Former Arts Center preschool student named Rhodes Scholar

Kira Allmann, a John Michael Kohler Arts Center Preschool alumnus, has been named a 2010 American Rhodes Scholar.

Allmann is a government and linguistics major in her senior year of studies at William and Mary College. She has studied Arabic in Morocco and architecture and art history at the University of St. Andrews. She also interned for the United States Department of State at the U.S. Mission to NATO in Brussels.

Allmann’s father, Edward, grew up in Plymouth. He and his wife Rosemary lived in the Sheboygan area in the early 1990s. Kira attended the Preschool at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center and went on to Grant Elementary School.

“Rosemary and I have always felt that exposure to the arts opens the intellect,” said Edward Allmann. “So perhaps those early years in the John Michael Kohler Arts Center galleries had some lasting influence!”

Rhodes Scholarships are one of the world’s highest academic honors; just 32 Americans were honored with the title for 2010. Rhodes Scholars attend Oxford University in England. Allmann will begin her studies there next fall. She plans to pursue a master’s of philosophy in modern Middle Eastern studies.

Previous American Rhodes Scholars include presidential advisor and political correspondent George Stephanopoulos (1984), Supreme Court Justice David Souter (1963), senator and professional basketball player Bill Bradley (1968) and singer songwriter Kris Kristofferson (1959).