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Because this is where the Auburn experience lives and thrives. Because This is Auburn — A Campaign for Auburn University is a $1 billion fundraising effort that will help us preserve iconic campus facilities and create new ones for today’s students. Why? Because monumental achievements require exceptional spaces. There is tremendous power within every gift — and within everyone who supports this cause. Each gift tells a different story. Now is the time to tell yours.
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In Flight, In Italy Members of Auburn’s Symphonic Band were flying as high as the iconic pigeons of Piazza San Marco in Venice as the group took a 10-day performing tour of Italy during spring break. The group embarks on a new international destination every four years. (Photograph by Jeff Etheridge.) See more online at www.facebook.com/AuburnUPhoto
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THIS IS A POWERFUL RESEARCH PARTNER. Auburn University’s new $1 million supercomputer is equipping researchers like Tonia Schwartz, an assistant professor in the Department of Biological Sciences, with teraflop computing power to tackle enormous research projects across campus, from genomic sequence analysis to complex engineering tasks. Schwartz is working to understand how, at the genetic level, individuals, populations, or species respond to stresses in their environments. Her findings will support medical researchers addressing issues of obesity and metabolic disorders and conservation biologists studying how animals are responding to our changing environment. Created with the input of multiple interdisciplinary on-campus research groups, this high-performance computing cluster will help researchers conduct work that is more efficient and saves time and resources. Having this computer on site and immediately accessible was a major factor in Schwartz’s decision to join Auburn’s faculty. By unlocking the hidden potential in massive data sets, Auburn University’s supercomputer will aid its researchers in asking and answering big questions of international significance.
auburn.edu/supercomputer “This new supercomputer will greatly accelerate our rate of scientific discovery by decreasing time for data analysis and, ultimately, dissemination of findings to the scientific community and public.” — Tonia S. Schwartz
THIS IS AUBURN.
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Assistant Professor Department of Biological Sciences College of Sciences and Mathematics
FROM THE PRESIDENT
Supplies Me
Auburn Universisty has become a leader in the field of supply chain management and related business fields.
Boosting the Global Business Environment A HOT TOPIC in the business community today is supply chain management—the oversight of materials, information, and finances as they move in a process from supplier to manufacturer to wholesaler to retailer to consumer. Auburn University has been leading in this area of study for quite a while. (See related story on Page 36 of this issue.) In the last year, Auburn’s Raymond J. Harbert College of Business earned a No. 4 ranking in Transportation Journal’s assessment of our supply chain management faculty’s research. Gartner Inc., a leading information technology research and advisory company, ranked our undergraduate supply chain program No. 8 in its most recent survey. Harbert College is now home to the Auburn University Center for Supply Chain Innovation. Much of the focus will be on applied research, leveraging the knowledge and talents of Harbert College supply chain faculty and students to help companies solve problems. It has already secured a few industry sponsors and should have more onboard by summer. There will be some collaboration with the Auburn’s RFID Lab and Technical Assistance Center. The RFID Lab counts Amazon, Target, Home Depot, Tyco, Avery Dennison and Saks Fifth Avenue among its corporate sponsors, and the Auburn Technical Assistance Center helps clients annually achieve nearly $20 million in increased productivity and investment capacity. Brian Gibson, the Wilson Family Professor in the college’s Department of Aviation and Supply Chain Management and head of the AUCSCI, was recently featured as an expert in a Harvard Business Review webinar. He discussed the future of the retail
supply chain and shared findings from a “State of the Retail Supply Chain” report written by Harbert College supply chain faculty. While the 2016 SCM (Supply Chain Management) World University 100 included Auburn as 10th overall (ahead of some pretty impressive universities/programs), it should be noted that Auburn earned 12 additional Top 20 rankings in other SCM World categories. As a land-grant The RFID Lab counts institution, Auburn Amazon, Target, Home has, as its mission, Depot, Tyco, Avery Dennison responsibilities and Saks Fifth Avenue among of offering a its corporate sponsors. full spectrum of educational opportunities to its students as well as extending faculty expertise to the world beyond campus to create economic opportunity. The supply chain program and faculty are linking a scope of opportunities for our students to learn beyond the classroom with a technology that is benefitting the global business environment — and that is more than impressive. War Eagle!
Jay Gogue ’69 President, Auburn University jgogue@auburn.edu
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FROM THE VICE PRESIDENT FOR ALUMNI AFFAIRS
Ceremonies & Connections SPRINGTIME ON THE PLAINS, with all of its flora and fauna, is simply breathtaking and signals a time of renewal and celebration. As alumni, we should be proud of our alma mater as we celebrate our students’ academic achievements and welcome new graduates into the Auburn alumni family. Over the past few weeks, in addition to May university commencement ceremonies, I have had the honor of attending a number of awards celebrations, including the This is Research Student Symposium and Awards Ceremony, the President’s Awards, the Algernon Sydney Sullivan Awards and the W. James Samford Jr. Awards. Each of these has reminded me how Auburn University continues to honor its land-grant mission of providing students with practical and classical knowledge, and spreading that knowledge throughout the community and beyond. Not only do our students excel academically, but they also continue to make unselfish contributions of their time and talents to their communities through outreach and service. In addition to celebrating academic achievements, the Auburn Alumni Association hosted the Class of 2016 Send-Off. The atmosphere in the alumni center was electric with almost 400 new graduates enjoying an afternoon of fun, gifts and entertainment— not to mention information on how to connect to the Auburn Club network around the globe. A special thanks to all of our partners who made this a special time for our graduates! The association didn’t limit its springtime connections to our newest alumni. Former board members of the Auburn Alumni Association gathered for a reunion in March to reminisce about their years of leadership and service. A-Day brought thousands of alumni back to campus for a football preview, advisory meetings and special gatherings such as the second annual
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Black Alumni Reunion. More than 250 alumni and friends enjoyed a fun-filled weekend, including an awards and recognition dinner that paid tribute to more than 14 alumni from various disciplines. Annual Tiger Treks and Auburn Club meetings are underway and will continue throughout the summer to raise funds supporting scholarships for students from their respective communities. The middle of May marked the induction of a new class of alumni as Golden Eagles to commemorate their 50th anniversary.
Going and Coming: Graduating seniors at the Class of 2016 Send-Off (left)
and visitors at Black Alumni Weekend (above) enjoyed spending time at the Auburn Alumni Center.
As earlier noted, spring is a time of renewal, which is what the Auburn Alumni Association Board of Directors is working toward with the development of a new five-year strategic plan. A draft will be posted to the website following our June workshop. Until then, please stay in touch, welcome new graduates to your community, reconnect with your fellow alumni, and visit our website at www.alumni.auburn.edu for the latest association news. Enjoy your summer and War Eagle!
Gretchen VanValkenburg ’86 Vice President for Alumni Affairs & Executive Director, Auburn Alumni Association gretchenvan@auburn.edu
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We Want It Now IT’S 2 A.M., four hours before you have to get up and face the world. Yet you’re tossing and turning, thinking about next week’s presentation, the state of world politics, and the price of eggs. Your mind turns to that fancy mattress you’ve been eyeing—the one that adjusts the surface temperature, reshapes its contours to match yours, even raises or lowers your head or feet. If you had one of those mattresses, you’d be sleeping like a baby and dreaming of happy Tigers cavorting across the Plains. That scenario, or one similar, takes place in millions of American homes every night, followed by this: a computer or smartphone lights up, you tap on a few keys, and— voila! The mattress (or blender or magical insomnia cure) is on its way and, for a few extra bucks, you’ll have it before bedtime tomorrow night. If it’s a book you crave, one click on an e-reader and it’s there in seconds. The American consumer culture has been turned on its head in the last decade as the Internet has shrunk the world while inflating our expectations in terms of price and delivery. Behind the seeming simplicity of supply and demand is the complex world of supply chain
FEATURES
management—one of the hottest areas of study in the business world and one in which the Auburn University Raymond J. Harbert College of Business excels, ranked fourth nationally. You can read about it in this issue. Back in the 1960s, a rock band called The Doors sang what could be a line from today’s supply chain theme song: “We want the world, and we want it now.”
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More Than a Bird
TODAY, LIZ HUNTLEY ‘93 IS THE PICTURE OF SUCCESS, WITH A THRIVING LAW CAREER, A BEAUTIFUL FAMILY AND EVEN A SEAT ON HER ALMA MATER’S BOARD OF TRUSTEES. BUT HOW SHE GOT TO THIS PLACE IS A STORY OF COURAGE, PERSEVERANCE AND, MOST OF ALL, FAITH. STORY BY VICTORIA BEASLEY AND SUZANNE JOHNSON.
Anticipating what we want, how much we’ll pay for it, and how long we’ll wait—all those factors play into the work going on at Auburn’s new Center for Supply Chain Innovation. Because even at 2 a.m., the world is a click away.
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RETAIL INNOVATIONS LIKE SAME-DAY DELIVERY AND INSTANT DOWNLOADS HAVE FORCED BUSINESSES TO GROW AS NIMBLE AND RESPONSIVE AS THE MARKETS THEY’RE TRYING TO SERVE. WELCOME TO THE RISKY WORLD OF SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT. STORY BY BRUCE KUERTEN.
42 Suzanne Johnson Editor, Auburn Magazine suzannejohnson@auburn.edu
Charmed
TO MOST RESIDENTS OF ANDALUSIA, BILL ALVERSON ‘83 IS KNOWN AS AN ATTORNEY WITH AN OFFICE NEAR THE COVINGTON COUNTY COURTHOUSE. BUT TO MOST OF AMERICA, HE’S KNOWN SIMPLY AS “COACH CHARMING,” THE MAN WHO COACHES BEAUTY PAGEANT WINNERS FROM COAST TO COAST. STORY BY SARAH K. RUSSELL.
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EDITOR
Suzanne Johnson CREATIVE DIRECTOR
Shannon Bryant-Hankes ’84 ART DIRECTOR
Heather Peevy UNIVERSITY PHOTOGRAPHER
Jeff Etheridge
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EDITORIAL ASSISTANTS
Victoria Beasley ’16, Sarah Russell ’16 DESIGN ASSISTANTS
Conner Dungan ’16, Mitch McHargue ‘16, Kaleigh Peltack ‘17 IT SPECIALIST
Aaron Blackmon ’10 PRESIDENT, AUBURN UNIVERSITY
Jay Gogue ’69 VICE PRESIDENT FOR ALUMNI AFFAIRS & EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, AUBURN ALUMNI ASSOCIATION
Gretchen VanValkenburg ’86 PRESIDENT, AUBURN ALUMNI ASSOCIATION
Jack Fite ’85
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Neal Reynolds ’77
DEPARTMENTS 7 From the Editor
18 Sports
The insomniac’s role in supply chain management.
The Auburn University Equestian Team rides all the way to the NCAA National Championship.
CONCOURSE 10 Spring Break Students put a new spin on college spring break.
11 Like Water for Chickens How rainwater could lower costly water bills for commercial poultry farmers.
12 On the Hunt Auburn biologist David Steen leads a group of intrepid scientists into the Everglades in a search for the Burmese Python as part of the 2016 Python Challenge.
15 Mixed Media A new Auburn University history from longtime university archivist Dwayne Cox; a study of how we create good citizens; and actress Wynn Everett.
20 Philanthropy Auburn University Foundation Chair Thom Gossom ‘75 talks about the importance of participation, and student Jeremy Ellis learns the importance of giving firsthand.
THE CLASSES
57 Serial Novelist Best-selling author Tim Dorsey ‘83 turns murder into a creative artform through the infamous Serge Storms.
61 In Memoriam 64 Backchat
Education and faith helped her soar into life as a successful attorney and advocate for underprivileged children. Collage art and watercolor by Margee Bright Ragland ‘70 and Auburn Magazine designer Heather Peevy.
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Maria Baugh ’87 John Carvalho ’78 Jon Cole ’88 Christian Flathman ’97 Tom Ford ’67 Kay Fuston ’84 Julie Keith ’90 Mary Lou Foy ’66 Eric Ludgood ’78 Cindy McDaniel ’80 Napo Monasterio ’02 Carol Pappas ’77 Joyce Reynolds Ringer ’59 Allen Vaughan ’75
55 Class Notes
ON THE COVER The sweetness in the face of the young Liz Huntley ‘93 belied the turmoil going on in her home life.
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AUBURN MAGAZINE (ISSN 1077– 8640) is published quarterly; 4X per year; spring, summer, fall, winter, for members of the Auburn Alumni Association. Periodicals-class postage paid in Auburn and additional mailing offices. Editorial offices are located in the Auburn Alumni Center, 317 South College St., Auburn University, AL 36849-5149. Email: aubmag@auburn.edu. Contents ©2016 by the Auburn Alumni Association, all rights reserved. ADVERTISING INFORMATION Contact Jessica King at (334) 844-2586 or see our media guide at aualum.org/magazine. POSTMASTER Send address changes to AU Records, 317 South College St., Auburn, AL 36849–5149.
AUBURN NEWS & VIEWS
Concourse IN THIS SECTION
Rain for Chickens 11 Hunting Pythons 12 VR in Military Training 14 Equestrian Champions 18
Croak?
Crawf ish Frogs The discovery this spring of an elusive species of Alabama frog and the subsequent catching of one of the critters by AU herpetologist Jimmy Stiles makes Alabama the secondfroggiest state in the U.S. with 31 species, following Texas, which has 32. Stiles found one of the crawfish frogs sitting beside a road in Sumter County one evening. The male frogs have a distinctive mating call, which has been described as “like hogs at eating time.� See and hear the Mississippi version at youtube.com/watch?v=1jRfqIU6lb4
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CONCOURSE > CAMPUS NEWS
Breaking
Away AMPLIFYING OUTREACH (x4)
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LTHOUGH MANY AUBURN students might prefer to spend their spring break relaxing in one of the quaint beach neighborhoods peppering Highway 30A, hundreds of others have chosen to spend their time volunteering, researching and traveling overseas. (UN)SHELLFISH RESEARCH
Amanda Carter, a senior in pre-veterinary sciences, spent an undergraduate spring break in the Florida Keys researching colorful species of shrimp for her Honors Marine Biology Research class. Driving through the Keys, her research group would look for shallow spots where they could find the shrimp they were looking for. “We’d just put on our wetsuits off the side of the road, and people would honk at us,” Carter said. “We’d snorkel around, try to find anemones and the specific type of shrimp we were researching.” The class was researching Ancylomenes pedersoni (Pederson shrimp) and Periclimenes yucaranicus (spotted cleaner shrimp), two species of shrimp popular in the aquarium industry for their aesthetics. “These shrimp are absolutely
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beautiful,” Carter said. “Vibrant blue, vibrant red.” In the wild, though, the shrimp are a necessary component of the ecosystem because they help keep their fish friends healthy by cleaning them of parasites. Carter explained that the shrimp have fascinating social behaviors that dictate their cleaning, and removing shrimp from the group could damage the ecosystem’s delicate balance. “The worry is that if we disrupt this hierarchy among the shrimp by collecting them for the aquarium trade, it will throw off everything,” Carter said. DUBLIN THE FUN
Grace Rudder, a senior in graphic design, says, contrary to popular belief, it is easy being green. She traveled with friends to the United Kingdom and spent this past St. Patrick’s Day in Dublin, Ireland. “Irish people love Americans,” Rudder said. “They’re so friendly, and when they find out you’re from America, they want to make sure you have a good time.” In that sense, it’s a lot like Auburn. Rudder says she recognized the same friendliness and hospitality she knows from the Plains all the way across the Atlantic.
In each of her four years at Auburn, Carrie Anne Dillard, a senior in early childhood education, has gone on mission trips to the Florida coast. Amplify is First Baptist Church Opelika’s yearly spring break mission trip to the Florida communities of Port St. Joe and Apalachicola. More than 300 students attend each year, and they can serve in either community outreach focus groups or construction teams, where they minister to members of lowincome communities. Dillard served on both styles of teams, but some of her favorite memories came from this year’s trip, where she served on a team
that roofed the house of a woman named Mamie. “Mamie liked to make jewelry,” Dillard said. “On our last day, some of the boys had to stay at Mamie’s house later to finish up, and when they came back they brought us back some bracelets that Mamie had made for us.” The friendships she made through her spring break trips were the reason she kept going back. “When I came to college, I found my place at FBO,” Dillard said. “It was the hardest work I’ve ever done working on that roof, but also the most fun and the most rewarding thing to do for spring break.”—Sarah Russell
CONCOURSE > CAMPUS NEWS
AUBURN UNIVERSITY’S
Symphonic Band TO U R S
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AISING BROILER CHICKENS takes water— a lot of water. But rainwater harvesting could substantially reduce Alabama poultry growers’ dependence on municipal water sources or well water and reduce growers’ annual water bills by as much as $16,000 and pay for itself in four to five years. Gene Simpson, a specialist with the Alabama Cooperative Extension System, says a typical farm with four poultry houses uses between 1.8 and 2 million gallons of water every year. “If they are using water from a municipal water system, a four-house farm has a water bill that could be $22,000 annually,” said Simpson, associate director of the National Poultry Technology Center, or NPTC. “That is a direct expense to growers.” Simpson says the center has been investigating the merits of rainwater harvesting for poultry operations for about seven years. “Our goal was to develop ways producers could reduce their reliance on municipal water by 80 percent or more,” he said. The center’s most recent prototype was placed on a farm in Cullman County. Simpson noted that harvesting and storing thousands of gallons of water is significantly more complex than the gutter and rain barrel system that many homeowners are familiar with. A gutter system A gutter system funnels rainwater funnels from the poultry house roofs into a rainwater 100-foot-by-36-foot flexible bladder. from the poultry house roofs into a 100-foot-by-36-foot flexible bladder. A 2-inch rain on the 82,000 square feet of roof space will fill the bladder to its 100,000-gallon capacity. A control room pumps the collected water to the houses as needed and will automatically switch over to municipal water in the event of an emergency. Just as important as the volume of water is the quality of water. The growing birds need clean water free of impurities and the houses’ cooling systems need water low in dissolved minerals to work efficiently.
Like Water for
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TEAM LED BY AUBURN UNIVERSITY BIOLOGIST David Steen ’11 spent part of his spring semester on a snake hunt. They participated in the 2016 Python Challenge in south Florida, an event sponsored by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and the Fish and Wildlife Foundation of Florida. The event was geared toward eradicating the Burmese Python from the region and raising awareness of the serious consequences posed to the environment by the invasive predators. Competitors were tasked with finding and capturing as many Burmese Pythons as possible between Jan. 16 and Feb. 14. Top awards went to the team with the
most captured pythons and the team that captured the longest python. The search area consisted of 1.5 million acres of swamp and sawgrass, terrain that provides easy camouflage for the snakes. Although it is estimated that as many as 100,000 Burmese Pythons inhabit the Everglades, in 2013, the only other time the Python Challenge took place, approximately 1,600 people participated and only 68 pythons were captured. The reason for such a low number of captured snakes is their superior camouflaging ability. Steen, who received a doctorate in biological sciences from Auburn in 2011 and is now an assistant research professor in the university’s College of Sciences and Mathematics,
said his team has utilized a variety of hunting techniques to increase the chance of locating and capturing pythons. The team drove a vehicle, which allowed them to quickly scan the landscape hoping to stumble upon a snake crossing the AU biologis t Da vid Stee n and on road or basking e of his Fl or id a spring ca tches. in the sun; they walked approximately 35 miles, slowly searching every nook and Glades Wildlife and Envicranny along a canal; and ronmental Area, which is a they used a bicycle in an athotspot for python spotting, tempt to cover more ground particularly along a large while others remain on canal running through the foot. The bicycle technique property,” said Steen. “Sean proved the most successful. Sterrett, who is another “We were in the Southern member of our team, took a
# bike to cover more ground. Sean was biking and saw movement on the side of the canal, and when he got out he found himself tackling a large python. We had spent days talking to each other about what we would do if we saw one. Would I be brave enough to do it? “He proved himself brave enough and took it on. It was a large python, about 10-feet long. He was all by himself with one bag at the time. So he started calling everybody. There’s pretty bad reception out there so his calls went to our voicemail. Later, when we realized he had left all these messages—‘Hey I’ve got a big one here and need a bigger bag. Give me a hand’—we all started running toward where we thought he was.” Sterrett is a herpetologist and postdoctoral researcher at the United States Geological Survey in Massachusetts. “It was an out-of-body, surreal, adrenalin-rush type experience. I am a herpetologist and have caught some really big snakes, but nothing this big,” said Sterrett. “When I saw the snake, I stepped back and assessed the situation and realized I needed to grab it before it got away. I reached in and didn’t know where I was grabbing it–it turns out I was about 6 inches behind the head, and
that was just enough space for it to turn and grab me. I wrestled with it a little bit to get it under control. It took a while because it was a feisty snake.” Sean Graham ’11, assistant professor of biology at Sul Ross State, was also on the Python Challenge team. Graham and Steen worked toward their doctorates at the same time in the lab of Craig Guyer, a professor of biological sciences at Auburn who is a widely recognized herpetologist. The fourth team member was Stephen Neslage ’05, a senior coordinating producer at The Weather Channel who received a bachelor’s degree in radio-televisionfilm from Auburn in 2005. “People believed that when Hurricane Andrew came through, exotic pets got flooded out of people’s homes, and that’s how pythons got into the Everglades. Dave helped us prove that is probably not true. He busted the Hurricane Andrew python myth for us,” said Neslage. “When he said he was going to do this Python Challenge, I thought, ‘It sounds like a heck of an adventure.’ The thought of going into a harsh landscape, hunting an apex predator and taking it alive—
wrangle the snake into AU 's py thon hunters e. its ca rrier, a pillo wcas that’s a rush.” A conservation biologist, the most important tool Steen brought to the competition was his highlevel of expertise derived from years of extensive herpetological research. Among his latest research endeavors is developing a project with Auburn’s Canine Performance Sciences program to evaluate whether detection dogs can be used to find Indigo Snakes in south Florida. In the past he also helped out on an Auburn School of Forestry and Wildlife Sciences project investigating how effective people and dogs were at finding Burmese Pythons in the same region, an experience that taught him a lot about locating pythons in the wild, as well as the unique set of challenges that come with hunting the enormous predators.
“I have been bitten by almost every type of nonvenomous snake in the Southeastern U.S. so I’m not particularly intimidated by Burmese Pythons. That said, capturing a python can be harrowing,” said Steen. “These are big and potentially dangerous animals. They have a serious bite, and it’s something you don’t want to take too lightly. Capturing a python needs to be done very carefully. You grab the snake from behind its head. If it is large, it is ideal to have another person there to control the coils. Once the snake is in hand, you can put it in a large pillow case.” Or not. In the end, the Auburn team caught only one Burmese Python and didn’t place in the competition. Until next time. —Candis Birchfield
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THIS IS SCULPTURE. THIS IS YOUR MUSEUM. THIS IS AUBURN.
Dauntless, Undaunted
JCSM.AUBURN.EDU
A NEW TRAINING aid for the military and law enforcement transforms participants into three-dimensional avatars, enabling them to simulate actual missions. Named Dauntless, the system is the latest technology from Motion Reality Inc., a company based in Marietta, Ga. The development of Dauntless was led by Nels Madsen (pictured above), professor of mechanical engineering at Auburn and also Motion Reality’s vice president for research and development. Motion Reality debuted the cutting-edge technology during the recent Defense and Security Equipment International Show in London, the largest event of its kind for the world’s military. The Dauntless immersive virtual-training system mimics realistic scenarios, allowing users to train as if they are engaged in actual operations. The system features high-resolution graphics and video game capabilities. This follows in the footsteps of VIRTSIM, the company’s previous simulation and training product, which has been in use by the FBI since 2011. Dauntless trainees wear wide-field-of-view headsets and are able to carry weapons and engage within a variety of virtual venues. The system can also administer muscle stimulation feedback to a participant’s body, simulating injuries. This feedback mechanism, along with many other features, enhances the ability to hone individual skills and tactics and to participate in team exercises. Read more and see videos at wp.auburn.edu/auburnmagazine
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Illustration by Mitch McHargue
MIXED MEDIA Now Playing BOOKSHELF The Village on the Plain: Auburn University, 1856-2006, by Dwayne Cox (University of Alabama Press, 2016), provides the definitive history of Auburn University in all its iterations. Cox, who recently retired from his longtime position as head of Special Collections and Archives at the Auburn University Libraries, has spent a career collecting the knowledge that went into the making of this history. Professor emeritus and author Wayne Flynt calls it “meticulously fair, thorough, well analyzed and engagingly written.” The book is divided into twelve section with material ranging from issues over definining the role of the institution, to a whirlwind of control (and lack therof), balance (threatened and lost), and academic politics that focus on the period from 1984-2006. An excerpt from the book will be featured in the next issue of Auburn Magazine. Creating Citizens: Liberal Arts, Civic Engagement, and the Land-Grant Tradition, edited by Brigitta R. Brunner, professor of public relations in the School of Communication and Journalism at Auburn. (University of Alabama Press, 2016), presents a series of essays by faculty in Auburn University’s College of Liberal Arts recounting firsthand experience teaching community and civic engagement (CCE). CCE instruction both complements the mission of liberal artist curricula and powerfully advances the fundamental mission of American land-grant institutions. The book features essays by Brunner as well as William E. Kelly, professor of political science; Chad Wickman, associate professor of English; Kyes Stevens, founder and director of the Alabama Prison + Arts Education Project with James Emmett Ryan, Jean Wickstrom Liles Professor of English; Iulia Pittman, associate professor of German and linguistics, and Anne-Katrin Gramberg, senior counsel to the president and former dean of the College of Liberal Arts; Nan Fairley, associate professor of journalism and a College of Liberal Arts Engaged Scholar; Christopher McNulty and Barb Bondy, both professors of art; Elizabeth Brestan-Knight, professor of psychology, and Timothy S. Thornberry Jr., assistant professor of psychology at Morehouse State University; and Kelly D. Alley, Alma Holladay Professor of Anthropology.
Moth, Margee Bright Ragland ‘70, margee.squarespace.com/margees-work
Whirling Dervish, Margee Bright Ragland ‘70
SECRET AGENT CARTER Playing a villainess in the TV show “Agent Carter” gave actress Wynn Everett a chance to show off her bad side. See related story on Page 59 of this issue.
Bob D’Amico/ABC
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ALL in the FAMILY THE AUBURN FAMILY never misses an opportunity to welcome new members. There’s Camp War Eagle, of course, but that isn’t quite enough to help orient the international students to AU campus life. Programs and organizations like the International Buddy Program, the International Student Organization and dinners throughout the year for different nationalities all aid in making the transition to Auburn and a new culture as smooth as possible. Rex Huffman and the Auburn University Tiger Transit system have been making sure international students feel welcomed and acclimated at their home away from home for many years. Every Friday, even during holidays, from 5:30-9:30 p.m., the free transit bus picks students up from the Student Center and,
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upon request, takes them to the Tigertown shopping center, the enormous Asian Supermarket or Walmart. After shopping, the transit drops the students off at the Student Center or at any off-campus housing in which they might be living. “This service supports and enhances Auburn’s goal to increase international students’ presence and diversity on campus,” Huffman said. Other organizations on campus aid in making these new students feel welcome by gathering items such as bedding, blankets, linens and coats the students might need. Auburn Global is a newer program the university established on campus in 2014 through a partnership with Shorelight Education to increase diversity on campus. “Auburn Global is a helping hand to
the students who come to the university through this program. It’s a way to help them find balance here at Auburn,” said Charus Campbell, student services advisor. Auburn Global provides programming and curricula specifically for international students who enter the university through the program. The students get acclimated to campus and to Auburn by getting involved and connecting with the community and Auburn. “We want to make sure they do not miss out on the Auburn experience,” said Sean Busenlener, student services director. “Our goal is to expand the Auburn Family globally; we want these students bleeding orange and blue and to love Auburn.” —Victoria Beasley
A Century of ROTC
THE ARCHIVES Found in “Auburn’s Attic”
THE CENTENNIAL of the Army Reserve Officer Training Corps program at Auburn is the subject of an exhibit hosted by Auburn University Libraries and assembled by 2nd Lt. Meggan MarvinMcNeese and Special Collections and Archives archivist Jennifer Wiggins. Army ROTC Battalion Commander Maj. Roshun Steele and other cadre members opened the exhibit on April 22, featuring a cadet uniform from 1929 and many photos and other artifacts. The free exhibit, on the RBD first floor, will be on display through fall 2016. diglib.auburn.edu
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CONCOURSE > SPORTS
Riding High
The Auburn University Equestrian Team Takes the Ultimate Prize—Again
Jumper
Junior Ashley Foster of Baltimore, Md., whose event is hunt seat, helped propel the team to NCAA victory in Waco.
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EN ALL-AMERICAN EQUESTRIANS? Look at Auburn. This year’s SEC championship winner? Look at Auburn. The 2016 national equestrian champions? Look at Auburn. This year, the AU equestrian team jumped, trotted and galloped through the ranks to No. 1, winning nearly every meet this season, including the National Collegiate Equestrian Association championship—their fourth. Winning breeds confidence, so as the team headed into Waco, Texas, for the championship competition in mid-April, they were confident they had what it takes, but they were careful not to take anything for granted.
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“There’s definitely a huge target on their backs: people, teams, everyone trying to drag them down,” head coach Greg Williams said. “It’s not just that we’re good this year. We’re continuing to get better. To say it’s a target on their back is an understatement.” Hence, their motto for this season: “Look at Auburn.” The team explained that they not only wanted their competitors to look at them, but to look out for them. They’d been training for the championship since the beginning of the season. “We wanted to be that team that people are intimidated by and people want to chase and try to beat,” Alexa Rivard, a sophomore western rider, said.
For this team, the championship all boiled down to one irreplaceable element: preparation. After falling to SEC rival and five-time national champion Georgia in last year’s semifinal round, the team knew it had to
The team explained that they not only wanted their competitors to look at them, but to look out for them. make adjustments coming into this year. “We went out and did our best, but we just weren’t as prepared as we needed to be to win it,” Ashley Foster, a junior hunt seat rider, said. “So everything this year goes back to preparation. That’s what we need to work on, that’s what we need to focus on.”
CONCOURSE > SPORTS
“Every single one of us has to walk in and be confident. We have to walk in like we are the best,” Rivard said. “When we show them we’re even sweating a little bit, that’s when they can take it out from under us.” Of course, in their practices they sweat a lot, training not only on their horses, but also in the gym. Practicing through the grit and grind is made easier, they said, when the girls consider their teammates and the effort every team member must contribute to win. “I want to do it for our girls, but I also want to do it for the school. All the other athletes—softball is doing so well—and I want to do well,” Foster said. “I want to get a ring. I want to be on that field. I want everyone looking at us.” Auburn’s equestrian riders all competed solo before they came to college. But joining a team of likeminded young women helped shift their focus from a one-woman win to a teamwide victory.
“The seniors this year are the best group of seniors, so of course they’re leaving. It’s heartbreaking, but we wanted to win it for them,” Rivard said. “They won it their freshman year and we wanted them to leave with the big national championship ring.” The team—and the coaches—were always confident the girls had what it took. In fact, coach Williams said it was almost worrisome that this year’s team didn’t seem to have an Achilles’ heel. “One thing that’s been quite amazing has been the lack of challenges. Right off the bat, they developed the team, the leadership and the buy-in from the young ones, which removed a lot of the challenges,” Williams said. “Usually when you don’t have a distinct problem area, you’re thinking, ‘What’s coming, what’s coming?’ But they just trucked right through it.” They trucked all the way through Waco, too, and won the ultimate title. “If our biggest dream was to have the greatest team experience of anywhere in the country and to empower women,” Williams said, “our mission was accomplished.” Look at Auburn.—Sarah Russell
·2 0 16· Fo otb a ll Sch e dul e 9/3
vs. Clemson
9/10
vs. Arkansas State
9/17
vs. Texas A&M
9/24
vs. LSU
10/1
vs. Louisiana-Monroe
10/8
at Mississippi State
10/22 vs. Arkansas 10/29 at Ole Miss 11/5
vs. Vanderbilt
11/12
at Georgia
11/19
vs. Alabama A&M
11/26 at Alabama
auburntigers.com
“IT’S A DIFFERENT KIND OF PRESSURE when you get to college. Instead of wanting to win my point for me, I don’t want to let them down,” freshman hunt seat rider Caitlin Boyle said. This year’s championship strikes a different chord with the team for another reason, too. The last time the team won nationals was in 2013, when the current seniors were freshmen. The underclassmen say working hard to win it this year for the seniors made them that much more motivated.
PHOTOGRAPHY BY KENDRA WILLARD
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CONCOURSE > PHILANTHROPY
This is the Moment A LITTLE MORE THAN A YEAR AGO, amid much fanfare, the Auburn nation stood tall and publicly announced Because This is Auburn — A Campaign for Auburn University. As chair of the Auburn University Foundation Board of Directors, it has been a privilege to be a part of this moment in the university’s history. To serve with 22 other directors who love Auburn and are willing to give of their time and resources is special. It’s something I never could have imagined happening in my life. I entered Auburn in the fall of 1970. There were challenges and opportunities. In that light, my story is no different than many others—yet it is unique. That’s one of the things I enjoy about Auburn. We are alike and, at the same time, our own Auburn stories make us unique. Since the campaign began, more than 92,000 alumni have contributed nearly $950 million. We are $50 million from our $1 billion goal. Each person who has given has done so because of his or her own unique story. Why? We ask. Because this is Auburn, they answer. In the film and television business, we relish the moments captured on film that can never be recreated. Those moments On the first Saturday in January 1964, Harold Franklin we later call history. registered for classes at a table in the Auburn University We’re living library. Looking on, in addition to state police and through one of library staff, were members of the media. those moments in Auburn’s history. What we do during the next year and a half will propel our university into its future, creating Auburn history and more unique Auburn stories.
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I entered the university six years after Harold Franklin desegregated Auburn in 1964. Legally, the doors had been flung open, but the number of black students enrolling at Auburn was just a trickle, not a flood. But we believed—like the Auburn Creed— in a practical world, in hard work, and in training our minds to work wisely. And we also believe in giving back. This spring, the Auburn Alumni Association and the Office of Diversity and Multicultural Affairs held the second annual Black Alumni Weekend. It was a stellar event with some 250 black alumni and their children in attendance, along with President Jay Gogue and many of our deans. Alumni, nominated by the deans of their respective colleges, received awards for their contributions to Auburn and their respective communities. Because This is Auburn is a campaign for all of the Auburn Family, and our black alumni are a critical component of our success. Nearly 1,500 black alumni have made gifts to the campaign totaling approximately $3.2 million. In honor of the year of Harold Franklin’s enrollment, a black alumni campaign participation goal of 1,964 donors has been established, with a financial goal of $3.5 million. We will need about 500 new donors, at any gift level, to achieve this goal. This is the moment for the entire Auburn Family to stand together. Every gift, no matter the size, counts. Every donor counts. You count. We’ve asked the question, “Why?” The answer is always the same…Because this is Auburn.
Thomas (Thom) Gossom Jr. ’75 Chair, Auburn University Foundation Learn more online and make your campaign gift at because.auburn.edu
A DETERMINED HEART Today, Ellis is on track to graduate from Auburn’s School of Nursing in 2017 and then go on to become a Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist (CRNA). “I honestly didn’t think I would make it past my first semester,” says Ellis, who earned a 4.0 his freshman year. “Nursing is not easy, “ THE CARE I EXPERIENCED but you figure out
what kind of work WITH MY NURSES WAS KEY; you have to put in and I JUST SAW NURSES AS you do it. It’s like that SUPERHEROES. for anything.” Ellis’ scholarship eases the stress of paying for nursing school, so he can dedicate his time and energy to his studies. “I am grateful every day for the opportunity to be here,” he says. “Giving really does make a difference in the life of a student. This has helped me, and I want to help someone else. “I will never forget who gave me this opportunity. As soon as I get my first nurse anesthetist check, I’m going to start giving back to Auburn.”
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The path to a college education requires tenacity, but there’s no denying that some paths are rockier than others. Junior nursing student Jeremy Ellis experienced a challenging home environment that had him bouncing between parents and states. Finally, at age 11, he ran away to live with his aunt. During his childhood, he had open-heart surgery, and during his senior year of high school, he had to return to the hospital because of recurring heart complications. “The care I experienced with my nurses was key; I just saw nurses as superheroes,” he says. His experience in the hospital sparked an interest in nursing, but he knew a college education was out of his reach financially. No one in his family had ever been to college, and no one thought he could handle the rigorous curriculum of nursing school. But they didn’t count on Ellis’ determination. Resolving not to limit himself, he visualized his path and set out to get the education he wanted. He gained acceptance to Auburn’s School of Nursing and, last July, became a recipient of the Bertha L. Watkins Endowed Scholarship. The scholarship was created by Bertha’s sons, the late William C. “Wick” ’56, and Larry ’57, to honor their hard-working mother. To ensure other students will continue to have access to a college education, Wick Watkins also worked with Auburn University’s Office of Gift Planning to enhance funding for the scholarship through his estate plans.
For more information about how your estate plans can help a student like Jeremy Ellis, please contact the Office of Gift Planning at (334) 844-7375, plannedgiving@auburn.edu or visit www.auburn.edu/plannedgiving.
Illustration by Aaron Blackmon
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A delicate balance between nature and architecture.
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We Believe in Beautiful Gardens
iBooks for the home gardener from Extension specialists at Auburn
Š 2016 by the Alabama Cooperative Extension System. The Alabama Cooperative Extension System (Alabama A&M University and Auburn University) is an equal opportunity educator and employer. Everyone is welcome!
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Distinctive auto insurance—just because you belong. Did you know that as a member of the Auburn Alumni Association, you could save up to $427.96 or more on Liberty Mutual Auto Insurance?1 You could save even more if you also insure your home with us. Plus, you’ll receive quality coverage from a partner you can trust, with features and options that can include Accident Forgiveness2, New Car Replacement3, and Lifetime Repair Guarantee.4
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This organization receives financial support for allowing Liberty Mutual to offer this auto and home insurance program. 1 Discounts are available where state laws and regulations allow, and may vary by state. Figure reflects average national savings for customers who switched to Liberty Mutual’s group auto and home program. Based on data collected between 9/1/12 and 8/31/13. Individual premiums and savings will vary. To the extent permitted by law, applicants are individually underwritten; not all applicants may qualify. 2For qualifying customers only. Subject to terms and conditions of Liberty Mutual’s underwriting guidelines. Not available in CA and may vary by state. 3Applies to a covered total loss. Your car must be less than one year old, have fewer than 15,000 miles and have had no previous owner. Does not apply to leased vehicles or motorcycles. Subject to applicable deductible. Not available in NC or WY. 4Loss must be covered by your policy. Not available in AK. Coverage provided and underwritten by Liberty Mutual Insurance Company and its affiliates, 175 Berkeley Street, Boston, MA. ©2014 Liberty Mutual Insurance
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Auburn MAGAZINE / SPRING 2016
Talking Nuclear Protocol with Nobel Winner John Oakberg ’69
k n a h ! u T yo Auburn
Auburn
MAGAZINE / SUMMER 2015
Auburn
Auburn
MAGAZINE / SPRING 2015
M A G A Z I N E / FA L L 2 0 1 5
MAGAZINE / WINTER 2015
Cynthia Hill’s Double Life
Auburn’s Best of the Best
Emotional Rescue MOOSE: A LAB REPORT
Dream It, Do It The Dream Jobs of Michelle McKenna-Doyle, Brian FitzSimmons & Bob Sanders
Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus (But Cupid’s Aim is True)
THE BEAR FACTS | FUNNY GIRL JEANNE ROBERTSON
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HAVE WILL TRAVEL | HENSONS, THE ORIGINS OF WAR EAGLE
FUNNY GIRL JEANNE ROBERTSON
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THE ORIGINS OF WAR EAGLE
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in 3-D pg. 18
ATHLETICS A football camp for the rest of us pg. 24
FALL 2014 SUMMER 2014
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Lifetime Achievement Award winners pg. 43
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The real cause of cabin fever pg. 18 RESEARCH
Surgery
CONCOURSE A house united pg. 24
JCSM 8/5/15 advances American Art pg. 40 FEATURE
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STUDENTS Building a healthier kitchen pg. 21 SPORTS Mel Rosen’s early days on the Plains pg. 22
SUMMER 2014
SPRING 2014
Good Chemistry The Tigers’ uplifting season
Our House
Jordan-Hare turns 75
Back Forty: The Art & Craft of Beer Searching for an End to Ebola
The Eternal Optimist Adam Evans and the Culture of Fresh
Michael O’Neill’s Role Call
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The staff at Auburn Magazine would like to say thank you to the many generous alumni who have given through our Voluntary Subscription Program. Want to contribute to the ongoing production of Auburn Magazine? You can give online by visiting www.alumni.auburn.edu/auburnmagazinegift. Don’t forget to share your class notes with us! War Eagle!
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Give Back to Auburn In a Different Way
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Photography by Jeff Etheridge
FLY like an eagle By Victoria Beasley & Suzanne Johnson
The outlook for Elizabeth Huntley ’93 looked bleak during her childhood in Clanton, but everything changed as soon as she realized one important lesson: she was more than a bird.
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FLY LIKE AN EAGLE
t first glance, young Liz Huntley’s future looked dim—if she even survived to have a future. The 5-year-old was living in less-thanideal circumstances in Huntsville with her parents and four siblings when things began to unravel. First, her father was jailed for selling drugs. Her mother, addicted to heroin, committed suicide. The children were separated and, at 5, Huntley and her younger sister were uprooted and moved to Clanton, where they were raised by their stern, hardworking grandmother. Things should have grown more stable— but they didn’t. Not in a household with a sexually abusive uncle and another uncle whose schizophrenia was expressed with violence. Her younger sister got pregnant as the girls were displaced in foster homes and with extended family when their grandmother grew ill. But Huntley knew there was a better life than what she’d been handed, and she was determined to find it. The road to not only surviving, but thriving, led her to God, to Auburn, to her husband, Tony Huntley ’85, to law school, to a seat on the Auburn University Board of Trustees, and even back to Clanton, where she works in her old community to make sure other children like her don’t fall through the cracks even as she maintains a demanding legal career in Birmingham. It all begins and ends with faith. Although her home life was hard, Huntley stood strong and made faith her highest priority. Her church, The World’s Church of the Living God, which she still attends with her own family, first became a safe haven when her pastor, Elijah Good, spoke to
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the congregation about Joseph and how God used his life despite all its tragic events. “I thought if God can use Joseph’s life for a good purpose even though all those bad things happened to him, maybe He can use my life,” Huntley says. It was that day Huntley found hope and realized she was more than a bird. If God cared so deeply for a mere sparrow, He would certainly take care of her. In spite of all the hardships going on behind closed doors, she thrived in school and had a desire to learn. Because her home life was not the affectionate environment she craved, she found praise and love from her teachers and other authority figures that were placed in her life to help her succeed. Huntley’s desire to become a lawyer first surfaced in middle school when her history teacher encouraged her to start reading biographies. Through her readings she learned that everything significant that happened in America happened through the practice of law. She discovered she wanted to be someone who put the good of the public first and helped people.
If G o d c a r e d so deeply for a mere bird, He would certainly take care of her. She’s quick to credit God with putting the opportunities in her path, but Huntley met the challenges. She was a cheerleader; a part of the YMCA summer job program; and a participant in Upward Bound, a college preparatory program for low-income and potential first-generation college students, at the University of Montevallo. Huntley also attended the summer Minority Introduction to Engineering Program (MITE) program at Auburn, and in her senior year was invited to the National Young Leaders Conference at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. It could be no surprise, then, that the shining moment of her busy high school career was being named valedictorian and accepting a scholarship to attend Auburn University—where she found a new family. “Auburn has a way of making you feel like you belong and are part of a family,” says Huntley. “At that time in my life I needed that.” Huntley was no couch potato at Auburn even as a freshman, serving in the Tigerettes and Tiger Hosts program right off the bat. “Being a Tigerette gave me the opportunity to interact with people that were actively involved on campus,” she says. Huntley ultimately earned the opportunity to serve as chaplain of the Tigerettes and Tiger Hosts. She also became involved with the Fellowship of Christian Students and the Student Government Association, for which she ran for president. “She was always destined for greatness whether she was aware of it or not,” says her friend Vonnie Stone ’95. Although Huntley might not have agreed that she was destined for greatness after losing the SGA election, thenAuburn Football Head Coach Pat Dye thought otherwise. The two met to discuss her plans for law school and why she wanted to be a lawyer. After Dye made some calls on her behalf, Huntley began interning with Lightfoot, Franklin & White, the Birmingham-based law firm at which she is now Of Counsel. “Through that experience,
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FLY LIKE AN EAGLE
“Empathy and service are the cornerstones ” . r e t c a r a h c of
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Reaching Out Huntley, on a recent visit to her childhood neighborhood in Huntsville as well as a local school (on next page), stressed the importance of education to making a better life.
I learned I definitely wanted to be a lawyer. I love the commitment, the challenge and the grind of it.” Huntley’s sole focus was getting into Cumberland Law School, but after being waitlisted, AU Professor Wayne Flynt, now a professor emeritus of history, told her about an internship opportunity with A+. That internship enabled her to speak in town hall meetings, work in communities and form relationships with statewide leaders such as attorneys Bobby Segall and Alyce Spruell. It was through Segall and Spruell’s influence that Huntley visited the University of Alabama School of Law and decided to attend with a partial scholarship. “God closed one door and opened another one with A+ and later law school at Alabama. Those experiences opened up a world of opportunities for me,” Huntley says. Currently, Huntley is a litigation attorney who practices in the areas of banking and financial services, consumer law, business litigation and product liability with Lightfoot, Franklin & White. Today, Liz Huntley and her husband, Anthony J. Huntley ’85, love and care for their three children in a way that Huntley never knew as a child. But she’s driven to help other children as well. Far from hiding the difficulties of her childhood, she decided to share them in her 2015 inspirational autobiography, More Than a Bird, and use them to help other children rise beyond their circumstances. She has a passion for childhood education and providing children with resources to overcome negative family cycles and help them realize their circumstances do not define them. While her faith is her No. 1 value, empathy follows close behind. “If you live a life of empathy and service it takes care of so many things,” she says. “Empathy and service are the cornerstones of character.” Character, for Huntley, also meant returning to live in Clanton so she could help the children from her own childhood community realize that there is a way to succeed and escape poverty and violence. “The kids that are there never see the people from that neighborhood that got out and have turned out okay, because most of them that succeed move away. There is power in seeing real, tangible, successful people and knowing they were from the housing projects.” Huntley’s major focus in the community is pre-K—specifically, developing options for every child to have access to high quality pre-K. “My potential in education was tapped into early and it became a refuge from the bad,” she said. “Once I understood the importance of education, I realized it could get me out of poverty and out of the projects.” She believes it’s vital to get children engaged while they are still young, vulnerable and willing to learn. Giving them an environment of nurturing, encouraging teachers could change their lives. “I’m not stopping till every 4-year-old in Alabama has access to high quality pre-K, because then they have a chance,” she says. SUMMER 2016
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“God used each one of the undesirable memories and experiences to lead me to where I am today and shape me to be able to help so many people.”
As a member of the board for the Alabama School Readiness Alliance, a statewide, nonprofit coalition advocating for the expansion of high-quality, voluntary pre-K, Huntley and the other members have proposed a 10-year plan to expand voluntary pre-K programs throughout the state. “We need to educate them and start early.” Because of her devotion to early intervention and educating children to change their lives for the better, she also has been appointed to serve on the Governor’s Task Force on Prevention of Sexual Abuse in Children. The group’s purpose is to submit suggestions to the governor for an age-appropriate curriculum to be taught in classrooms, aimed at reducing the incidence of child sexual abuse in the state. Huntley has also instilled her passions into her own children. She and her 14-year old daughter are starting a summer program to increase and improve Clanton’s reading levels. “This summer we are starting a reading initiative because one of the things I have learned through the years of after-school tutoring is that a lot of kids can’t read. Yet these kids are moving
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through the system, and that’s when we start seeing dropouts. You are wasting your time when you are trying to help the kids with social studies and they can’t even read the book.” She also has created Project GEAR, which offers after-school tutoring to children who might not otherwise have that opportunity, and has helped create exposure programs to help kids see their full potential by taking them on college visits. Huntley is no stranger to inspiring and changing lives, besides being a role model and advocate for children. She also is a motivational speaker, hoping to inspire the youth and adults to become game-changers and realize how much they can impact others’ lives. That type of inspiration also drove her to pen More Than a Bird. It is part inspirational memoir, but mostly a story of faith. A A Aand experiA A Amemories “God used each one of the undesirable ences to lead me to where I am today to be able A A A Ashape A and A me to help so many people. A A A A A A “I celebrate those memories now because God used those A A A A terrible things for wonderful outcomes.”
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Supply & Demand The supply chain is as old as business itself, but companies large and small are having to strategize in order to keep pace with our ‘want it now’ mentality. By Bruce Kuerten
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WAR AND PEACE
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SUPPLY & DEMAND
E LIVE IN A WORLD of overnight delivery and instant gratification, not giving too much thought about what goes between the moment we hit the Place Order button on our keyboards and when that big cardboard box arrives on our doorstep the next day—or, these days, even in a few hours. Some inside the industry call it “The Amazon Effect” as the online retail giant continues to push the supply chain envelope. Supply chain management—how goods get from manufacturer to distributor to consumer—is one of the fastest-growing areas of business education in the country. Auburn has had one of the top supply chain management programs for years, but this year has consolidated its research by creating the Harbert College of Business’ Center for Supply Chain Innovation. The supply chain is a network of production, storage and distribution facilities connected by transportation lines—a network that stretches from the extractors of raw materials to the consumers of finished goods. Though the edges blur in real life, when
But substantial planning goes into developing a demand forecast. “Forecasting is the one signal that can balance your supply chain,” says Dan Nguyen ’09, a sales and operations planning specialist. Consumers are notoriously unpredictable, and a forecast is really an educated guess. There’s as much art and experience as there is data and software. In one of the more epic supply chain “fails,” Nike, usually a prime example of supply chain savvy, spent $40 million on demand forecasting software that supposedly would give the company a more solid grasp of customer demand. The programming missed the mark completely. Nike ordered nearly $90 million in shoes that it couldn’t sell and came up $100 million short on shoes that were in demand. All told, Nike CEO Phil Knight put the cost at nearly $400 million. The stock price dropped 20 percent, and it took the company three years to recover. “Supply chain professionals are not often taught ‘big data’ or heavy analytics. Programmers and computer scientists are not
we talk about the supply chain we commonly divide it into five processes: plan, buy, make, move and service. What’s involved in planning the supply chain? Where does it source the raw material and components? Where is the product manufactured, and how does that location impact logistics and transportation? Finally, how does the product get customized, packaged and delivered to the consumer? The answers to those questions might vary from business to business, but they all make up the complex issue of supply chain management.
taught supply chain management,” Nguyen warns. “I believe that a strong marriage of these two is where the industry is heading.” “My main goal is to get in the ballpark,” says Bradley Addison ’13, a global logistics associate at Dow Corning. “The more accurate we are at forecasting downstream, the more efficient we will be upstream.”
CONTEMPORARY THINKING says consumer demand should drive the supply chain. Demand, in effect, “pulls” the product through the chain as opposed to the firm “pushing” the product toward the consumer. Demand-driven supply chains are less prone to excesses and shortages of inventory, and more able to focus on optimizing consumer service.
THE FORECAST can begin to shape the company’s planning. The trick is the coordination of the elements. Sales and operations planning, a supply chain “basic,” seeks to coordinate all the firm’s activities toward fulfilling the same forecasted goal. That coordination should be simple. In fact, S&OP, as it’s known, has been called organized common sense.
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Organized
Common Sense
SUPPLY & DEMAND
However, different parts of the firm—different parts of the supply chain—usually see the world from different perspectives. Sales, for example, is all about revenue, manufacturing about expense, logistics about capacity and speed. It can be difficult to get all the sectors to agree on a common goal—a common plan. Key to establishing this coordination is getting a consensus on the firm’s core strategic capability. Put another way, what does the firm bring the marketplace that is unique? What does the firm do better than anyone else? “In the future, I think there is an opportunity for companies to further break down their own internal boundaries and work together toward a shared goal set to a greater extent than we do today,” says Cliff Defee, Harbert College’s EBSCO Professor of Supply Chain Management. Built into the plan of the supply chain should be the unimpeded flow of information across all the elements of the chain. What are the inventory levels at the retail locations? What is the
showroom. The company controlled all the elements of the supply chain. Ford’s vertical integration made sense at the time. The company was protecting its core capability—that assembly line. Fast forward a century. Transportation costs have dropped, cheap manufacturing labor can be leveraged from far-flung corners of the world and information technologies allow instantaneous global communication. The modern supply chain has emerged. Today, companies don’t compete; supply chains do. Typically, companies categorize purchases by supply risk and profit impact. If you’re building cars, transmissions are probably more important than pencils. Supply risk is high when the product or service is scarce, when there are few suppliers or when
transit time for products? Is production at full capacity? Do we have component and/or raw material inventory? The answers allow the firm to respond quickly to changes in the marketplace and in consumer demand. Defee continues: “There are collaborative tools out there that let organizations work effectively with each other. Things like video conferencing are more in vogue today than they were a decade ago. Internet communications, the way it has enabled realtime communications around the globe—and most supply chains are global in nature—has changed how we work as businesses.”
the flow could be easily disrupted. “You have to categorize what you are buying to see where your leveraged opportunities lie,” recommends Gary Page, Harbert College of Business executive-in-residence and former director of TDS Corporate Services at ITT. “And remember, all suppliers are not created equal. You have to categorize groups of suppliers as well.” Obviously, one of the key considerations in procurement decisions is cost. “The procurement guys will tend to jump on that low bid,” says Vic Chance ’72, former vice president at Johnson & Johnson’s external operations and supply chain chief procurement office. “They get fixated on low price. Low price may not be the lowest-cost choice. If you have bad suppliers, there is hardly any way to get around that inexpensively.”
THE FORD MOTOR CO. was incorporated in 1903. By 1913, the company made and sold nearly half the cars in the United States. To feed its voracious assembly line and buffer it from economic vagaries, Ford owned its own rubber plantations, coal and iron ore mines, acres of timberland, a fleet of ships, and a railroad—all the resources necessary to make and sell a car, from the mine to the
the
Management of Risk
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SUPPLY & DEMAND
As we incorporate the management of risk and look at the total cost of ownership, we begin to view procurement from a holistic supply chain perspective. Has the supplier inventoried bottleneck items? Does the supplier deliver in a timely, consistent manner? “Predictability leads to less risk. Less risk leads to less need for inventory and more timely deliveries,” says Page. “Supply chains are not just measured on the cost to run them, but also their velocity. But you have to have buffers. You always have to have a ‘Plan B.’ Is there somebody else we can put into business if we have to? With duplication, we can manage the risk.”
the customer places an order, which in turn pulls product through the system. “It all starts with understanding customer demand and demand patterns as reflected in forecasts, and how orders are firming up,” says Abiola Oladapo ’04, materials leader for Cummins Emissions Solutions. “Is demand normal? Is it rising? Is it dropping? Is the mix changing? Technology continues to help make things faster and easier to process and track.” That smooth flow of information allows the manufacturing process to be more responsive to customer demand.
PRODUCTION IS AT THE HEART of the supply chain. No product or service—no money. The design of the manufacturing process begins with a production strategy. Over time, technology has had a big impact on that strategy. Since the mid-80s, most advanced manufacturing processes are organized along the lines of the Toyota Production System. The design of the actual process, the line, the machines themselves, and even the workers’ relationship to the line are all carefully and continuously monitored to “lean” the process—to eliminate waste in every form and improve efficiency and speed. “Over the last 35 years, our progress has increased significantly,” says Mark Clark, a visiting assistant professor in the Harbert College of Business and a management scientist with the Auburn Technical Assistance Center. “We have made great strides in terms of increasing efficiency, reducing waste and improving quality.” The elimination of waste means the finished product can be produced at a lower cost. Efficiency and speed not only contribute to cost savings, but enable flexibility and some degree of customization in the manufacturing process. Some companies have pursued a flexible manufacturing strategy. This strategy emerged in response to persistent challenges—product line growth, shorter life cycles, faster competitors and more sophisticated customers. The idea is to build flexibility so the system can react to rapidly-changing market conditions.
THE SUPPLY CHAIN moves continuously. The gears are always turning. Materials move to suppliers, component parts go from suppliers to manufacturers, and finished goods and services flow to consumers. Information goes back and forth along the chain, coordinating all the pieces and parts. All of these movements are called “logistics.” Logistics strategy involves the planning of inventory placement and movement to meet customer demand at the lowest cost. Implementing a strategy requires expertise in inventory management, warehousing, fulfillment and transportation. Though the military has focused on logistics since the first armies met on the battlefield, logistics in industry is a relatively recent phenomenon. Only within the past two decades have companies integrated logistics to support the supply chain from end to end. Transportation accounts for more than 60 percent of all logistics costs. Dave Pollard ’85 is managing director at FedEx Services. “Day to day, companies know where business is,” he says, “but they are always looking for where business is going to be.” Information technologies allow firms to look ahead and anticipate this movement. New tools, for example, track the environmental conditions inside a package, including temperature, humidity and barometric pressure. Real-time GPS and traffic data plot the best routes. Analytics allow logistics firms to gain efficiencies by diversifying and strategically deploying transportation fleets. The most visible part of logistics is transportation, but “there’s a lot more that goes into it than somebody driving from point A to point B,” says Fenn Church ’88, president of Church Transportation and Logistics. If the object is to get the product to the consumer in the cheapest, fastest way possible, logistics must encompass all of the supply chain functions from the instant the product is finished at the factory to the moment it arrives on the customer’s doorstep. Careful coordination of these activities has a significant impact on the bottom line.
Adaptive
Manufacturing
Adaptive manufacturing is the latest production strategy. It forgoes the traditional reliance on standard lead times and longrange forecasts in favor of a continuously monitored demanddriven approach. The supply side is tasked with quickly sensing and responding to customer demand. The result is increased production flexibility and demand fulfillment velocity: production begins when
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AS MUCH AS THE ART and science of logistics has pushed cost and waste out of the supply chain, there is a new game afoot. It used to be that a customer could get a product through one or two channels: a retail store, and maybe that store’s mail-order catalog. But now e-commerce has become big business, surpassing $300 billion in 2014, and “omnichannel distribution” is the new buzzword.
Omnichannel
Distribution
Omnichannel retail allows the consumer to access the shopping experience through all available channels: websites, physical stores, kiosks, direct mail and catalogs, call centers, social media, mobile devices, gaming consoles, televisions and even networked appliances. A firm’s mobile app, for example, should offer the same level of responsiveness as its website and incorporate the same color schemes as in-store displays. Omnichannel retailers track customers across each of those gateways. Walmart, Target and Costco have each deployed omnichannel strategies, and most retailers cite omnichannel strategies as a priority—a higher percentage than for any other business initiative. According to Brian Gibson, Wilson Family Professor of Supply Chain Management, companies will have to invest to create a supply chain flexible enough to handle whatever flow-through the customer wants. In an era scholars refer to as “Retail 3.0,” the power has shifted from the suppliers and retailers to the consumers. “We are entering a period of rapid disruption in the supply chain and logistics space, and it’s an exciting time,” says Dave Clark ’96, Amazon’s senior vice president of worldwide operations. “Focus on the things that will never change. Customers will always want a vast selection, low prices and fast delivery.” WE TEND TO THINK of the sale of a product as the end of the supply chain, but it isn’t—not if we’re interested in serving the customer and creating a repeat customer. Many companies, however, don’t know how or simply don’t care to provide postsales support. In a modern business environment that is increasingly devoted to “service,” that ignorance and indifference may be costly. The social media fallout alone can be disastrous.
After-sales support involves information and help, an easy return policy, product repair services, parts, and even field maintenance. The two most common problems with new purchases are consumer misunderstanding about installation/use and outright product failure. Misunderstandings can usually be resolved by following the installation and operating instructions, but rather than read, the impatient customer will often call for help. If a call center does its job properly, it will solve the problem without adding to the customer’s frustration and avoid the expense of dispatching a sales technician. In the case of outright failure, the product will most likely be returned. Now the supply chain must function in reverse, and the company must make the return process as easy on the customer as possible. If the product has failed, for whatever reason, the return procedures should not add to the customer’s frustrations. Once the product leaves the customer’s hands, it moves back up the chain to a returns center (a distribution center in reverse), where a decision will be made to dispose, recycle, cannibalize, repair or rebuild it. And just like call centers and help desks, these services may be handled in-house or outsourced. Help lines, call centers, repairs and easy returns may enhance the firm’s relationship with its customers, but these activities do little to contribute to the bottom line. Providing parts and maintenance is another matter. “Americans spend about one trillion dollars every year maintaining the assets they already own. That translates to 8 percent of the U.S. gross domestic product,” says Gibson. “Those after-sales services not only ensure customer loyalty—they are a very highmargin business. “But it’s a complex effort to manage,” he adds. “There’s a forward flow of replacement materials and a reverse flow of damaged or worn-out components, not to mention the delivery of maintenance and repair services.” Those services, unlike manufactured products, cannot be made and inventoried. It’s complex, and the stakes are high. Get things wrong and the firm’s relationship with the customer may be irrevocably damaged. Like most things in business: get it right and there’s money to be made.
A
Joe McAdory ’92, communications editor for the Harbert College of Business, and Brian Gibson, Wilson Family Professor of Supply Chain Management in the Harbert College of Business, contributed to this article.
wp.auburn.edu/auburnmagazine
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Photography by Jeff Etheridge
Charmed By Sarah K. Russell
In which a non-contestant girl puts herself under the green-eyed scrutiny of America’s most successful pageant coach, Bill Alverson ’83, known in the world of reality TV as “Coach Charming.”
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CHARMED
Photography by John Davis
magine a room with mirrors covering an entire wall. He often compares his coaching strategy to surgery. His tool A bronzed young woman glides before the mirrors, her of the trade? A sharp, honest tongue. long, blond hair flowing as her sequined gown floats Offering the level of brutally honest criticism that pageant across the floorboards. Her white smile gleaming, she contestants need in their training, Alverson is an expert about all gazes into the mirror beneath doe-like eyelashes. At any facets of beauty pageant competitions: fashion, stage presence, beauty pageant she would hold her audience’s attention captive. interview skills and fitness. But this time in the mirrored practice room, all eyes focus, “I’m the scalpel, and we’re gonna cut to the tumor,” Alverson instead, on a man: a lawyer. He is tanned, himself, and his often says during appointments. dark hair is gelled into place and peppered with gray Whether he’s recommending “little friends” on both temples. He has a hip-swinging, shoulders(read: bra inserts) to his pageant clients or teaching BRUTALLY. back swagger and a smile like a strand of pearls. His them to articulate their interview answers, Alverson electric green eyes beam back at the mirrors. trains every one of them to come out on top. HONEST. Bill Alverson, a family and criminal defense attor “I remember on one night, I had five girls CRITICISM. ney from Andalusia, boasts the last four consecutive in the top 10 Miss Oklahoma, five in the top 10 Miss America winners as his disciples. This Southern at Miss Alabama,” he says matter-of-factly. “The next lawyer moonlights as the country’s most sought-after morning I woke up and a girl I had worked with won beauty pageant coach. Miss Oklahoma and another won Miss Alabama, and then Famous, maybe infamous to some, for his unapologetic Miss Hawaii. Then two weeks later I had Miss Georgia.” critiques and unmatched savvy about the pageant world, Alverson That’s just another typical day in the life of Bill Alverson, has accumulated worldwide attention and earned his own internaand I’m about to meet with him for my own session. tional television show, “Coach Charming,” which aired for its first I’m sitting as straight as I can in the lobby of his small town season last fall. law office, my ankles crossed, trying desperately to look graceful
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He knocks down her faรงades until the only thing still standing is the person she is inside.
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CHARMED
when I meet him for the fist time. I’ve been researching this man for weeks, watching episodes of his show and reading every article written about him that I can find on Google. As a result, his celebrity status has reached monolithic proportions in my mind. As if with a nervous tic, I glance at the door, anticipating his coiffed hair silhouetted against the limestone Covington County courthouse across the street. I force myself to try to act natural. The receptionist seems amused. After what feels like an eternity he enters the room through the back door, the one I wasn’t watching obsessively. Even before he takes off his RayBan aviators, he greets me with an unimpressed, “You ready?” He sits down in the navy blue high-backed leather swivel chair behind his desk and removes the sunglasses. His green eyes are even more electric in person than on screen. Before I even have a chance to hit my opening question, he’s already talking. About his sexuality, his salvation, his success. Everything. He pours it all out in one long stream of consciousness. But just as quickly as he starts talking about his own life, he starts asking me about mine. He launches long, multi-part questions at me about my life, my education, my aspirations. Before long, I felt like I was playing dodgeball.
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And he was winning. By a lot. I muddled through vague answers about my aspirations, completely unprepared and caught off guard. He leans back in his chair, cocks his head to the side and furrows his brow. He grins in amusement as I stumble through his questions. Pointing out every flaw and ambiguity in my answers, he blows holes in my argument until it looks like a single, flimsy slice of Swiss cheese. This is what he does with each client. He drills her, tests her, prods her, frustrates her. Eventually, he knocks down her façades, her rehearsed answers, her preconceived notions, until the only thing still standing is the person she is inside. To him, that’s what matters most. Then he builds her back up, brick by brick, around her true identity and helps her organize her thoughts into a package that her interviewers will understand and admire. As a young adult, he also discovered the importance of finding confidence in his own inner self. He was born into a classic nuclear American family: a mother, a father and two children. Because of his father’s job, Alverson went to five different elementary schools before his family settled in Dothan, Alabama,
“Seize the day. Seize the moments and opportunities… Respect first, and seize every moment that’s there. To me, life is a wonderful time, and I want to taste everything on the menu—if I know it’s a good cook. But I have enough sense to know that if they have an unhealthy food rating, maybe I’ll just get a tea.”
“Understand the ingredients that are given to you. If you have the ingredients to bake a cake, bake a cake! You can’t make spaghetti from it!”
Photo courtesy of Alabama Department of Archives and History
Growing up in the volatile 1960s, Alverson remembers the South’s social tension at that time. He says it helped shape the mindset he brings to his law practice and to his pageant coaching life.
but it didn’t bother him much to move. He thinks his family’s many relocations still play to his advantage today. “Different communities, from Mobile to Montgomery to Pensacola to Dothan, and while that’s all in the South, it’s still different types of communities and different exposures,” Alverson says. “I had the advantage of learning to adjust and relate to different people.” Growing up in the volatile 1960s, Alverson remembers the South’s social tension at that time. He says it helped shape the progressive mindset he brings to his law practice and to his pageant coaching life. “I was in elementary school when integration happened, and I can remember being in high school when some racial unrest happened,” he said. “It helped me form my awareness to look around.”
“Successful people read. You should always read, you should always keep it going, you should always have it with you, whether you’re in it or not. I’m scattered between about two or three books right now.”
“If he’s cheap on his shoes, he’ll be cheap on you. And it’s as true as the day is long.”
Alverson and his sister, Sally, who still lives in Dothan, never understood sibling rivalry. He laughs, noting that Sally, although technically the “big” sister, is more than a foot shorter than him at five-foot-two”. “She was always my biggest cheerleader, and she still is to this day,” Alverson says. Growing up, Alverson felt like he needed a cheerleader. He wasn’t as athletic as the other boys in his class. Instead of kicking a soccer ball, young Alverson practiced his kicks in dance routines and rehearsed monologues for his school’s theatre productions. As is the case for other boys who enjoy the fine arts more than sports, Alverson found himself the target of school bullies. At 6 feet tall and 120 pounds on his 16th birthday, self-conscious Alverson found solace in his schoolwork and learned
“Learning to look at people for who they are—not their gender, their pigmentation, their sexuality— is a skillset that’s academic and can be learned. We can eradicate that ignorance.”
“And we grow up with this ‘when-you-wish-upon-a-star’… No. Your dreams have to start grounding themselves in reality, and then you can make them happen.”
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CHARMED
Alverson’s
proudest accomplishment PRESENTING HIS DAUGHTER, BLANCHE, IN JORDAN-HARE STADIUM WHEN SHE RECEIVED
to develop confidence because of the person 1986 and worked in a variety of law positions HER OWN CROWN AS AUBURN’S he was inside, not his outward appearance. before moving to Andalusia, where he started MISS HOMECOMING 2012. “In the seventh grade I decided I wanted his own law practice. Alverson’s legal career to be an attorney, and everything in my life was reached its highest point to date when he successdriven in that way,” Alverson says. “I wanted to be an fully argued before the 11th Circuit Court, just one step attorney because I was skinny and bullied, and the best below the U.S. Supreme Court. way to beat someone is with a brain. You can bring someone to It wasn’t until the mid-1990s that he started coaching pageant justice a lot faster with your mouth.” girls. A woman in his church choir, noting his obvious abilities Alverson used those painful experiences to fuel his passion for with fashion (he dresses nearly all the women in his life) asked if the underdogs and the oppressed, working hard to make himself he would be interested in helping a young member of the church an irrefutable candidate for law school. practice for her first pageant. He said he’d try. He channeled his pain into purpose: he would stand up for Just like he trains witnesses to testify strategically for trial, he people when others wouldn’t. trained her to present herself strategically to the judges both in her He studied vigorously into his college years at Auburn and interviews and on stage. immersed himself into campus life, serving as an officer in Sigma First-timers don’t normally place at all in pageants, but she Alpha Epsilon fraternity and student government in the mid-1980s. won the whole thing. He says he held the school’s largest fundraiser to date, even though Word spread throughout Andalusia, a town of less than he didn’t know he’d done it until it was over. 10,000, and after coaching many other young ladies on their He completed his law degree at the University of Alabama in presentation skills and clothing choices, he thought he might
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THE
PAGEANT KING
have been onto something. So he turned it into a side business, now charging up to $125 for a one-hour session. Although he doesn’t keep up with the exact numbers, he estimates he has worked with more than 500 girls since he started coaching nearly two decades ago. Of those, he says, at least 90 percent have won or placed in their competitions. “Those that really work and are committed and stay true to the task—it may be a longer journey for some—are the ones do well,” Alverson says. His No. 1 philosophy is honesty. If the young women are truly in the pageants to win the title, they know they need someone whose opinion they can trust. And it’s not just a title they’re competing for, either. In most cases, big scholarship money is on the line. For Miss America, winners receive $50,000 in scholarship funds. “When a girl goes into an interview and has five people looking at her, listening to her opinion, I’m telling you, at age 15, that’s empowering.” And that’s Alverson’s purpose in this work: to empower young women. Taking his oldest daughter, Blanche, to pageants when she was a child, he saw what it means for young girls to look up to confident, empowered women. “I would go with him to Miss Alabama, and he saw what a big impact that the girls he was working with had on me when I was little,” she says. “He saw the role model that they can be, and the role models that women can be for other women.” As a father, Alverson raised his children, especially his daughters, to love themselves and be proud of who they are. Blanche, who played basketball at Auburn, stands at six-foot-three and was unsure of herself growing up because of her height, but he always told her, “Keep your head up high, keep your shoulders back.” His love for his daughters ignited his passion for women’s equality, which is the idea he promotes throughout his television show and with every young woman he coaches. Blanche still carries that confidence in her own life. Years after bringing her to pageants to watch his trainees, in light of all of his professional and pageant accolades, Alverson’s proudest accomplishment was presenting Blanche in Jordan-Hare Stadium when she received her own crown as Auburn’s Miss Homecoming 2012. Using his own experience overcoming life’s hurdles as a guide, he leads each of his girls to their own victory, instilling confidence in them that they can make their dreams happen, A A A A A A whether that is to earn $1,000 in scholarship money or to represent the entire country. A A A A A A “The difference between being in a pageant in real life is A A A A A A that the pageant is only the pageant,” Alverson says. “What’s more A A A important is what happens after the pageant, and that’sAlife.”
Queens and his
ALVERSON ON HIS CLIENTS, THE PAST FOUR WINNERS OF
Miss America
MALLORY HAGAN She always remained her honest, true, authentic self. I learned the power of that from her and now I try to use that power more with other girls. NINA DAVULURI When I met her, it was a brand new experience. She was quite an interesting concept, because she was the first Asian of Indian descent to win a state title. Our goal was looking at who she was, a non-traditional Miss America candidate that, in fact, represented the modern woman today. KIRA KAZANTSEV Kira is a first-generation American. Her parents are Russian immigrants, and Putin invaded Ukraine the month she won Miss New York. We had to change her whole concept, because celebrating Russian heritage became so controversial. We used the idea of what America means to so many different people, and she became a strong voice of immigration. BETTY CANTRELL She came and saw me before she went to Miss Georgia the first time and she made Top 5. Then we met a couple of times and continued to talk and text throughout her Miss Georgia competition, which she won. A lot of it with Betty was empowering her to be her, to stay true to herself all the way.
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Auburn Clubs AUBURN ALUMNI AFFILIATES AFFILIATE GROUP LOCATIONS
Young Dallas Auburn Alumni Affiliate
Dallas, Texas
Central Iowa Auburn Alumni Affiliate
Iowa
Knoxville Auburn Affiliate
China Auburn Alumni Affiliate
Indonesia Auburn Alumni Affiliate
Knoxville, Tenn.
China
Indonesia
www.alumni.auburn.edu/clubs
Who We Are
The Auburn Alumni Association is adding affiliate groups to its successful Auburn Clubs program. Auburn Alumni Affiliates are groups of alumni and friends who share a common interest, age range or geographical location. For more information or to start an affiliate of your own, please contact auclubs@auburn.edu.
THIS IS COMING HOME. Make plans for an activity-packed weekend.
homecoming September 30 – October 2 Come home for the pep rally, parade, concert, football game, and lots more.
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Auburn Magazine
For Alumni & Friends of Auburn University
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For Alumni & Friends of Auburn University
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au ua a ll u um m .. o o rr g g Auburn Auburn Magazine Magazine a 59AuburnMag_Fall08.indd 59
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ALUMNI CLASSNOTES > IN MEMORIAM ALUMNI CLASSNOTES > IN MEMORIAM
the Classes IN THIS SECTION Classnotes
56 Wynn Everett
59 In Memoriam
62 Backchat
64
Summer Shuff le These young people were students at the Alabama Polytechnic Institute (now Auburn University) in the early 1940s. They are shown here participating in the summer recreation program during the summer session in 1941.
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ALUMNI CLASSNOTES > IN MEMORIAM FROM THE AUBURN ALUMNI ASSOCIATION
Aboard
Former association presidents (L-R) Ralph Jordan ‘70, Nancy Fortner ‘71, Bobby Poundstone ‘95, Bill Stone ‘85, Batey Gresham ‘57, Jack Fite ‘85.
For the Good of Auburn WE CAN ALL AGREE that how we live and conduct our lives can impact Auburn for the greater good. The Auburn Family comprises people from all walks of life, occupations and races who live in places, big and small, all over the world. Most of us rarely consider how our lives impact the Auburn Family. The majority of us, I assume, will at times in our day or week pause and think about how we are representing ourself, our family, our church and/or our company. But isn’t it true that how we live also reflects on other Auburn alumni? How often have we celebrated the successes and mourned the losses of those in the Auburn Family simply because we are connected by Auburn? Whether you are the CEO of Apple Inc., the quarterback of the Carolina Panthers or the local vet or pharmacist, you really do represent Auburn and the Auburn Family every day. You have heard it said many times by others, but Auburn people are a little different. We are quick to identify the common bond of Auburn when we meet each other with a “War Eagle” in an airport or on foreign soil. We always root for the pro team with the most Auburn players or speak with pride about the AU graduate that has been successful in business. Dr. George Petrie wrote our Creed, which gives us a great list of ideals to believe in and that enhance our ability to live a life that is successful, no matter how you define it, and one that will represent Auburn for the greater good. In doing so, we must also commit to staying connected to Auburn. Being intentional about your associations to the university will benefit you, and your meaningful connections to the university will be a big reason
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why Auburn will continue to move forward as one of the premier universities in the South. I recently had the honor of speaking at the awards banquet during Black Alumni Weekend. In attendance were more than 250 Auburn alumni that have excelled in life and are representing our university for the greater good. We hosted the Golden Eagles in May. These alumni celebrated their 50-year anniversary representing the class of 1966. They are always eager to reconnect to Auburn and many are active in our capital campaign. Our challenge is to connect more young alumni to the university. As we begin another season of club meetings and fall football, let’s be committed to inviting more young alumni to connect. Let’s look for more opportunities to reach out, encourage and assist our young alumni to live the Auburn Creed for the greater good of Auburn. Why? BECAUSE THIS IS AUBURN! WAR EAGLE!
Jack Fite ’85 President, Auburn Alumni Association e jfite@fitebuilding.com
S H A R E YO U R N E W S W I T H U S AT AU B M AG @AU B U R N . E D U
JIM VICKREY ’64 of Montgomery
was titled “Make Me Like You” and
retired after 50 years in higher
starred singer Gwen Stefani. It can
education, including a decade as
be found on YouTube. Ferniany
ROBERT R. “BOBBY” KEITH ’63
president of the University of
writes, “She passes in front of me
was recently inducted into the 2016
Montevallo—the last 22 years as
sitting in Blake’s cocktail lounge
State of Alabama Engineering Hall
professor of speech communication
toward the end of the video.”
of Fame. This honor recognizes
at Troy University, where he will be
contributions toward the advance-
designated professor emeritus. He
PAUL ALLEN FOX ’69 was selected
ment of engineering and technology,
has co-authored and edited a book,
to serve as public relations
leading to an enhanced economic
ECHOES of Robert E. Lee High
chairman of the South Alabama
and cultural future for the state and
School: The First Decade, 1955-1965,
Chapter, Executive Council for The
BANKS BRAZELL SR. ’54 retired
the nation. Bobby began his
a history of his public school alma
Military Officers Association of
after 60 uninterrupted years as a
engineering career with Northrop
mater, and is presently working on
America. He also was asked to use
registered pharmacist. Starting out
Space Labs in Huntsville in 1963. At
another couple of books. He has
his extensive fundraising experi-
with Holmes Drugstore in
Northrop, he was the team leader in
also retired from a two-decade-long
ence to serve as a consultant for the
LaGrange, Ga., he then worked
the development of the guidance
“career” as a public radio commen-
2015-17 development campaign for
with Hood Pharmacy in Kinston,
program for the Saturn V rocket
tator, during which he offered his
St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in
N.C. In 1960 he opened Boulevard
system used during the Apollo lunar
views on contemporary movies and
Mobile.
Pharmacy in Warner Robins, Ga.,
landing program. In 1970, he began
selected public issues of the day in
which operated as an independent
working at Hoar Construction in
more than 1,200 researched and
pharmacy until 1995, when it
Birmingham, rising through the
read essays, many of which were
merged with Revco, later to become
ranks to become chief executive
subsequently published, a result,
part of CVS. He retired from CVS in
officer. Hoar consistently ranks
he stated, of the instruction he
MICHAEL S. “MIKE” ROGERS ’71
2014 and now spends his time
among the country’s largest
received as an English major
retired in July 2015 after 15 years as
helping his wife of 64 years, Doll,
construction companies, with offices
advisee of the late Auburn
assistant vice chancellor for
raise more than 4,000 types of day
in seven major cities. After retiring
professor Ruth Faulk, a memorial
academic affairs for the University
lilies in her garden, many of which
in 2001, Keith continues to serve on
fund honoring whom
are one-of-a-kind hybrids. He
the board of directors. He also
he and others
writes that he now “has a full-time
serves on the AU Civil Engineering
of her students
job as Doll’s yardman”!
Advisory Board. He and his wife,
are presently
DONNA VANDERVER KEITH ’66,
trying to
JOSEPH MAXWELL ’54 writes that
live in Hoover. Their daughters,
endow. He
he has invented and developed an
LAURIE KEITH LEGRONE ’87 and
welcomes
automated transportation system
SUSAN KEITH SHANAHAN ’90, live
the partici-
that is powered by electricity and
in Greensboro, N.C., and Charlotte,
pation of
can move shipping containers
N.C., respectively.
others who sat
Send your classnotes and other updates to Auburn Magazine
1960s
317 S. College St., Auburn University, AL 36849 or aubmag@auburn.edu.
e
1950s
automatically through the system
in one or more
to multiple exit locations. Even
HENRY MILLER JR. ’64 accepted
of Mrs. Faulk’s
though the system moves at very
the Congressional Gold Medal on
classes.
high speed, accidents cannot
behalf of his father, Rear Adm.
happen and deliveries can’t be
Henry Miller, for his participation
MICHAEL
misdirected. In March, he brought
in the Doolittle Raid over Tokyo,
FERNIANY ’68
scale models of the system to
Japan, also known as “Thirty
was part of the
Auburn to meet with College of
Seconds Over Tokyo, 1942.” The
first live video
Engineering faculty on ways to
presentation was made aboard the
performed at
commercialize the system. Maxwell
U.S.S. Hornet in Alameda, Calif.
the Grammy
lives in Burnsville, N.C.
Miller is a commercial photogra-
Awards this
pher in Greenbrae, Calif.
year. The video
1970s
Make Your ons Today Nominati Nominations are now open for Lifetime Achievement Awards and the undergraduate teaching award. For entries and more information, visit: www.alumni.auburn.edu/awards
SUMMER 2016
Auburn Magazine
55
THE CLASSES > CLASSNOTES
System of Georgia, and JANICE
practices in the area of business
RANDALL ROGERS ’72 retired in
litigation. He lives in Atlanta.
Roundtable, Peachtree Presbyterian
1980s
Church, The Northside Youth
May 2015 from the Gwinnett
Organization, The Westminster
County, Ga., Extension Service.
TIMOTHY BARTON ’78 recently was
BRUCE TARKINGTON ’80 retired
Schools and as a past president of
They now live in Blue Ridge, Ga.
named an adjunct instructor at
from and sold his veterinary practice
Buckhead Baseball.
Lipscomb University in Nashville,
in 2010 and has since become a
LYN BABB SCHMID ’71 is president
Tenn., teaching the “Accounting for
juried artist. He has had an interest
SUSAN MAY ’81 and ANDY MAY ’82
of the Delta Kappa Gamma Society
Executives” MBA class in the College
in his compressed charcoal drawings
recently celebrated their youngest
for Key Women Educators Interna-
of Business. He is vice president of
by The Cape Lookout National
son Nick’s 25th year with a heart
tional, located in Austin, Texas.
finance at Travlink American
Seashore/Park Service and has a
transplant. He received the
Express Travel in Nashville.
two-month-long solo exhibit
transplant when he was 1 year old.
featuring Carolina Coastal Art that
The family lives in Cartersville, Ga.
KENNETH B. “BO” WALKLEY ’71
retired on Feb. 1, 2016, as vice
LESLIE ETHEREDGE ’78 is the new
will be held in July 2016 in Cary, N.C.,
president for research at the
western regional minister for the
where he makes his home.
National Institute of Aerospace in
Florida Conference of the United
Hampton, Va., competing a 43-year
Church of Christ and writes that
CHARLES E. “CHUCK” JONES ’81
directors of Red Mountain Theatre
career in aerospace. He and his
she loves being located in
was recently spotlighted by Georgia
Co. in Birmingham. He is in credit
wife, JUDY WALKLEY ’73, will
Clearwater, Fla.
Trend magazine as director of the
risk management with Regions Bank.
continue to live in Yorktown, Va.
THOMAS H. “TOMMY” TYNES ’83
serves as president of the board of
Athens (Ga.) Convention & Visitors RICHARD “RICK” STEWART PATE
Bureau. He is also an active
CASSANDRA KAYE DICKIE VEAZEY
RICHARD LEA SHAW ’72 retired in
’78, president of Pate Landscape
member of the Greater Athens
’83 and WILLIAM HENRY “BUTCH”
December 2015 from the architec-
Co. in Lowndesboro, was the first
Auburn Club.
VEAZEY JR. ’86 have recently
ture and engineering firm of
specialty contractor to serve as
Whitman, Requardt and Associates
president of the Alabama Associ-
JAMES E. JOWERS JR. ’81, a
is now vice president of corporate
in Baltimore, Md., where he served
ated General Contractors. During
private wealth advisor in the
and marketing communications for
as vice president. He worked for the
his year as president, for which he
private banking and investments
Hexcel. Butch continues as
firm for more than 47 years.
was recently honored by the
group at Merrill Lynch in Atlanta,
principal owner of VZ Productions.
moved to Connecticut, where Kaye
organization, the Alabama AGC
was recently recognized on Barron’s
GREG MCCLELLAN ’74, CEO of
created a scholarship foundation
“America’s Top 1,200 Financial
FRANK CRITTENDEN ’84 has been
MAX Federal Credit Union, recently
and awarded scholarships to
Advisors: 2015 State-by-State List.”
named vice president of Carter, one
was awarded the National
students in the construction
He focuses on the integrity and
of the country’s leading real estate
Association of Federal Credit
curriculum attending Auburn as
professionalism of client relation-
investment, development and
Unions’ CEO of the Year award. He
well as vocational schools. They
ship management for Ponder,
advisory firms. His initial assign-
also has stayed connected to
also helped pass transformational
Higgins, Jowers & Associates, a
ment is to lead Carter’s team in
Auburn, not only tailgating for
workforce legislation that will
wealth-management team within
managing the public component of
ballgames, but working with MAX
generate $5 million annually to
the Merrill Lynch group. He serves
work at City Springs, a planned
Federal Credit Union to award,
train craftsmen for the industry. A
as the group’s investment banking
community located in Sandy
among other scholarships, 10
past-president of the Montgomery
and venture capital liaison,
Springs, Ga., north of Atlanta.
$2,500 scholarships to youths in
Auburn Club, Pate has endowed a
providing leadership in client
central and eastern Alabama. They
scholarship for Lowndes County
interaction and acting as a hub for
ALEC HARVEY ’84, after nearly 30
also sponsor an AU basketball game
students attending Auburn and is a
financial relationships, making
years at The Birmingham News and
annually.
member of the Foy and Samford
certain that clients, prospects and
AL.com, is now back in Auburn,
societies. He has served as mayor of
other professional partners can
advising student media and
WILLIAM G. “BILL” LEONARD ’76
Lowndesboro for more than 11
access the resources they need.
teaching feature writing as an
was one of 25 Taylor English Duma
years, and also served as president
Jowers has spent his entire career
adjunct professor.
attorneys named among Georgia
of the Montgomery Rotary Club. He
at Merrill Lynch, joining the firm in
Super Lawyers for 2016. He
currently has two sons at Auburn.
1986. He lives in Atlanta and has
OWEN BAILEY ’85, a veteran
been active in several civic
healthcare leader who serves as
organizations, including the Atlanta
administrator of the University of
56
AUBURNMAGAZINE.AUBURN.EDU
S H A R E YO U R N E W S W I T H U S AT AU B M AG @AU B U R N . E D U
THE CLASSES > CLASSNOTES
Sweet WE ALL HAVE TO deal with our share of jerks: the rude waiter at dinner last night or the texting teen who cut you off on the way to work. Sometimes we fantasize about how we’d get revenge, but New York Times best-selling author Tim Dorsey ’83 just kills them. In his books, of course. “When idiots treat you unfairly, you just bite your lip and take the high road,” Dorsey said. “Instead of responding to them, I think of how I can kill them in a book and make some money.” Revenge has been sweet for Dorsey since he left his newspaper job to write novels full-time in 1999. After publishing book No. 19, Coconut Cowboy, earlier this year, Dorsey stopped at the Auburn University Bookstore for a book-signing. It was the 47th stop of his tour. Dorsey’s wacky cast of characters populate the wacky world of South Florida. He’s best known for his eccentric protagonist Serge A. Storms, a clinically insane “sequential” Florida killer who enacts his strong sense of justice by slaying the people who, for lack of a better term, tick him off. “He doesn’t like it when they call him a serial killer,” Dorsey said. “He thinks serial killers are sick and compulsive. Of course he’s sick and weird, too, but he doesn’t recognize it.” In his latest adventure, Storms and his drugged-out sidekick Coleman set out to find the lost American dream, motorcycling through the iconic Panhandle cities featured in the ’60s classic film Easy Rider. Along the way, they don’t find the front-porch-sitting, lemonadesipping, American hospitality they’d hoped for; instead, they find the corruption and greed they wanted to escape. Dorsey, a Floridian himself, grew up in Riviera Beach north of Miami. Although he’s not a murderous vigilante like Storms, he is, like his character, enamored with his home state’s charm, history and admitted weirdness. People ask Dorsey all the time where he gets inspiration for his lessthan-conventional methods of murder. Fascinated by science and technology as a child, he now wanders around home-improvement stores, keeping an eye out for tools and machinery that could be easily “misused.” Initially an engineering major, Dorsey earned his writing chops working for the Plainsman, including serving as editor his senior year. His experiences there solidified his love for writing, and after graduating, he worked in journalism for 16 years. Two weeks before the publication of his first novel, he turned in his two-week notice. Now it’s on to book No. 20. “Having a dream and chasing it,” Dorsey said, “is only second to actually seeing it happen.” For Dorsey, if anything’s clear about the road ahead, it’s that there will always be another jerk for Serge Storms to kill. —Sarah Russell
wp.auburn.edu/auburnmagazine
SUMMER 2016
Auburn Magazine
57
THE CLASSES > CLASSNOTES
South Alabama’s Children’s &
CONNIE COX SPEARS ’86, a board
building the first fully accredited
in Birmingham. He and his brother
Women’s Health Hospital, has been
member of Madison City Schools in
private banking and investment
also maintain a timber and cattle
named chief operating officer of
Madison, has been named the new
group team in the Southeast Region,
operation in Lowndes County. He is
USA Health, a comprehensive
District 9 director of the Alabama
he spent seven years at Goldman
past president and board member of
academic healthcare system
Association of School Boards at the
Sachs advising entrepreneurs
the Greenville Area Chamber of
dedicated to helping people live
group’s March 18 meeting. She has
experiencing significant liquidity
Commerce and now serves as
longer, better lives. He will be
been a member of the Madison
events. Prior to Goldman, Ron
treasurer of the Greenville Kiwanis
responsible for the management,
Board of Education since 2009. As
worked in mergers and acquisitions
Club and Butler County Relay for
operation and oversight of USA
District 9 director, she represents
for an investment partnership,
Life. Meadows also serves as
Health, with a goal of enhancing a
the Blount, Jackson, Madison and
focusing on consolidation among
president of the Butler County
high-quality, cost-effective,
Marshall county school boards and
wireless communication propertie
Auburn Club.
integrated care-delivery system. He
the city school boards of Albertville,
will work closely with the
Arab, Boaz, Guntersville, Hunts-
CHRIS MICHELFELDER ’91 and
WILLIAM B. “CHIP” SPRATLIN ’95
University of South Alabama and
ville, Madison, Oneonta and
MEREDITH CAMP MICHELFELDER
is a corporate pilot for Pilot Flying J,
USA Health leaders to set strategic
Scottsboro.
’92 are the owners of Midway Farms
a company that operates highway
vision and operational goals. With
in Moulton. Meredith writes, “We
travel centers across the U.S. and
more than 3,700 employees, USA
STUART NOEL ’88 is associate dean
have been breeding Hanoverian and
Canada. He currently lives in
Health’s annual economic impact is
and professor of English at Georgia
Oldenburg Sport Horses since 2002
Jonesborough, Tenn. While at
$560 million.
State University in Atlanta.
as well as farming corn, soybeans
Auburn, he won the NCAA Division
and wheat, and now have a small
1 individual championship in golf,
RICHARD W. FORRESTER ’85
HANNIBAL HEREDIA ’89, a family
Angus cattle herd. We stay very busy,
topping a field that included Tiger
writes, “On Aug. 25, 2011, our
law attorney and founding and
but enjoy what we do.” The
Woods. He played two seasons as a
beautiful adopted daughter, Rachel
managing partner at Hedgepeth,
Michelfelders have two sons, Sam,
pro before finding his true love in
Lee Forrester, was born in Sandy,
Heredia & Rieder in Atlanta, has been
19, and Eli, 15.
the skies.
Utah. My wife, CHERYL SMITH
included in Georgia Trend’s 13th
FORRESTER ’99, and I brought her
Annual “Legal Elite” listing in the area
CHARLES “CHUCK” O’BRIEN IV
REBECCA FRATELLO ’97 finished
home to live with us in Georgia.
of family law. He also was included in
’94, a principal at Pieper O’Brien
her first Ironman—Ironman
Rachel Lee was named after her
Atlanta magazine’s “Super Lawyers”
Herr Architects in Atlanta, recently
Florida—on Nov. 7 in Panama City.
grandmothers, Rachel Smith and
ranking of Georgia attorneys.
became the firm’s vice president.
She is a veterinarian and owner of
POH is the 13th-largest architectural
House Calls Mobile Pet Clinic in
CHUCK STOUT ’89 is executive vice
firm in Atlanta as ranked by the
Ocala, Fla.
DONALD C JACKSON ’85, Sharpe
president at CBIZ Benefits &
Atlanta Business Chronicle. His
Distinguished Professor Emeritus of
Insurance Services in Boca Raton,
design experience includes a variety
KIMBERLY SCHLACHTA ’97
Fisheries at Mississippi State
Fla. He lives in Coral Springs, Fla.,
of project types, including govern-
married Michael Rabalais on April
University, recently published Deeper
with his wife and two children.
mental, multi-family housing, retail,
18, 2016. The couple resides in Fort
Currents: The Sacraments of
educational, office, interiors and
Myers, Fla., where Kim has been
Hunting and Fishing with the
master planning. As a member of
president of Boylan Environmental
the firm’s design team, he defines the
Consultants Inc. for the past five
aesthetic and organization of a
years. Kim was a student athlete for
Doris Lee Forrester.”
University Press of Mississippi. In it,
1990s
he takes readers on a guided journey into the cathedrals of wild and
RON HUGHES ’91 has been
project by translating the program
the Auburn volleyball team and,
lonely places where hunters and
recognized by Barron’s in its annual
into the building design.
following graduation, she returned
fishers connect with the rhythms of
“America’s Top 1,200 Financial
the earth and life. He explores
Advisors: 2016 State-by-State” list.
PAYNE MEADOWS ’95 of Greenville
environmental career at Boylan in
hunting and fishing as frameworks
The rankings are based on assets
was recently featured in Business
1998. The company has provided
for discovering, engaging and
under management, revenues
Alabama as a “Mover and Shaper” in
ecological consulting services in
finding meaning in those rhythms.
generated by advisors for their firms,
his area of the state. He is co-owner
Southwest Florida since 1989.
He has also written two other books,
and the quality of the advisors’
and partner in the Greenville CPA
Tracks and Wilder Ways.
practices. Hughes joined Merrill
firm Meadows and Co. Previously, he
Lynch in February 2000 and prior to
worked at PricewaterhouseCoopers
58
AUBURNMAGAZINE.AUBURN.EDU
to her hometown and started her
S H A R E YO U R N E W S W I T H U S AT AU B M AG @AU B U R N . E D U
Calling AGENT CARTER
IF YOU WERE AT AUBURN during the late ’90s, you might remember Wynn Everett ’00 playing the accordion during her campaign for Miss Homecoming. If not, you might recognize her in a more devious light. Everett, who studied communication and minored in theater, starred earlier this year in the Marvel television show “Agent Carter” as Whitney Frost, the major villain of the show’s second season. “The entire experience was incredible. I’d played villains before in little guest spots, but I’d never played anything like a Marvel villain until ‘Agent Carter,’” Everett said. “Agent Carter” takes place in the post-World War II 1940s and defies the era’s social climate with powerful females like leads Agent Peggy Carter and “villain” Whitey Frost. In an attempt to gain autonomy in a world that always seemed to beat her down, Frost encounters a mysterious substance, zero matter. During an accident, zero matter seeps into her body and gives her monstrous power. “With the creators and the writers, it was an amazing parallel of a
substance that can take over, like the zero matter, that allowed them to feel powerful while it’s actually destroying them,” Everett said. With the show over, Everett says she has enjoyed investing time in her family, especially enjoying the weather in Los Angeles. “We spend 365 days a year outside,” Everett said. “We love to go on walks and play in the backyard.” Along with the Southern California weather, the family loves the many genuine friendships they’ve found there, but Everett still calls the South home. “Ultimately, my husband and I have a goal to move back to the South,” Everett said. “There’s a pace about the South that’s very different, that we miss. You don’t realize how special it is until you’re gone for a very long time.” No matter where she is, though, Everett always encourages others to follow their passions and pursue their dreams, just as she has done. “If you can really suck up as much knowledge, remain curious, travel as much as you can and follow those things that really light a fire within you, life feels very fulfilling and rich.” —Sarah Russell abc.go.com/shows/marvels-agent-carter
SUMMER 2016
Auburn Magazine
59
THE CLASSES > CLASSNOTES
2000s
For the Board
ERICA GRAVES WALSH ’00 and her
THE AUBURN ALUMNI ASSOCIATION board of
rate services, Sodexo Inc., RESIDENCE: Poolesville,
husband, Ryan, announce the birth
directors’ nominating committee, having solicited
Md. AUBURN ACTIVITIES: board, Metro Washington
of a daughter, Marion Breland, on
nominations from the membership as required in the
Auburn Club.
Jan. 27, 2016. The family lives in
association bylaws, has submitted its list of
Nashville, Tenn.
candidates for two new officers and four new
Vice President
directors to the full board. The recommended
M. VAN HENLEY ‘80
TANYA NICOLE SWENSON ’00
candidates have been approved by the board and are
Senior tax partner, Ernst & Young, LLP, RESIDENCE: Col-
married Jason James Kellar on
presented below for the membership’s consideration.
leyville, Texas. AUBURN ACTIVITIES: Auburn Alumni
March 21, 2015, at the Fountainview
Association Board of Directors 2010-present; treasur-
Mansion in Auburn. The couple
propose other candidates via the process outlined in
er 2014-present; vice chair and chair for finance and
lives in Auburn.
Article XI, Section 4 (see below). The deadline for
operations committee, 2012 - 2016; former officer,
contesting a candidate recommended by the board is
Dallas-Fort Worth Auburn Club; Circle of Excellence,
HENRY C. “DEE” DEBARDELEBEN
June 27, 5 p.m., CDT. If no further nominations are
Diamond; 1856 Society; Foy Society; former member
’02 was selected to the 2016
received, the unopposed candidates will be elected and
AU School of Accountancy Advisory Council; College
Georgia Rising Stars list from Super
will begin their terms at the association’s annual
of Business Shareholders Club member.
Lawyers Magazine, recognizing his
According to the association’s bylaws, members may
meeting Oct. 1. All annual and life members are invited.
excellence in civil litigation defense. President
He is a member with Weinberg,
Directors
WILLIAM C. (BEAU ) BYRD II ‘89
Wheeler, Hudgins, Gunn & Dial
SHIRLEY F. BOULWARE ‘91
Partner, Bradley, Arant, Boult, Cummings LLP,
in Atlanta.
Recruiting manager, Georgia-Pacific Corp.,
RESIDENCE: Birmingham, Ala. AUBURN ACTIVITIES:
RESIDENCE: Tyrone, Ga. AUBURN ACTIVITIES:
board, committee chair and vice president, Auburn
HEATHER CHAPATWALA SLOSS
Coweta-Fayette Counties Auburn Club; Chemical
Alumni Association Board of Directors 2010-present;
’02 and her husband, Brian,
Engineering Alumni Council; member, Engineering
vice president 2014-present; vice chair and chair for
announce the birth of a daughter,
Alumni Council; director, War Eagle Society; Auburn
Membership Committee and Scholarship Committee
Mikaela Ann Sloss, on Oct. 2, 2015.
Pulp and Paper Foundation; Engineering Eagle Soci-
2012-2016; past president, Birmingham Auburn Club;
The family lives in Dallas, Texas.
ety; Engineering 100 Women Strong.
Circle of Excellence, Orange & Blue; George Petrie Society; Samford Society; Foy Society.
BRIAN KERVIN ’03 and his wife,
Jamie, announce the birth of a son,
LAURA C. KEZAR ‘08
Process engineer, Chevron, RESIDENCE: Houston,
Applicable passage from Auburn Alumni Association
Oliver, on Aug. 6, 2015. Oliver is the
Texas. AUBURN ACTIVITIES: president, Greater Houston
Bylaws Article XI, Section 4: Nominations from Mem-
first grandchild of WAYNE KERVIN
Auburn Club; Club Leadership Conference 2014-16; Be-
bers at Large.Section 4. Nominations from Members at
’73 and his wife, Glenda. The family
cause This Is Auburn Houston campaign event; found-
Large. Members may propose other candidates for any
lives in Auburn.
ing member, Auburn Engineering 100 Women Strong;
position provided that (1) the name and a biography of
Auburn Engineering Eagles Society 2008-present; vice
their proposed candidate is submitted in writing to the
KENT MCCORKLE ’03 is both a
chair, Engineering Young Alumni Council; Foy Society.
Secretary of the Association by the time specified in
chemistry professor at MiraCosta
the notice which can be no sooner than thirty (30) days
College in Oceanside, Calif., and an
ELON W. MADDOX JR. ‘73
from the day of the announcement; (2) the submission
entrepreneur. He and his wife have
Billing operations manager, AT&T, RESIDENCE: Crop-
specifies which candidate submitted by the Directors the
started a new company, Barebaby
well, Ala. AUBURN ACTIVITIES: former officer and im-
new candidate opposes; (3) the submission bears the new
Organics, which launched on
mediate past president, Greater Birmingham Auburn
candidate’s signed consent; and (4) the submission of
Amazon.com in late April. “We’ve
Club; Club Leadership Conference 2009-10, 2014-16.
the new candidate contains the signed endorsement of at
spent nearly a year bringing this
least seventy-five (75) Members. Mail, facsimile or email
product to market, creating
transmissions of this information will be accepted.
something that we can trust for our
JEFFREY B. MOORE ’88
Market vice president, strategy and planning, corpo-
60
AUBURNMAGAZINE.AUBURN.EDU
babies and others,’” he writes. plantbid.com
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THE CLASSES > CLASSNOTES
JORDAN ERIC PHILLIPS ’03 and
KELLY RILEY ’07 and her husband,
CHRISTINA MUNIZ ’10 married
June 13, 2014.
BRITNEY ROBERTS PHILLIPS ’08
Brett, announce the birth of a son,
TERRY CHRISTOPHER CRUMBLEY
SARAH PEARSON RIVES ’46
announce the birth of a son,
Kolton Marshall Riley, on Jan. 18,
’11 on April 9, 2016, at Cathedral of
of Selma died on Feb. 15, 2015.
Harrison Lee Phillips, on May 2,
2015. He joins a big brother, Brooks.
Christ the King in Atlanta. They
CARL RUSSELL FLETCHER JR. ’47
2016. The family lives in Fyffe.
The family lives in Northport.
write that Terry’s groom’s cake was
of Southern Pines, N.C., died on
a replica of Jordan-Hare Stadium.
Jan. 22, 2016.
GEOFFREY PEARCE ’04 and
ASHLEIGH DEMOLL ’08 is
ASHLEY HARRIS PEARCE ’09
beginning the second year of a
KAYLA REBECCA GOMILLION ’11
’47 of Brownsboro died on
announce the birth of their first
four-year residency in emergency
married Wesley Richard Byrd May
Jan. 19, 2016.
child, Carter Jameson Pearce, on
medicine at Inspira Medical Center
9, 2015, at Kiesel Park in Auburn.
JOHN ED BUTLER ’48
Jan. 30, 2016. They’re hoping Carter
in Vineland, N.J. She graduated
They currently live in Dallas, Texas.
of New Hope died on Dec. 2, 2015.
will become a fourth-generation
from medical school in 2014 and
Auburn student in about 18 years.
lives in Millville, N.J.
The family lives in Newnan, Ga. FRAN PFRIMMER ’09 married JEFF WILLIAMS ’04 was named
Drew Sutton on Sept. 19, 2015, in
Photographer of the Year at the
Charlotte, N.C. They live in Chicago.
BLEDSOE DILWORTH HEREFORD
ROBERT “BOB” BLACKWELL RUSSELL MILLER ’11 and Carolyn
WHEELER ’48 of Loxley died
Coley married in Knoxville, Tenn.,
on Dec. 23, 2015.
March 7, 2015. They live in Jasper.
VINCENT JOSEPH CULIVAN JR. ’48
of Baton Rouge, La., died on MORGAN CANTRELL ’12, a resident
Dec. 7, 2015.
Birmingham American Advertising
of Carrollton, Ga., is working as a
JOHN CHARLES DAVIS ’48
Awards’ 2015 ADDY Gala. This
travel blogger and self-described
of Birmingham died on
wander enthusiast. She can be found
Jan. 2, 2016.
online at her own travel blog.
W. JOE DOYAL ’48 of Villa Rica, Ga.,
marks the third time since 2012 he
2010s
has held the title. His photography also has been awarded platinum
ASHLEY AHNER ’10 in March ran a
and gold awards from Graphis, The
half-marathon, completing her 50th
MARGARET LOYD STONE ’13
MCKENDREE HEARD FLOYD JR. ’48
International Journal of Visual
half-marathon in her 50th state.
married Samuel Perry Given III on
of Birmingham died on
Communications, and was featured
The race’s finish line was the
April 25, 2015, at Canterbury United
Dec. 6, 2015.
in Communication Arts in March.
50-yard line at Jordan-Hare
Methodist Church in Birmingham.
ROBERT “BOB” YOUNG GARRETT
Williams works for Lewis Communi-
Stadium—the perfect place to end
The couple lives in Birmingham.
’48 of Avon Lake, Ohio, died on Nov.
cations’ Constellation ImageWorks,
her marathon of half-marathons.
the company’s in-house photogra-
She lives in Atlanta, where she is a
PATRICK SNELLINGS ’15 is working
ANDERSON OLIVER HARWELL ’48
phy studio that provides work for
consultant for Deloitte.
as a fisheries biologist for the Georgia
of Raleigh, N.C., died on
Department of Natural Resources’
Dec. 8, 2015.
Wildlife Resources Division.
GEORGE EDWARD KENAN ’48
many of the branding agency’s clients across the country. News
KIAH F. ERLICH ’10 is a senior
about Jeff’s award was sent in by his
manager in marketing and product
father, JAMES F. WILLIAMS ’69.
management at Honeywell
died on Dec. 23, 2015.
27, 2015.
of Auburn died on Dec. 13, 2015. HALBERT GEARN MARSH ’48
Aerospace. She completed an
IN MEMORIAM
JUSTIN WILSON ’05 has been
18-month internship with the City
For more obituaries, visit
Dec. 26, 2015.
named managing director of public
of Phoenix (Ariz.) Aviation
auburnmagazine.auburn.edu.
RUTH D. NIGHTENHELSER ’48
relations for the Nashville,
Department at Phoenix Interna-
STUART PEEBLES WILSON ’39
of Goldsmith, Ind., died on
Tenn.-based public affairs firm Hall
tional after graduation. She lives in
of Huntsville died on Jan. 7, 2106.
Dec. 18, 2015.
Strategies. He manages strategic
the Phoenix area.
ERNEST WILBURN PATE ’39
EMMA MADDOX PEACOCK ’48
of Opelika died on Dec. 25, 2015.
of Auburn died on Dec. 13, 2015.
communications, marketing and
of Oak Schertz, Texas, died on
branding, crisis communications
MICHAEL J. MCNAIR ’10 married
MARGARET TAMPLIN TANNER ’41
ALBERT E. PEARCE ’48
and media relations for the
Julia Dorothy Andrews on Dec. 27,
of Birmingham died on Jan. 8, 2016.
of Mount Pleasant, S.C., died
company’s diverse roster of clients,
2015, at the Cathedral Church of
CHRISTINE BLACKBURN
on Dec. 27, 2015.
which includes national, regional
the Advent in Birmingham. The
DANNER ’42 of Auburn died
OTTO CARTER II ’49 of Birmingham
and local companies and associates.
couple lives in Montgomery.
on Dec. 25, 2015.
died on Dec. 23, 2015.
JANE W. GIBBS JACKSON ’43
RICHARD THOMAS GALLOWAY ’49 of
of Sevierville, Tenn., died on
Panama City, Fla., died on Jan. 13, 2016.
SUMMER 2016
Auburn Magazine
61
THE CLASSES > CLASSNOTES
JAMES H. GARRETT ’49
of Chesterfield, Mo., died on
of Mobile died on Dec. 9, 2015.
’58 of Elberta died Jan. 10, 2016.
of Decatur died on Dec. 18, 2012.
Oct. 14, 2014.
MARION L. COX ’55 of
WILLIAM FRANKLIN TINKER ’58
Y. STEPHEN HOGG JR. ’49 of
JACQUELYN “JACKIE” HOWELL
Huntsville died on Jan. 3, 2016.
of Smiths Station died on Jan. 24,
Gulf Breeze, Fla., died on
CATES ’51 of Columbiana died on
G. DAVID ELDER ’55 of
2016.
Dec. 10, 2015.
Dec. 18, 2015.
Madison, Tenn., died on
NANCY CARR GARRETT ’59
MARY ANNE GRIEME MOORE ’49
SAMUEL TERRY COKER ’51 of
Jan. 29, 2016.
of Burke, Va., died on Feb. 19, 2016.
of Mobile died on Jan. 8, 2016.
Auburn died on Dec. 7, 2015.
JEANETTE G. LOVIN ’55
ROGER C. ELLISON ’59
RICHARD CHARLES
THOMAS BUSSEY CUNNINGHAM
of Decatur died on Feb. 7, 2016.
of Gadsden died on April 12, 2016.
OTTERBERG ’49 of Mobile
’51 of Midland, Ga., died on
JIMMY J. BEVIS ’56 of
JOE WELDON MCCLUNG ’59
died on Dec. 26, 2015.
Jan. 10, 2016.
Huntsville died on Dec. 22, 2015.
of Alexandria, Va., died on
ROBERT D. RAFFIELD SR. ’49
ANTHONY “SONNY”
WILLIAM QUINCY KIRKLAND ’56
Dec. 11, 2015.
of Birmingham died Jan. 16, 2016.
DRAGOIN JR. ’51 of Auburn
of Panama City, Fla., died on
CHARLES GORDON NEWMAN ’59
IRA B. VEAZEY ’49
died on Dec. 28, 2015.
Sept. 9, 2015.
of Florence died on Nov. 23, 2015.
of Sylacauga died on Jan. 23, 2016.
JOHN ROBERT MARTIN ’51
FRANK HENDERSON RIDDICK ’56
THOMAS ERVIN ROYAL ’59 of
EDGAR ALPHONSE VERCHOT ’49
of Brewton died on Jan. 6, 2016.
of Huntsville died on
Concord, Ky., died on Dec. 8, 2015.
of Decatur died on Dec. 27, 2015.
RICHARD L. “DICK” WADE ’51
Dec. 28, 2015.
JAMES RANDELL STOKES ’59
FRANK NELSON DEBARDELEBEN
of Atlanta died on Jan. 29, 2016.
JAMES WARREN BARTON ’57 of
of Fort Walton Beach, Fla., died
’50 of Birmingham died on
CHARLES E. COX SR. ’52
Birmingham died on Nov. 28, 2015.
on Dec. 8, 2015.
Jan. 22, 2016.
of Huntsville died on Feb. 1, 2016.
LEWIS EDWIN BOOKER ’57
SIDNEY L. TAYLOR JR. ’59
FRED A. DURAN JR. ’50 of
GEORGE VELPEAU PATE ’52
of College Station, Texas, died on
of Pawleys Island, S.C., died
Birmingham died on Jan. 6, 2016.
of Auburn died on Nov. 24, 2015.
Dec. 16, 2015.
on Jan. 25, 2016.
EDWIN G. GOSS ’50
GRADY LESLIE PRATER ’52
JAMES HOUSTON HARRISON ’57
E.J. TURNER JR. ’59 of
of Huntsville died on Jan. 31, 2016.
of Timonium, Md., died on
of Fort Walton Beach, Fla., died
Montgomery died on Jan. 15, 2016.
MOGENS ESKE LARSEN ’50
Dec. 1, 2015.
on Jan. 26, 2016.
FRANK BUTENSCHON III ’60
of Alamo Heights, Texas, died
THOMAS P. PAYNE ’52
ROBERT F. MANLEY ’57
of Lake Park, Ga., died on
on Jan. 3, 2016.
of Gulf Breeze, Fla., died on
of Kingsland, Ga., died on
Dec. 25, 2015.
KATHERINE SAMFORD SMITH
Nov. 27, 2015.
Dec. 11, 2015.
GERALD E. CARTER ’60
MARTIN ’50 of Monroeville
WALTER J. WEATHERLY ’52
JAMES L. MCCORKLE JR. ’57 of
of Auburn died on Dec. 21, 2015.
died on Dec. 21, 2015.
of Fort Payne died on July 4, 2015.
Salem, Ore., died on Dec. 29, 2015.
CHARLES WALLACE REED ’60
JOHN VANCE “VANCE”
RICHARD CHARLES “DICK”
PHILIP “SAM” SUGG ’57
of Montgomery died on Jan. 20,
MCBRIDE JR. ’50 of Birmingham
BOLIN ’53 of San Francisco, Calif.,
of Annapolis, Md., died on
2016.
died on Nov . 27, 2015.
died on Dec. 26, 2015.
Dec. 21, 2015.
CHARLES DAVID STEWART ’60
BETTY FRIDAY MOULTON ’50
RUTH ANN NUNN BOND ’53
JOHN GRIGGS SWANN, JR. ’57
of Auburn died on Dec. 9, 2015.
of Vestavia died on Jan. 9, 2016.
of Auburn died on Dec. 24, 2015.
of Wedowee died on Jan. 18, 2016.
MORRIS WINGARD ’60
JOHN R. NEWBERRY ’50
LOUIS CHARLES CARDINAL JR.
EARL SIBLEY WALLACE JR. ’57
of Pinson died on Jan. 30, 2016.
of Sylacauga died on Jan. 9, 2016.
’53 of Montgomery died on
of Mobile died on Dec. 27, 2015.
RALPH STANLEY TRUE ’60
VIRGINIA E. PEGRAM ’50
Jan. 12, 2016.
JOHN ALTON GEORGE ’58
of Alpharetta, Ga., died on
of Alcolu, S.C., died on
RICHARDENE “RICHIE” MILLER
of Slidell, La., died on Jan. 15,
Aug. 10, 2015.
Dec. 3, 2015.
CLAYTON ’53 of Gadsden died
2016.
MAXINE THOMPSON TURNER ’61
ALVAH LEO ROWE ’50
on Dec. 12, 2015.
WILLIAM GEORGE HARDEN ’58 of
of Macon, Ga., died on Feb. 11,
of Decatur died on Jan. 10, 2016.
ALFRED DANIEL “BILL” BROWN
Macon, Ga., died on Dec. 19, 2015.
2016.
HOWARD G. STOKES ’50
’54 of Niceville, Fla., died on
JOHN “JACK” HERBERT
DAVID T. VAUGHN ’61
of Faico died on Jan. 18, 2016.
Dec. 14, 2015.
HOGUE JR. ’58 of Yazoo City,
of Savannah, Tenn., died on
HOWARD ALLEN TAYLOR ’50
DONALD W. LEGLER ’54 of
Miss., died on Dec. 22, 2015.
Aug. 10, 2015.
of Montgomery died Jan. 13, 2016.
Birmingham died on Dec. 9, 2015.
ROBERT CARROLL JONES ’58
HARVEY J. COPELAND ’63
MAX LENDELL WASHINGTON ’50
JIMMY LEON PARRISH ’54
of Ellenwood, Ga., died on
of Carrollton, Ga., died on
of Titus died on Dec. 28, 2015.
of Dothan died on Dec. 23, 2015.
Dec. 12, 2015.
Feb. 26, 2016.
SHELLIE O. WILLIAMSON ’50
KENNETH WILLARD WEAR ’54
CHARLES HENRY PETERSON JR.
EDMOND SIMS HALL ’66
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AUBURNMAGAZINE.AUBURN.EDU
S H A R E YO U R N E W S W I T H U S AT AU B M AG @AU B U R N . E D U
THE CLASSES > IN MEMORIAM
of Bardstown, Ky., died on Feb. 11, 2016.
James Owens, Pioneer
MICHAEL O. KILPATRICK ’67
of Auburn died on Jan. 12, 2016. RALPH G. BEARD JR. ’71
of Montgomery died on March 3, 2016. ANN ALLEN GRAHAM ’72 of
Jacksonville, Fla., died Jan. 10, 2016. HERBERT JACK LLOYD ’72
of Hope, Ark., died on Dec. 10, 2015. BETTYE TATE BRITTON ’73
of Bunkie, La., died on Jan. 3, 2016. THOMAS “TOM” STEARN HARRILL ’73 of Mount Airy, N.C.,
died on Dec. 10, 2015. AL FREDERICK OSTEEN ’73
of Augusta, Ga., died on Dec. 19, 2015. GARY B. LINTON III ’74 of Mel-
bourne, Fla., died Jan. 10, 2016. BOBBY F. MCGOUGH ’75
of Elkton, Ky., died on Dec. 10, 2015. NANCY UNGER DUPREE ’76
of Birmingham died on Dec. 1, 2014. GARY LEE EAST ’77 of Owens Cross
Roads died on Dec. 14, 2015. BARBARA R. CHERELLIA ’78
of Auburn died on Dec. 15, 2015. HAL F. GAMBLE II ’78
of Griffin, Ga., died on Dec. 22, 2015. MELVIN LEON PIKE ’78
of Valley died on Dec. 21, 2015. ALAN M. ROBINETT ’78
of Ozark died on Nov. 28, 2015. THOMAS E. SPEARS ’78
JAMES OWENS, the first black scholarship player to play football at Auburn University, died on March 26 at the age of 65. He had been battling health issues for a number of years and had been scheduled to be honored at the Auburn Alumni Association cosponsored Black Alumni Weekend two weeks later. Owens played fullback at Fairfield High School in the late 1960s before breaking the Auburn scholarship football color barrier. The late Henry Harris had signed on as the university’s first black basketball player the previous year, and he helped both Owens and Thom Gossom ’75, who started a year later and became Auburn’s first black football player to graduate, to get acclimated. “Henry Harris was my greatest hero,” Owens said in an interview several years ago. “He came when no one else was here. He stood, and he stayed.” In a 2012 interview, Owens recalled his years at Auburn as a time “James Owens was the epitome of courage; all of intense personal struggle. “The of us at Auburn are forever indebted to him for first three years that I was here, there were days I got up and said, the grace and courage he showed in being our this is the day. I’m going home. It’s first African-American player” said Auburn not worth it. And I would call my Athletics Director Jay Jacobs. “ mom and say, ‘I’m coming home.’ And she’d say, ‘No, stay.’” During his career as an Auburn Tiger, Owens rushed for 225 yards, received for 119 yards and scored five touchdowns. In 2012, Owens returned to Jordan-Hare Stadium to receive the first James Owens Courage Award, created by Auburn to honor athletes who display courage in the face of adversity. “James Owens was the epitome of courage,” said Auburn Athletics Director Jay Jacobs. “All of us at Auburn are forever indebted to him for the grace and courage he showed in being our first African-American player. It takes a special person to break down barriers and be the first. …He did a lot more than make Auburn better. He taught those of us who played the game how to be courageous with quiet humility.”
of Auburn died on Jan. 1, 2016. NANCY DAVIS LYLE ’79 of
Lawrenceville, Ga., died Jan. 7, 2016.
EARLEY GAVIN IV ’82 of Chatta-
Dec. 15, 2015.
of Huntsville died on June 20, 2015.
MARY JULE BURLESON ’81
nooga, Tenn., died on Dec. 25, 2015.
CHRISTY LEE WHITAKER ’85
MAUREEN DEVEREAUX KELLY
of Montgomery died on Jan. 17, 2016.
MICHAEL EDWARD PIPER ’82
of Madison died on Jan. 13, 2016.
HAYNES ’93 of Opelika died
PHILLIP H. WILLIAMS ’81
of West Palm Beach, Fla., died
HARRY LADON “DON”
on Dec. 4, 2015.
of Winston Salem, N.C., died
on April 23, 2015.
PHILLIPS ’87 of Greenville, S.C.,
KATHLYN HANSEN HUBBARD ’94
on Dec. 16, 2015.
STEPHEN ARAGON KRUSE ’83
died on Oct. 2, 2015.
of Savoy, Ill., died on Jan. 25, 2016.
JEFFREY KENNETH BRANUM ’82
of Marietta, Ga., died Jan. 23, 2016.
KARL T. THURBER JR. ’88 of New
GREGORY T. GRAVES ’97
of Chelsea died on Dec. 22, 2015.
SANDRA L. ZOES ’84 of
Kensington, Pa., died Jan. 20, 2016.
of Pike Road died on April 29, 2016.
CHARLES “CHUCK”
Montgomery died on
DAVID WAYNE MCCRICKARD ’92
SUMMER 2016
Auburn Magazine
63
BACKCHAT Online Speak
SCENES OF SPRING on campus ran the gamut from serious to silly, including a design charrette to select the architectural firm for the new university performing arts center; 2016 Crush Finals, a day to psyche students up for exams (and give them a chance
64
AUBURNMAGAZINE.AUBURN.EDU
to Thank AU); A-Day, starting with a baby’s “War Eagle” and ending with a dance for Black Alumni Weekend; the Auburn Alumni Association’s Class of 2016 Send-Off, with a chance for seniors to pose in the Memories in Motion Photo Bus; and, of course, commencement day.
WE LOVE BIRDIES, TOO. War Eagle to the 2016 PGA Barbasol Championship! It’s never happened before in NFL or MLB history — no school has
Auburn welcomes the loveliest onseason. the plains. hadUniversity alumni named MVP inyou bothtoleagues duringvillage the same
The Auburn University Foundation is proud to be a sponsor of the 2016 PGA Barbasol Josh and Cam’s stories began here. Why do we believe in equipping our students for a lifetime of success?
Championship, played in our own backyard on the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail at Grand National.
INTERESTED IN VOLUNTEERING? Register at www.barbasolchampionship.com and use the code AUBURNALUMNI to receive $10 off your volunteer package.
Auburn Alumni Center 317 South College Street Auburn, AL 36849-5149 www.aualum.org
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