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Homecoming 2021 – Alumni Awards
professional achievement award LAURA LEATHERWOOD
When Laura Leatherwood ’93 MA ’97 EdD ’06 discovered what higher education could do for her, she knew she had found her calling to ensure others discovered it for themselves. As a result, she has dedicated the past 23 years of her professional life to helping Western North Carolina residents realize the power of education through the community college system.
Laura began her higher education career at Haywood Community College as its first executive director of Institutional Advancement, Foundation and Alumni Relations, which led to numerous other positions within the college. She most recently served as its vice president of Student and Workforce Development. She had been working for Haywood Regional Medical Center recruiting members to its new health and fitness center when HCC recognized her skill for developing community relationships and hired her away.
In 2017, she was appointed president of Blue Ridge Community College, a threecampus institution, which serves more than 11,000 students in Transylvania and Henderson counties. But her reach goes far beyond WNC. As president, Laura is able to advocate for higher education at the local, regional and state levels, and now at the national level with the American Association of Community Colleges. She serves on the executive committee of the North Carolina Association of Community College Presidents and was nominated for president of the year for the North Carolina Community College System. Her list of awards and accomplishments is extensive. In 2020, she was nominated for the Henderson County Chamber of Commerce Athena Women’s Leadership Award.
Laura’s work doesn’t stop on campus. She is a tireless volunteer with numerous professional and social organizations throughout her community.
Laura grew up in Swain County in the shadow of Great Smoky Mountains National Park knowing she didn’t want to leave the area for college, and WCU proved a perfect fit. As a nontraditional student, Laura worked her way through college and never lived in a residence hall. It was these experiences that help her relate to many of her community college students who see themselves as nontraditional students, too. She loves community colleges for the diversity of degrees, programs and certificates, and educating new and potential students about redefining what it means to go to college.
And she can’t see herself doing anything else. “Once you become someone who is really all in with the profession of helping students, helping families and helping to lift others up, it becomes your life’s work,” Laura said. “And that’s what it did for me. It just became my life’s work.”
Bryant Kinney ’82 was a kid from Murphy who loved performing in his high school band and working at his local radio station when he arrived in Cullowhee to start college. He figured he would go into music in some form or another. But life has a way of moving the staircase in mid-climb and Bryant ended up with a degree in health sciences/emergency medical care. He’s never looked back.
Following graduation, Bryant became director of emergency management services for Cherokee County, and four years later a nuclear energy emergency response planner for the North Carolina Division of Emergency Management, bringing his mountain sensibilities to the rest of the state.
When he eventually took a job in communications and public affairs with Duke Energy, it was those science classes from long ago at WCU that Bryant says prepared him to speak the same language as the nuclear engineers and other scientists at his new job.
Bryant worked for Duke Energy for more than 20 years, serving as vice president for its energy services group, overseeing public affairs for the development of commercial energy projects in 20 states, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and Latin America. His last position was that of vice president of regulatory and government affairs for the company’s Carolinas operations.
Bryant is currently principal of Kinney Public Strategies in Lincolnton and has been consulting business and industry since 2010.
Bryant has the late Chancellor David Belcher to thank for bringing him back to Western. Bryant says Dr. Belcher called him to ask him to consider being a member of the Board of Trustees. He had lost touch with his alma mater while working and raising a family and said yes to Belcher. He was appointed by then-Gov. Pat McCrory in 2015. He was reappointed by the University of North Carolina Board of Governors in 2019. Bryant served as its vice-chairman from 2017-2019 and chairman for the past two years. His term ended in June. His term on the board ends June 2023.
As chairman of the Board of Trustees, he has served on the WCU Foundation Board and served as co-chair of the WCU Chancellor’s Search Committee that brought Kelli R. Brown to Cullowhee as the university’s first female chancellor.
Bryant’s belief in his alma mater goes deep. He and his wife Brenda Kinney ’83 have endowed the Kinney Family Scholarship to help support future generations of WCU students. “I believe firmly that you will see Western have an even larger impact on the economy of Western North Carolina, as the provider of talent, as the economy of Western North Carolina changes, as new industry moves in,” he said.
Is he surprised by how his life has turned out, the successes he has had? After all, he’s never had to look for a job. They have always found him. “I didn’t end up where I thought I was going to be, but I ended where I should have been.”
distinguished service award BRYANT KINNEY
academic achievement award KATHRYN CURLE RENTZ
A funny thing happened to Kathryn Curle Rentz ’75 on her way to becoming a lofty professor of English literature and composition: she fell in love with that English department bad boy professional writing and never looked back.
Kathryn, who recently retired as a full professor after 38 years at the University of Cincinnati’s Department of English, blazed her way through WCU with an English degree, earning the top grade point average in her class and graduating with unwavering support from professors Karl Nicholas and Hal Farwell to seek a higher degree. She did, earning her master’s in English from North Carolina State University, while working as a teaching assistant in the English department. When she finished, WCU wanted her back and she went, spending two years teaching American literature and composition before her colleagues shooed her off to earn a doctorate.
It was at the University of Illinois where Kathryn enrolled to get her doctoral degree in English that she offered to teach business and technical writing as a break from literature and composition. She loved it. “It was pivotal because up until that point I had been thinking of myself as a literature scholar and teacher, and when I got into professional writing, I was surprised at how rewarding it was to teach this kind of writing,” she said. “I particularly liked the pragmatism of professional writing. You didn’t need to try to figure out who was going to read this or what attitudes they’d bring to the piece. It was a lot less about self expression and a lot more about problem solving.”
When Kathryn and her husband moved to Cincinnati for his job, she began teaching in the university’s English department, eventually helping to establish its professional writing program for English and other majors and laying the groundwork for what would become a decorated career.
Kathryn has won teaching awards from her department and from the Association for Business Communication, her primary organizational affiliation outside of the University of Cincinnati.
She has been an associate editor and editor of “The International Journal of Business Communication” and has served in nearly every leadership position in the ABC, including president. She won the association’s Distinguished Member Award and been named an Association Fellow. She won two publication awards and has been the lead author of a respected business communication textbook, published by McGraw-Hill, for about 12 years.
Reflecting on her own journey, Kathryn returns to her literary roots. “Emerson says when you live your life, it looks like you’re zigging and zagging all over the place. But when you turn around and look at your path, you can see that all those zig zags were leading to right where you are.”
Aaron D. Marshall ’14, the son of a doctor and a nurse, chose to follow in the spirit of his parents’ footsteps of providing care to those in need. But instead of waiting for the injured to come to him in a nice sterile clinic, he goes to them, following the trail of chaos and destruction left by hurricanes, earthquakes, tornadoes, and other natural disasters.
Aaron works for the Federal Emergency Management Agency as a deliberate operational planning adviser. Based in Washington, D.C., he is in command and control of rescue and recovery efforts of disasters and emergencies across the United States. He’s been involved in emergency work since he was a freshman at Western Carolina University. Now 29, Aaron has participated in disaster relief efforts in more than 100 countries on five continents engaging directly in more than 200 disasters around the world -- and close to home.
September’s flooding in Tennessee? He was there, deployed to Waverly, Tennessee, to support FEMA’s disaster response and recovery efforts as a member of the agency’s planning section initial response. He was also involved in the coordination of resources responding to flooding from tropical cyclone Fred in Haywood, Jackson and six other counties throughout North Carolina, and from Hurricanes Matthew and Florence in 2016 and 2018 respectively.
In 2014, Aaron won the North Carolina Campus Compact John Barnhill Civic Trailblazer Award, and the Team Rubicon Civilian of the Year Award in 2016. In 2020 he was inducted as a lifetime member of the All Hazards Incident Management Team Association, and is a graduate of the National Emergency Management Advanced Academy. He also established the Marshall Alternative Service Experience Scholarship to provide financial support to students to participate in alternative break experiences at more than 30 North Carolina college campuses. And, he earned a master’s degree in public health from The Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University.
Where did it begin? As a high school student in Belmont, Aaron was moved by the destruction of 2010’s earthquake in Haiti and the response to the disaster by Team Rubicon, an international disaster response organization. He was already a firefighter and decided he wanted to do more.
When Aaron arrived at WCU in 2010 to study athletic training and sports medicine, he quickly met Lane Perry, director of the Center for Community Engagement and Service Learning, and joined the team of student volunteers. He also became a member of Team Rubicon and remains a volunteer today. But it was helping citizens of Moore, Oklahoma, clean up from an EF5 tornado in 2013 that convinced him to switch his major to sociology so he could better understand how people and groups interact in a disaster.
So why does he spend his life helping ease the pain of others? “It brings a tremendous amount of joy and fulfillment in helping an individual on their worst day,” he said. “You know that they cannot repay that. It is empowering, selfless service at its very core.”
