A family which has been involved at Iowa State since 1916 will be honored as the Family of the Year this weekend.

Megan Grant, junior in mechanical engineering, said she nominated her family for the Family of the Year award because she thought it would be a great honor.

“I can’t think of a better way to thank my parents,” she said.

Grant’s parents, Stuart and Patricia Grant, attended ISU in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Her brother, J.R. Grant, graduated from ISU in the spring of 1998.

Matt Schaefer, chairman of Family Weekend, said the basic reason the Grants were chosen for the award was their past and present involvement with ISU.

“[Family Weekend] is just a time to show an example to the university of a family that’s done a lot for Iowa State,” Schaefer said. “It’s a time to find those families and give them the recognition they deserve.”

Grant said her application consisted of five questions about her family and its traditions that she answered in essay form, then an interview with a review board.

Schaefer said he sat in on the interviews.

“[The Grant family was] selected because of their outstanding involvement and close ties with the university,” he said. “Megan Grant’s parents live in Silver Lake, Ohio, but they still receive the [university’s] daily newspaper. They keep in close touch with happenings at ISU.”

Schaefer said the Grants travel from Ohio to Family Weekend and the Homecoming football game every year.

Grant said her parents were “very excited” when they heard the news.

“I just found out last night, and I called my parents … They were just floored,” Grant said.

Grant said her parents called other family members, and they are going to get together during Family Weekend in Ames.

“We’re going to have a lot of family here … It will be a small reunion,” she said.

Grant said her family’s relationship with ISU started with her great-grandfather, who came to the university in 1916 and started the ISU chapter of Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity.

“Also, my great-grandmother came here in 1917,” Grant said.

She said her grandfather and all of his children came to ISU, as well as several members of her mother’s family.

“[Being chosen as the 1998 Family of the Year] has been really great because my grandparents were the Family of the Year in 1972,” Grant said.

Grant said when she was trying to decide which college to attend, she had ruled out ISU because she wanted to do something different.

“[ISU] was one of the places I didn’t want to go,” she said.

However, she later changed her mind.

“I came to visit my brother here during my junior year of high school, and I fell in love [with ISU],” Grant said.

She said she wanted to go into engineering and knew ISU had a strong engineering program.

“I came home and said I would love to go to Iowa State,” Grant said.

While at ISU Grant has been president, vice president and secretary of the ISU women’s club volleyball team, and is currently secretary of the ISU chapter of Chi Omega.

As a sophomore, she also was a member of the Student Alumni Career Services Committee.

Schaefer said the family will be recognized at the football game Saturday night when the Cyclone take on Texas Tech.

“They will go out on the field as a family, and the announcer will give their background,” he said.

Schaefer said the family will receive a gold-plated clock with the inscription “1998 Family of the Year.”

Schaefer said the Grants also will be recognized at the Homecoming football game, after which all the past Families of the Year are invited to a dinner.