 3) at the 2024 MIAA Awards Celebration, presented by Husch Blackwell.
The Ken B. Jones Award recognizes the MIAA’s top female and male student-athletes from the academic year. Wagner was one of five women’s finalists for the award invited on-site at the annual awards celebration in Kansas City, where she was announced as the winner.
Wagner is the third FHSU student-athlete to win the Ken B. Jones Award, joining Kate Lehman (Women’s Basketball, 2015) and Ryan Stanley (Men’s Track & Field, 2023). It gives FHSU a winner of the award for the second year in a row after Stanley was the first FHSU male to ever win the award in 2023. Stanley (Spring 2021) and Whitney Randall (Women’s Basketball, Winter 2020-21) both won season-specific MIAA Student-Athlete of the Year awards in 2020-21 when the award was divided into seasons due to the void of athletic competition in the fall that year due to COVID-19, but the Ken B. Jones title was not used on those honors since the award is all-season inclusive.
Wagner had a tremendous season on the basketball court in 2023-24 that saw her earn MIAA Player of the Year honors. She was also an All-America selection by the WBCA, an All-Central Region First Team selection by D2CCA, an All-MIAA First Team and MIAA All-Defensive Team selection, and was named the MIAA Tournament’s Most Outstanding Player when selected to the MIAA All-Tournament Team. For the season, Wagner averaged 17.2 points and 8.7 rebounds per game, recording 14 double-doubles. She scored in double figures in 30 of the 33 games on the season and never had less than eight points in a game. She now ranks fourth all-time in scoring at FHSU with 1,732 points and second in rebounds with 965. With a COVID year of athletic eligibility still in hand, Wagner will return for a fifth and final season at Fort Hays State in 2024-25.
Wagner helped Fort Hays State to its 13th-consecutive season of reaching at least 20 wins, the longest active streak in NCAA Division II and tied for sixth-longest for all NCAA levels in women’s basketball. She helped the Tigers to their eighth NCAA Tournament appearance in the last 10 years and ninth overall. Wagner helped the Tigers earn a win in the opening round of the national tournament before falling to eventual national champion Minnesota State in the Central Regional Semifinal. The Tigers finished the season at 25-8 overall.
Overall, Wagner is a three-time All-MIAA selection, earning first-team honors each of the last two seasons and a second-team honor in 2021-22. Academically, she is a two-time CSC Academic All-District selection, two-time recipient of the D2ADA Academic Achievement Award, three-time recipient of the MIAA Scholar-Athlete Award, and four-time member of the MIAA Academic Honor Roll.
Wagner graduated magna cum laude with her bachelor’s degree in Accounting in December of 2023 with a cumulative GPA of 3.87. She holds a 4.0 GPA so far in graduate school, working on a master’s in Business Administration. She was nominated for Accounting Student of the Year by the FHSU Department of Economics, Finance and Accounting in 2024. Wagner was nominated and selected by accounting faculty for a Graduate Teaching Assistantship following her December 2023 graduation. Back in the summer of 2023, she completed an accounting/analyst internship at Koch Industries in Wichita, Kansas, where she learned and developed new skills through hands-on experience in the accounting profession, including creating a new deferred revenue schedule for the business she supported.
Wagner has also been very active in the community and on campus aside from her time on the court and in the classroom. In April of 2024, she was selected by the MIAA to attend NCAA Student-Athlete Leadership Forum in Bethesda, Maryland. She has been a volunteer at the Hays Night to Shine event, the regional Special Olympics Basketball Tournament, and an adaptive field day for individuals in the community with special needs. Along with members of the FHSU women’s basketball team she partnered with Team Impact, which matches children facing serious illnesses and disabilities with college sports teams. She is also an engaged member of Encounter Young Adults, a Christian ministry affiliated with Celebration Community Church.
A 15-member panel of athletics directors, senior woman administrators, faculty athletics representatives and sports information directors – including a representative from each member institution – vote to create the group of finalists, and then vote again on the final five for each gender. Each nominee is judged in three areas, including 2023-24 athletic accomplishments, career academic accomplishments, and 2023-24 campus/community service.
Each institution may nominate one female and one male student-athlete. The nominees must have completed at least their junior season of athletic eligibility by June 1 of the academic year of nomination. A nominee must have at least a 3.25 cumulative grade-point average through the previous full semester term through February 1 of the academic year of nomination at the certifying member institution.
Fort Hays State has had 18 finalists for the Ken B. Jones Award or season-specific student-athlete of the year honors since joining the MIAA in 2006-07. FHSU has had at least one finalist for each of the last 12 awards given since 2014-15.