Executive Director of Pat Tillman Veterans Center at Arizona State University Shawn Banzhaf receives 2025 ASU MLK Jr. Staff Servant-Leadership Award

Shawn Banzhaf, executive director of Pat Tillman Veterans Center at Arizona State University, has been chosen to receive the 2025 MLK Jr. Staff Servant-Leadership Award. 

He will be recognized at the university’s MLK Jr. breakfast celebration on Jan. 23.

Question: You’ve been honored with the 2025 ASU MLK Jr. Staff Servant-Leadership Award. Describe how you felt when you heard the news. 

Answer: I was honestly stunned. I sat there staring at the email letting me know trying to make sense of the enormity of it all. Then I told my wife and we celebrated the fact together and as I am sort of a sentimental and nostalgic person at heart, I then gave thought to how it is such an honor to have my name associated in any way with the late great MLK Jr.  

Q: How have your life experiences shaped you into the leader you are today?

A: I have spent essentially all of my adult life in service of my community. Twenty-one years in the Army National Guard, I served my state and country, I also served my local community for nearly 10 years as a police officer during that time and 10 years as a pastor. Now, I serve the military connected learners here at ASU and have been doing so now for about eight years. I think public service has definitely shaped me into the person I am today.   

Q: How have you incorporated Martin Luther King Jr.’s values of service and inclusion in your everyday life?

A: I have and continue to do so. Humanity has beauty to them that is intrinsic. All people deserve and need to be loved regardless of how they identify. I truly think Dr. King understood the need for love and that each of us from the smallest to the greatest is worthy of it. So, every day, I start with and end with showing love to those around me. 

Q: What has been your most memorable experience of helping others? 

A: This question is difficult to answer because I feel like I can go so many directions. But I will share a sad tale but one in which helping someone kept a legacy alive. I was a police officer and was working my home town of Chadron, Nebraska. I was called to a possible fight, when I arrived it was a disturbance in the neighborhood that ended up being a home on fire. I called it in, ran to see what I could do. Two women were yelling in a window into the home and when I rounded the corner, I saw a man in the window with flames all around him. I acted quickly and pulled him out.  He tried to get back in and was yelling that his daughters were inside. I attempted to go into the flames, but could not, the smoke was too much without equipment. The fire department arrived moments later, they tried to rescue the little girls, one 8 and the other 6 but they both eventually succumbed to the smoke. The family, heartbroken and distraught, the nurses and doctors, the firefighters, and so many in our small community were greatly saddened by the loss. I took it particularly hard, as I wouldn’t allow the dad to go back into the flames, I felt like I had let them down. Years later, I was helping at a soup kitchen, a man came up to me to get some soup and he said, “Hey, aren’t you Officer Banzhaf?” I wasn’t sure how to answer the question because you never know what’s coming. I said, “I used to be him but have retired, now I am Pastor Banzhaf, why do you ask?” He said, “I have always wanted to thank you because you saved my brother’s life.” I asked him who that was and he mentioned the dad from the fire. He continued to say, that because of my actions that night, he lived and he and his wife had two boys that were his nephews and he loved them greatly. He embraced me in a hug, he cried, I cried, and I was able to finally able to let go of some of the guilt I felt for years.  

Q: Who or what keeps you inspired and motivated to serve others?

A: I am inspired by the staff at ASU. I look around and see folks that could probably choose higher paying, more glamorous work but instead the see the potential in our next generation and pour themselves out for the students. I see it every day and it makes me want to do more for those around me. 

Q: What advice would you give to future leaders here at ASU? 

A: My advice for future leaders at ASU and anywhere actually is that you never know what someone is going through so treat them the way you would want to be treated in any given situation. It is the golden rule for a reason, it’s worth its weight in gold to me.  

Q: Anything else you’d like to add?

A: I would just like to thank my wife Jodi, my kids and their spouses for loving me and supporting me through my years in public service. I could not have done what I did without the understanding of those closest to me.