Jon Wefald handed the Kansas Board of Regents one tough job when he announced last week he would step down next year as Kansas State University president.

The force behind many of KSU's success stories since he stepped on the Manhattan campus in 1986 will move into semi-retirement — working as a part-time professor of leadership studies and history — after the 2008-09 school year.

The regents, to their credit, acted almost immediately to begin the hunt for a replacement and have named former regents chairman Nelson Galle, of Manhattan, to lead a search committee. That group is to pass along the names of three to five candidates for the regents to consider.

We wish the committee well, knowing it has a difficult task ahead.

Most people familiar with the job he has done at KSU probably would say there aren't three to five Jon Wefalds out there. Finding one will be hard enough.

Wefald wasn't a one-trick administrator with tunnel vision focused on a single goal. When he cleans out the president's office in Anderson Hall he will have left his mark on virtually every aspect of the university.

Under his guidance over the past 22 years, the university has made notable strides in enrollment, endowment funding, facilities and athletics. And during Wefald's tenure, K-State has had more Rhodes, Marshall, Truman, Goldwater and Udall scholars than any other state university in the country.

Enrollment jumped to 23,000 students from 16,000, and a new library, alumni building and art museum grace the campus. The Kansas State University Foundation's endowed funds have increased to $335 million as of June 30, 2007, from $53.6 million as of June 30, 1986.

The success of the university's football program under former coach Bill Snyder has been well documented in terms of victories and bowl games, but that, too, is a testament to Wefald's management style — usher to the door those more interested in excuses than results, hire capable people, give them what they need to get the job done then get out in front and cheer when they need you.

Indeed, Wefald began championing K-State as the place to be as soon as he arrived and has been its best and most visible cheerleader, whether he was in the Statehouse or a newsroom, at an alumni function or a commencement, on the sidelines or in the bleachers.

He led the university to where it is today because he wasn't afraid to march in the front ranks and tell people what a great place it was and how much better it could be.

Kansas State University may not see his like again any time soon, but its students, faculty and staff will have plenty of time to wish him well in his pending semi-retirement before he actually steps aside after the next school year.

Those charged with finding his successor, meanwhile, would do well to make a list of Wefald's qualities and use it as a measuring stick as they search for candidates qualified to move into that office in Anderson Hall.