FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE June 22, 2006 Lions land two more on Academic All-America   team JOPLIN, Mo.   Two more Missouri Southern State University student-athletes today were named to the ESPN The Magazine Academic All-America   Team as selected by the College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA). Senior Iashia Castle (Kansas City, Mo./Hickman Mills HS) and sophomore Jessica Selby (Galena, Mo./Reeds Spring HS) were second- and third-team selections, respectively, on the Academic All-America   College Division squad for women's track & field and cross country. Castle, who recently completed her collegiate career as a sprinter/jumper for the MSSU women's track & field team, graduated last month with degrees in accounting and management. She maintained a 3.94 cumulative grade-point average as an honors student at Southern. She was named MSSU's 2006 Accounting Graduate of the Year and the Cox Outstanding Honors Co-Graduate of the Year. On the track, Castle was a 14-time All-Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletics Association performer in her career, including seven times as a senior. She won the 2006 MIAA Indoor Championship in the triple jump and went on to collect her first All-America award in the same event this past March. At the 2006 MIAA Indoor Championships, Castle scored 25.5 of MSSU's 88 total points. Outdoors, she totaled 11.5 of the team's 64.5. Castle, a second-team Academic All-District selection last year, was a first-team pick this season. She was also the runner-up for the MIAA's Ken B. Jones Award, given annually to the conference's top student-athlete of the year, and was Missouri Southern's winner of the E.O. & Virginia Humphrey Award. She was a three-time Academic All-MIAA performer and a three-time selection on the conference's commissioner's academic honor roll. Also an honors student, Selby excels as a thrower for the MSSU women's track & field team. She's a six-time All-MIAA performer and won five conference titles in her first two years. Selby is also a two-time indoor All-American in the shot put, finishing seventh in 2006 after a fourth-place showing as a freshman. In the classroom, Selby maintains a perfect 4.0 GPA as a communications major. She's a two-time Academic All-MIAA performer and this year was named to the MIAA Commissioner's Academic Honor Roll. This past year, Selby won conference titles indoors in the shot put and outdoors in the shot and hammer. She was named Southern's Female Athlete of the Year last month and was also a first-team Academic All-District selection in 2006. MSSU women's track & field junior Sarah Wallace (Branson, Mo.) was also a first-team Academic All-District selection this year, but was not listed on the ESPN The Magazine Academic All-America   team. The Academic All-America  Teams program honors more than 800 male and female student-athletes annually who have succeeded at the highest level on the playing field and in the classroom. Individuals are selected through voting by CoSIDA, a 2,000-member organization consisted of sports public relations professionals for colleges and universities in the United States and Canada. To be eligible, a student-athlete must be a varsity starter or key reserve, maintain a cumulative grade point average of 3.20 on a scale of 4.00, have reached sophomore athletic and academic standings at his/her current institution and be nominated by his/her sports information director. Since the program's inception in 1952, CoSIDA has bestowed Academic All-America  honors on more than 14,000 student-athletes in Divisions I, II, III and NAIA covering all NCAA championship sports. College Division District VII includes NCAA Division II and III schools along with NAIA institutions from the states of Missouri, Kansas, Iowa, Nebraska, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, North Dakota and South Dakota and all Canadian schools in the provinces of Saskatchewan and Alberta. ESPN The Magazine -- winner of the 2003 National Magazine Award for General Excellence -- is a provocative and innovative sports publication. Full of insight, analysis, impact and wit, the oversized bi-weekly with a circulation of 1.85 million looks ahead to give fans a unique perspective on the world of sports.