University of Georgia Magazine Winter 2023

THE MAGAZINE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA

WINTER 2023

Healthy as a Horse

How UGA Vets Saved Faith's Life

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CONTENTS

Don’t be a chicken. Visit Nashville with some amazing UGA alumni, p. 20.

THE MAGAZINE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA WINTER 2023

INSIDE 3 The President’s Pen President Jere W. Morehead

discusses the Presidential

What kind of wine will these grapes become?

UGA students taking part in the Winegrowers of Georgia Internship may be able to tell you, p. 16.

Interdisciplinary Seed Grant Program.

6 UGA to Z

Highlights from across the UGA community.

36 On the Bulldog Beat

chamberlain smith

FEATURE

ON THE COVER

Happy 75th birthday to the Georgia Museum of Art!

38 Bulldog Bulletin

News for UGA alumni in Georgia,

across the country, and around the world.

40 Class Notes

Visit the U.S. Virgin Islands, the Broadway stage, yoga mats in Atlanta, and other interesting locales with UGA alumni.

56 Faculty Focus

Get to know WenZhan Song, Georgia Power Mickey A. Brown

Endowed Professorship in Engineering, College of

14 Growing Gainesville

For the last 10 years, UGA’s Institute of Government has been working with the city of Gainesville to reimagine its downtown. The results are outstanding.

16 Grape Expectations

Georgia’s vibrant wine industry is growing like a vine. Really.

And UGA students are contributing first hand as part of a

cover photo by chamberlain smith

popular internship program.

Faith was born nearly

20 The Nashville Network

one month prematurely.

When her life hung in the

Bulldogs on stage and behind the scenes are painting

balance, she was brought

Music City shades of red and black.

to UGA’s Veterinary Teaching Hospital, where

28 Healthy as a Horse

doctors saved her. Faith is now healthy, energetic, and training to be a

UGA’s Veterinary Teaching Hospital has saved the lives

show horse. Her vibrant

of thousands of animals. Meet some of the staff’s favorites.

profile was captured here

by UGA photographer

Engineering.

Chamberlain Smith.

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WINTER 2023

VOLUME 103

ISSUE NO. 1

GEORGIA MAGAZINE

Editor · Eric Rangus MA ’94 Associate Editors · Aaron Hale MA ’16 and Leigh Hataway MA ’17 Writers · Erica Techo AB ’15 and Jayne Roberts Art Director · Jackie Baxter Roberts Advertising Director · Kipp Mullis ABJ ’93 Photo Editor · Peter Frey BFA ’94 UGA Photographers · Andrew Davis Tucker, Dorothy Kozlowski BLA ’06, ABJ ’10, and Chamberlain Smith ABJ ’18 Contributing Writers · Elizabeth Elmore BBA ’08, ABJ ’08, Clarke Schwabe ABJ ’08, Johnathan McGinty ABJ ’00, Alexandra Shimalla MA ’19, and Ireland Hayes AB ’23 Contributing Designer · Amy Gunby BFA ’20 Editorial Interns · Navya Shukla, Cassidy Hettesheimer, and Caroline Kostuch

MARKETING & COMMUNICATIONS

Vice President · Kathy Pharr ABJ ’87, MPA ’05, EdD ’11 Senior Director for Integrated Media Communications · Rod Guajardo Senior Executive Director for Operations & Fiscal Affairs · Fran Burke

ADMINISTRATION

President · Jere W. Morehead JD ’80 Senior VP for Academic Affairs & Provost · S. Jack Hu VP for Finance & Administration · Ryan Nesbit MBA ’91 Interim VP for Development & Alumni Relations · Jill S. Walton BSA ’99, MPA ’03 VP for Instruction · Marisa Anne Pagnattaro PhD ’98 VP for Research · Karen J. L. Burg VP for Public Service & Outreach · Jennifer Frum PhD ’09 VP for Student Affairs · Michelle Cook VP for Government Relations · Kevin Abernathy AB ’99 VP for Information Technology · Timothy M. Chester

Change your mailing address by contacting e: records@uga.edu or ph: 888-268-5442 Find Georgia Magazine online at news.uga.edu/georgia-magazine Submit Class Notes or story ideas to gmeditor@uga.edu ADVERTISE in Georgia Magazine by contacting

Kipp Mullis at e: gmsales@uga.edu or ph: 706-542-9877

FINE PRINT

Georgia Magazine (issn 1085-1042) is published quarterly for alumni and friends of UGA. POSTMASTER | Send address changes to: University of Georgia 286 Oconee Street, Suite 200 North Athens, GA 30602

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The University of Georgia does not discriminate on the basis of race, sex, religion, color, national or ethnic origin, age, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, genetic information, or military service in its administrations of educational policies, programs, or activities; its admissions policies; scholarship and loan programs; athletic or other University-administered programs; or employment. Inquiries or complaints should be directed to the Equal Opportunity Office 278 Brooks Hall, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602. Telephone 706542-7912 (V/TDD). Fax 706-542-2822. https://eoo.uga.edu/

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THE PRESIDENT’S PEN

Seeding Research Progress

The remarkable impact of Presidential Interdisciplinary Seed Grants The University of Georgia’s research enterprise is stronger than ever. Annual R&D expenditures have risen more than 50% over the past decade, and expenditures for projects funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Science Foundation have increased by 65% over the past six years. One of the factors contributing to our remarkable success is UGA’s Presidential Interdisciplinary Seed Grant Program, launched in 2017.

The Presidential Interdisciplinary Seed Grant Program has sponsored four funding competitions for UGA faculty research to address significant challenges at the local, national, or global level and support the university’s goals of growing research, innovation, entrepreneurship, and partnerships with communities. Awarded projects from the first three cycles received seed grants of $129,000 each, on average, for a total investment of $3.9 million. These projects have since generated more than $321.8 million in external grants and contracts—a return on investment of 83-to-1.

“Research funding opportunities such as the Presidential Interdisciplinary Seed Grant Program are investments in the future of our state, nation, and world, as well as our university.”

One example of the value and impact of the Presidential Interdisciplinary Seed Grant Program is a study of respiratory infection, disease, and transmission funded in the 2017 cycle. The research team included 10 faculty members in infectious disease, vaccines and immunology, ecology, and public health, as well as a faculty member from New York University. The seed grant led to a successful NIH proposal to establish the Center for Influenza Disease and Emergence Research (CIDER) at UGA as part of a national network sponsored by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. To date, the initial project and CIDER have generated $229.3 million in external grants and contracts.

Another example comes from a project in the 2021 cycle that aimed to counter disparities in prevention and access to health care for Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias. The team of 12 faculty members in fields ranging from gerontology and medicine to psychology and social work has since created the Cognitive Aging Research and Education (CARE) Center at UGA (featured in the fall 2023 issue of Georgia Magazine). The CARE Center partners with Extension, Archway Partnership, the Augusta/UGA Medical Partnership, and community members to provide statewide diagnosis, education, and support for Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias while also providing experiential learning opportunities for UGA students in related fields.

Research funding opportunities such as the Presidential Interdisciplinary Seed Grant Program are investments in the future of our state, nation, and world, as well as our university. As time goes on, the return on investment from these UGA research projects will continue to grow, as will their far-reaching impact.

Jere W. Morehead President GEORGIA MAGAZINE

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IN MEMORIAM

Remembering Sonny Seiler, Uga Owner and Georgia Icon

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One family—and one man—has seen all 11 Uga mascots take their spots in the Sanford Stadium doghouse.

Frank W. “Sonny” Seiler and his wife, Cecelia, first brought an English bulldog to the UGA season opener in 1956 at the request of then-coach Wally Butts. That damn good dawg, “Hood’s Ole Dan,” became Uga I. Since then, the Seilers have been sideline mainstays, raising the lineage of the university’s bulldog mascots for almost 70 years.

In April, Sonny Seiler watched as their latest bulldog, Boom, received his collar and became Uga XI. Seiler died in his hometown of Savannah after a short illness several months later.

“Mr. Seiler was a dear friend who I cherished and will miss very much,” said Josh Brooks MS ’14, J. Reid Parker Director of Athletics. “Because of his generosity, Uga is the most beloved and recognizable mascot in all of college athletics. We owe him a tremendous debt of gratitude for building a legacy that will continue for years to come.”

In Savannah, Seiler BBA ’56, JD ’57 was a distinguished attorney. He served the university on a variety of boards and was a fixture at many campus events.

Seiler’s professional career extended beyond the courtroom. He appeared in the movie Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil and co-authored the book Damn Good Dogs! with former Georgia Magazine editor Kent Hannon.

“Sonny’s contributions to the University of Georgia as a student and alumnus were innumerable, and his loyalty to his alma mater was unmatched,” said President Jere W. Morehead JD ’80. “His legacy will live on forever in the history and traditions of this great institution.”

Seiler died nine years after Cecelia ABJ ’78, his wife of 59 years. In 2001, the pair received the UGA Alumni Association’s highest recognition, the Alumni Merit Award.

They are survived by their four children, seven grandchildren, and one great-grandchild.

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UGA Z to

Highlights from across the UGA community

GATHERING SPACES

New Hillel Center Opens on Baxter Street Renovations over the summer to the former Baxter Street Bookstore transformed the empty 10,000-squarefoot building into a new space for UGA’s Jewish community. The new privately funded Orkin Hillel Center, which had its grand opening on Aug. 25, offers a dedicated space for fellowship and programming for Jewish students and community members.

Renovations include a larger kitchen space to prepare Shabbat dinners, conference rooms for community events, and open spaces for Jewish and

non-Jewish students alike to gather.

The center’s proximity to residence halls that house first-year students also gives those new students an even more accessible way to connect with their faith.

“This facility will enable our Jewish community at the University of Georgia to make even greater connections and find their home at UGA,” President Jere W. Morehead JD ’80 said at the grand opening celebration.

UGA Hillel is the second largest Jewish student community in the state.

It offers programming such as a Jewish Learning Fellowship, Shabbat dinners, game-day parking and events, yoga, community service, and more.

Hillel is an international organization of Jewish students on more than 600 college campuses worldwide. Whether through a physical gathering space or a sense of community, Hillel allows Jewish students to connect with other students of their faith through events, religious services, and student fellowship.

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UGA to Z NEW DAWGS ON THE BLOCK

DAWGS OF DISTINCTION

Introducing the Class of 2027

UGA Shows Sustained Excellence in National Rankings

The Class of 2027 is one of the largest and most academically qualified in UGA’s history.

The 6,200 first-year students enter UGA with an average GPA of 4.13, marking the seventh consecutive year that figure has exceeded 4.0. The first-year students also carry an average of 10 Advanced Placement, International Baccalaureate, or dual-enrollment courses.

The incoming class includes students from 470 Georgia high schools, 143 Georgia counties, 45 states, and 14 nations. Approximately 81% of the first-year students are Georgia residents, and 14% of the students are firstgeneration college students, up one percentage point from last year.

For the eighth consecutive year, the University of Georgia ranked in the top 20 among the nation’s best public universities, according to U.S. News & World Report’s 2024 rankings.

Ranked the No. 20 public university and No. 47 overall, UGA earned high marks in several distinct categories. The Terry College of Business— No. 21 for undergraduate business programs—saw its risk management and insurance program hold the No. 1 spot in the nation.

The university’s sustained excellence in national rankings parallels an increase in applications and four- and six-year completion rates, as well as prestigious external scholarships and student retention rates above averages at peer institutions.

In addition to the ranking from U.S. News & World Report, UGA claimed the No. 9 spot on Niche’s annual list of top public universities and was third in Niche’s ranking of colleges with the best student life in America.

The University of Georgia held steady at No. 21 in Forbes’ ranking of the top 25 public colleges, and The Princeton Review gave UGA top scores across the board on its lists of high-achieving public universities, including the No. 13 best school for financial aid. Multiple graduate programs and colleges earned top-10 national rankings as well.

LEADING ROLE

Morehead Reappointed as NCAA Board Chair

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President Jere W. Morehead JD ’80 has been reappointed to the NCAA Board of Governors and to a third term as chair of the NCAA Division I Board of Directors for the 2023-2024 academic year.

The Board of Governors is the highest governing body in the NCAA. The NCAA Division I Board of Directors is responsible for overseeing strategy and policy, as well as management of the division, which consists of more than 350 member schools and 170,000 student-athletes.

Morehead has served on both NCAA governing bodies since 2020 and as chair of the Division I Board of Directors since 2021. He is also a member of the National Football Foundation board of trustees and immediate past president of the Southeastern Conference.

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UGA to Z TECH TRANSFER

UGA is Top 5 in Nation for Research to Market

After a brief, one-year stay at No. 2, the University of Georgia once again ranks No. 1 among U.S. universities for number of commercial products introduced to market based on its research, according to an annual survey conducted by AUTM. Formerly known as the Association of University Technology Managers, AUTM conducts an annual survey of intellectual property licensing and startup activities and turns the survey data into a report that ranks those institutions along several tech-transfer categories.

For eight straight years, UGA has placed in the top two and has never appeared out of the top five in the 10 years the survey has been reported by AUTM. Fiscal year 2022, on which the new AUTM report is based, saw 60 new products released based on UGA research, including new poultry vaccines, software, research tools, and a medical device, as well as crop varieties such as peanut, pecan, soybean, wheat, blueberry, turfgrass, and citrus.

Overall, industry partners have brought more than 1,100 products based on UGA research to market.

AWARD WINNING

Georgia Magazine Earns Writing Honor

For the second consecutive year, Georgia Magazine has been honored with a Circle of Excellence Award from the Council for Support and Advancement in Education (CASE).

CASE is an international organization for advancement and communications professionals in higher education. The Circle of Excellence Awards are CASE’s highest level of competitive awards.

Georgia Magazine associate editor Aaron Hale MA ’16 earned a bronze in profile writing for his Winter 2022 story, “Ready for Takeoff.” Hale profiled Edgar Helmey BSAE ’51, who earned a UGA degree in agricultural engineering and then served in the Air Force. Hale framed the story around Helmey’s first solo training flight in 1952.

Judges praised Hale’s story for its ability to create drama and for “using the flashback to great effect.”

In addition to interviewing Helmey in his home in Raleigh, North Carolina, Hale also took photos for the piece.

In 2022, Georgia Magazine received a silver in the category of Four-Year Colleges and Universities Magazines Printed 3+ Times a Year.

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EMERGING LEADERS

Five Faculty Honored by National Science Foundation

Five University of Georgia early-career faculty have been recognized by the National Science Foundation’s Faculty Early Career Development Program (CAREER).

The award annually provides grants to about 500 faculty recipients around the country who have the potential to serve as leaders and academic role models in the advancement of research and education.

UGA’s 2023 award winners include: • Akram Alishahi, an assistant professor in the Department of Mathematics, researching topological spaces with four or fewer dimensions, which has implications in areas that range from DNA research to robotics.

• Amanda Frossard, an assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry, researching how the chemical composition of aerosol particles influences their properties in the atmosphere and their effects on clouds and air quality.

• Le Guan, an assistant professor in the School of Computing, researching improvements in the lifecycle security of microcontrollers.

• Kevin Vogel, an assistant professor in the Department of Entomology, researching the role of symbiotic bacteria in kissing bugs, which can cause Chagas disease.

• Krystal Williams, an assistant professor in the Louise McBee Institute of Higher Education, researching Black undergraduate women’s academic and career-related outcomes in computing sciences.

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UGA to Z CHILDREN’S HEALTH

Kids Who Lose WIC Lose Important Nutrition

A gap in access to WIC, the federal grant program for supplemental food and nutrition education, can have a significantly negative effect on the quality of some 5-yearolds’ diets, according to a new study from the UGA College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.

The study found when children age out of WIC after their fifth birthday, many families are left without food assistance support for up to a year. Until the child enters kindergarten, the nutritional quality of their diet takes about a 20% hit.

“We were surprised to find that there was this large of a reduction in nutritional quality,” says Travis Smith BS ’05, MS ’08, lead author of the study and an associate professor of agricultural and applied economics. “Now we know that when parents lose access to WIC, they make sure their kid can eat the same amount of food, but they switch to a lower quality of food.”

This is a significant dip, especially at such a young age, Smith says. It’s important for young children to form healthy eating habits and to have access to foods that might combat any picky eating.

“If we care about helping kids eat better and we have programs that support that goal, but we also have an arbitrary rule where kids get kicked off WIC and have no food assistance for several months or a year, we could be stepping back,” Smith says. “Then all this progress you make with an individual kid could be wiped away in a relatively short time.”

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SWEET DREAMS

More Sleep Benefits Child Behavior

Sleep is a critical part of children’s overall health, but it’s also an important factor in how they behave. According to a new study from the Youth Development Institute at the University of Georgia, getting enough sleep can help children combat the effects of stressful environments.

Researchers found that lack of sleep and long sleep latency—the amount of time it takes to get to sleep— have significant links to impulsive behaviors down the line. These behaviors include acting without a plan, seeking thrills or sensations, and lacking perseverance.

These findings emphasize sleep’s role in cognitive and behavioral development and highlight interventions for children facing at-home stressors, says Linhao Zhang, lead author of the study and a fourth-year doctoral student in UGA’s College of Family and Consumer Sciences.

Zhang says that too little sleep can also be an issue outside stressful environments. For example, teenagers often have a 24-hour cycle geared toward staying up later and sleeping in, but early school start times and late nights completing homework can throw off that rhythm.

Establishing routines, no matter the environment, can create healthier patterns and reduce the time it takes to fall asleep, Zhang says.

UNSPOOLED

Georgia Newspaper Project Moves on from Microfilming

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ef lan Since its establishment 70 years ago, the d Georgia Newspaper Project at the University of Georgia Libraries has microfilmed more than 100 community newspapers, providing free access to the stories of communities across the state.

But with an 11-year backlog and outdated equipment, the preservation process is in flux, and librarians are seeking to transform the practice using 21st century technology.

To address that, the project piloted a digital program in 2021. Newspapers send issues electronically that are then published on the open-access Georgia Historic Newspapers website. The site now includes more than 3 million digitized newspaper pages from more than 1,000 titles dating back to the mid 1700s. As a result of the digital program’s success, the Georgia Newspaper Project will conclude microfilming in 2024.

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BULLDOGS GIVE GIVE BACK BACK BULLDOGS

An Exceptional Foundation The Foundation Fellowship, now in its 50th year, is the university’s premier scholarship

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atalie Navarrete might fairly be described as extraordinarily accomplished. In the time it takes many students to earn one degree, she earned three: bachelor’s degrees in international affairs, Russian, and Spanish, as well as a minor in Latin American and Caribbean studies. On top of that, she is UGA’s 26th Rhodes Scholar, one of just three public university students this year, aside from the nation’s service academies, to receive the most celebrated international fellowship in the world.

These are just glimpses into her success, much of which she credits to UGA’s Foundation Fellowship.

“I can’t say enough good things about the Foundation Fellowship and the support that UGA provides its students in general,” says Navarrete AB ’23, AB ’23, AB ’23. “I’ve learned so much by being around amazing, curious, and passionate people all the time. The Fellowship provides support for students in a way that stands out from other universities.”

The Fellowship, which celebrates its 50th anniversary this year, was the dream of Bob Edge AB ’60. Edge gained access to unparalleled educational opportunities at the University of Oxford as a result of his own Rhodes Scholarship. He wanted to replicate

that for students at UGA—something that would encourage Georgia’s best students to stay in state, another of Edge’s goals. He and his colleagues on the UGA Foundation Board of Trustees—among them Alex Patterson AB ’64, who helped develop the Fellowship’s initial programming—launched the Fellowship in 1973.

also have access to a special post-first-year Maymester study away program at the University of Oxford, stipends for group and individual travel-study, grants for research and conferences, dinner seminars with faculty and alumni, and much more, all while living and working within a tightknit academic community.

The program began with two Foundation Fellows, a number that grew into the 30s by the mid-1980s. The Fellowship was significantly elevated in 1996 by Bernard Ramsey BSC ’37, who left more than $31 million from his estate to raise the program to national prominence.

Thanks to Ramsey’s transformational gift, a partnership with the Stamps Scholars Program, and the contributions of many others, the program currently includes nearly 100 Fellows.

As a result, the Fellowship—which has more than 700 alumni—not only attracts exceptionally talented students, it develops them into outstanding scholars and leaders, as evidenced by the large number of internationally competitive major scholarships earned by Foundation Fellows. Among all Fellows, there have been 10 Rhodes Scholars, 5 Gates Cambridge Scholars, 8 Marshall Scholars, 13 Truman Scholars, 14 Udall Scholars, 7 Schwarzman Scholars, 29 Fulbright Scholars, and 38 Goldwater Scholars.

“The university owes so much to the vision and dedication of individuals like Bob Edge, Bernard Ramsey, and many others who dedicated their time and resources into building the Foundation Fellows program,” says UGA President Jere W. Morehead JD ’80, who directed the Honors Program and the Foundation Fellowship from 1999 to 2004.

Beyond generous academic funding—the Fellowship covers the full cost of tuition and is renewable for up to four years—Fellows

“Every day I work with the Fellows provides a reminder of how special this program is and how much we owe to every person who helped get us here,” says Meg Amstutz, dean of the Jere W. Morehead Honors College, which houses the program. “We have had an amazing 50 years thanks to the generosity of our donors, and with their continued support, I know the next 50 will be truly wonderful.”

Build on the success of the Foundation Fellowship and help UGA keep the brightest students in our state by making a gift at GIVE.UGA.EDU/HONORS.

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“The Fellowship provides support for students in a way that stands out from other universities.”

—Natalie Navarrete, 2023 Rhodes Scholar

Global Experiences

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Accomplished Alumni

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Cori Bargmann BS ’81 is vice president for academic affairs at the Rockefeller University. She has received numerous awards for her research and was head of science for the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative from 2016 to 2022. pe te

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Foundation Fellow Claire Armstrong AB ’23 summited Mt. Kilimanjaro following the UGA Tanzania Maymester.

Michael Terry AB ’82, JD ’87 has been recognized as a Georgia “Lawyer of the Year” by Best Lawyers five times in three subject matter areas: appellate litigation, antitrust litigation, and banking litigation.

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Opposite page: A group of Foundation Fellows camped overnight in the Sahara Desert as part of a study away trip to Morocco during the 2022-2023 academic year.

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Bliss Khaw AB ’04 is a principal with Control Risks, a global specialist risk consultancy. Prior to this, she worked for a risk management firm in Shanghai on due diligence and investigations.

Albert Chen AB ’23, BBA ’23 used the Fellowship’s study away support to travel to Machu Picchu.

Whether venturing solo to far-flung locales or going on a group excursion, Foundation Fellows learn and grow by exploring the world. Some travel-study destinations include: • Australia.

• Brazil.

• Czech Republic.

• Ecuador.

• Fiji.

• India.

• Japan.

• Jordan.

• Morocco.

• Tanzania.

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Ben Starks BBA ’20, MS ’20 is a basketball data analyst with the Los Angeles Clippers. While at UGA, he served as the student manager of analytics for the Bulldogs’ men’s basketball team.

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Growing Gainesville

UGA's Institute of Government created the roadmap guiding the city's bustling development.

WRITTEN BY JAYNE ROBERTS PHOTOGRAPHS BY PETER FREY BFA ’94

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n 2015, Gainesville residents and business owners were asked what could be done to improve their downtown area. They had some thoughts.

“Business needs to stay in Gainesville.”

“Increase downtown housing.”

“More variety.”

Gainesville city officials took the challenge head-on. Working alongside the University of Georgia’s Carl Vinson Institute of Government, they developed a plan that has helped make Gainesville one of the fastest-growing metropolitan areas in the nation.

The Institute of Government, a unit of UGA Public Service and Outreach, created the Downtown Renaissance Strategic Visioning and Planning (RSVP) Process as a way to reimagine a city’s potential. For Gainesville, a city of 43,000 an hour northwest of Athens, that meant replacing empty train yards with lush green spaces, upgrading rundown buildings to house thriving businesses, and turning an underused bridge into a pathway

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for economic development.

“Downtowns are the heart and soul of our communities,” says Danny Bivins, who co-developed and manages RSVP, which is celebrating its 10th year in 2023.

Gainesville was one of the program’s first partners. “Making downtowns more inviting, lively, and functional is part of the formula for success in 21st-century economic development.”

Investing in Gainesville For more than a decade, the infamous “Bridge to Nowhere” has been a common topic of conversation for Gainesville residents. Built in 2012, the charming white bridge crosses over Jesse Jewell Parkway, leading pedestrians to a beautifully green but empty lot.

The RSVP suggested building a mixeduse residential community on the lot where residents could also enjoy restaurants and retail services.

Gainesville's “Bridge to Nowhere" now leads to one of the city's newest and grandest apartment complexes.

“The RSVP is a roadmap that we can use to show developers what we want to provide for our community. It doesn't have to give us the end result, but it offers a vision of what something can be,” says Gainesville Mayor Sam Couvillon AB ’94. Couvillon; his wife, Margie AB ’92; and their two daughters have lived in Gainesville for 14 years, and he was elected mayor in 2022.

Part of what makes the plan so effective is its highly visual components. With a planning document that doubles as a coffee table book, the RSVP attracted developers from across the state, including Terwilliger Pappas who developed the “nowhere” at the end of the bridge into a mutimillion-dollar apartment complex, complete with highend restaurants and shopping.

More developers are getting in on Gainesville’s revitalization. Some are even returning to support the economic growth of their hometown.

For instance, investments from Hall County native Doug Ivester BBA ’69, retired

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Engine 209, built in 1930, has been repurposed as a Gainesville park attraction.

Gainesville's recently revamped downtown is a bustling center of dining, drinking, and desserts.

You won't get very far down Gainesville's Midland Greenway without passing beautiful murals and art pieces by local artists.

An inclusive playground along Gainesville's Midtown Greenery features ramps and sensory stations among other features.

chairman of the board and CEO of the Coca-Cola Co., range from the award-winning Gainesville Renaissance Building that is centerpiece of downtown to the naming of the Kay and Douglas Ivester Visitor Center and Amphitheatre at the Atlanta Botanical Garden, Gainesville. Private developers have invested more than $350 million in downtown Gainesville since the RSVP was created. Couvillon says that this is what makes Gainesville so special.

“When you have a need, someone will step up and help provide for that need. That tells you a lot about the people here,” he says.

Going Green Jessica Tullar AB ’99, MPA ’05, Gainesville’s housing and special projects manager and staff project manager for the RSVP, has worked for the city of Gainesville for more than 20 years. She has been a vital part of its efforts to create green spaces, what the RSVP described as one of the city’s “biggest assets.”

The “Rails to Trails” initiative, which branches off the Midland Greenway, is one of the more ambitious of these projects and includes the transformation of a large train yard that was once stocked with storage and abandoned vehicles.

The city moved a train engine to the railroad "wye" south of the train yard and created Engine 209 Park, a themed greenspace with picnic tables, a playground, and a bridge with a landing and piece of public art of a soaring osprey that makes visitors feel as though they are flying over the train.

“We don't want to ever be just a concrete jungle,” says Couvillon.

NoFo Brew Co. has already taken advantage of the new development to invest $4 million in property off Gainesville’s Midland Greenway, which is part of the countrywide Highlands to Island Trail network, another up-and-coming green space. In the last six years Gainesville has received more than $300 million in private investment in the downtown and midland areas that were discussed in the RSVP. Of that $300 million, more than one-third is on property fronting or adjacent to the Midland Greenway.

A Team Effort The key to success with the RSVP program has been collaboration. From committee members to teachers and entrepreneurs, the program relies on a foundation of community input.

“We were very intentional in hearing from different voices in Gainesville,” Tullar said. “We had breakfast with Gainesville Middle School students and lunch with high school students. We talked with college students, retirees, business owners, and council members. The community really embraced this as its vision and pushed through to make it happen.”

Now, the RSVP is a staple for Gainesville’s ongoing efforts to increase economic development, walkability, and quality of life.

“Even today we're actively pursuing the vision put forth in the 2015 plan,” Tullar says. “We give it to developers who meet with us, and we’re using it to take Gainesville into the future.” GM

Support the Institute of Government at CVIOG.UGA.EDU/DONATE-NOW.HTML.

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Grape Expectations UGA’s Winegrowers of Georgia student internships provide hands-on experience in state vineyards.

WRITTEN BY HEATHER SKYLER

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he blueberries were suffering.

It was the summer of 2022, and Amelia Lyons was working at Sweet Acre Farms, a Georgia vineyard specializing in fruit wines. While Lyons was fixing the vineyard’s irrigation for a dry summer, she noticed that small dark red spots had appeared on the blueberries.

While searching for a solution, she came across a peer-reviewed paper from the University of Georgia’s College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences (CAES) that addressed the exact disease she was trying to treat. The blueberries had a fungus called anthracnose, and she was able to help manage the problem using a fungicide recommended in the paper.

“I got really into it,” she recalls. “I had my lightbulb moment right then and decided what I wanted to do: I wanted to study agriculture at UGA.” Lyons’ path to UGA was a winding one.

She began college at the University of North Georgia’s Oakwood campus and switched majors a few times before realizing she needed a break.

During her time off from college, she managed a restaurant in Lula where she met the owners of Sweet Acre Farms, who often dined there. Lyons ended up talking with them quite a bit, and their conversations led to a job offer.

Now 23, Lyons entered UGA in the spring as a third-year student where she is working toward a bachelor’s degree in agriscience and environmental systems. This summer, she was selected to intern at Stonewall Creek Winery in Tiger, Georgia, as part of UGA’s internship program.

Learning Among the Vines The Winegrowers of Georgia Internship program is a collaboration between UGA and Georgia wine producer associations.

Students apply and interview for paid internships where they study viticulture and enology (the science and study of wine and winemaking) with Georgia winery owners while fulfilling the university’s experiential learning requirement.

The internship began in 2007, and each year four CAES students are selected based on an essay and an interview process. Each intern receives hourly compensation from their host vineyard and a $1,500 stipend from CAES. Once placed at a winery, students dive right in, cultivating and thinning grapevines during the summer. In the fall, they learn to harvest, crush, and ferment the grapes.

Experiences change based on the operation, but many interns gain experience in

vineyard pest and disease control, as well as barrel aging, bottling, and marketing.

This year, Autumn Girardin worked at Engleheim Vineyards in Ellijay. An agribusiness and horticulture major, she plans to open a botanical business with an accompanying small vineyard.

“Having the vineyard surrounded by the gardens could have subtle influences on the terroir [the combination of soil and climate that give wines their unique flavors] and development of the grapes, which could produce wines with more complexity,” she explains.

Girardin has always wanted to own her own business, and she was fairly certain she wanted it to be related to agriculture.

During the coronavirus pandemic, she noticed that vineyards, as businesses, remained relatively stable despite the upheaval caused by the virus. “And the more I learned about viticulture, the more I fell in love with every aspect of it,” she says.

Amelia Lyons checks for disease and trims dead leaves while working as an intern at Stonewall Creek Vineyards in Tiger.

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Aerial view of Stonewall Creek Vineyards in Tiger.

Inset, Extension Viticulturist and Assistant Professor Sarah Lowder harvests muscadines at the UGA Horticulture Farm in Watkinsville.

The Winegrowers of Georgia Internship is supported by the CAES Deans’ Promise fund.

To help fund formative experiential learning opportunities for CAES students, visit t.uga.edu/9wh krista mckinney

A Growing Industry

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according to the National Association of Wine Growers 2022 Economic Impact Study. And the industry’s impact can be felt throughout the state, helping create and fuel jobs in industries from farming to banking and manufacturing to advertising.

The Georgia wine industry included close to 80 producers in 2022 and directly employed nearly 21,000 workers, according to the study. It also created approximately 7,500 jobs in supplier and ancillary industries.

The wineries are a major tourist draw, generating almost 300,000 visits and more than $84 million in annual tourism expenditures.

While Georgia’s wine industry isn't as developed as those in California and Oregon, Lowder says that UGA students get a wellrounded education studying in state.

“The industry is small, but it’s young and growing with all of the challenges that come with that. Students get to be a part of that growth, which can be a more lasting learning experience.” Lowder says. Due to

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the climate, Georgia grapes struggle with more diseases, and growers have to navigate other challenges like late spring frosts, she explains.

“There is a lot to learn and figure out, so students get more diverse experiences and issues to deal with. That’s always a good learning environment.”

In addition to learning about Georgia winemaking, students can also participate in UGA’s viticulture and enology study away program in Cortona, Italy. Girardin and Elaine Showman, another summer intern, participated in the program last May.

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The UGA Cooperative Extension Viticulture Team welcomed a new expert this summer. Sarah Lowder joined CAES in June as an assistant professor and viticulture Extension specialist.

Originally from Charlotte, North Carolina, Lowder received her undergraduate degree at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, then earned her doctorate in plant pathology at Oregon State University.

Her key tasks as an Extension specialist are adapting management practices for vineyards in the Southeast, finding grape varieties best suited for the state, and preventing and managing plant diseases.

She’ll teach a new undergraduate course on viticulture production and management this spring, and she’ll travel to Italy in May to be an instructor in UGA’s viticulture and enology study away program.

Lowder arrived just in time, as Georgia’s wine industry continues to rapidly expand.

The state generated more than $5 billion in vineyard-related revenue last year,

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Amelia Lyons and her dog, Avett, sit together in front of the yellow house where they lived during her internship at Stonewall Creek. chamberlain smith

A Day in the Life of a Wine Intern

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Muscadines from UGA's Horticulture Farm.

Amelia Lyons lived in a small guest house on the property of Stonewall Creek Vineyards this summer, immersing herself in the work and helping her get to know the owners better.

Mark and Sandy Diehl bought the nearly 20-year-old Stonewall Creek in 2018. Both retired physicians, they started making wine at home in 2007. Over the years, they won several amateur winemaking awards and learned a lot in the process.

Stonewall Creek has hosted four UGA interns, and the Diehls have enjoyed their experience. “Amelia has been great,” Mark says. “She’s smart, and she has experience making wine. She asks different questions and understands more.”

While summer work is primarily focused on the vineyard, Lyons also helped with bottling, testing, and analysis, something she has experience in from her time at Sweet Acre Farms.

Lyons has four siblings, all with degrees from UGA. She is a triplet and used to having lots of family around, so it has been an

adjustment living and working at the vineyard. But the Diehls let her bring her dog, Avett, who is her constant companion and “having the time of his life,” laughs Lyons.

He runs beside her golf cart as she moves from one set of vines to the next, doing whatever task is needed that day. Most of her work has involved vineyard maintenance, which includes erecting trellises and irrigation equipment, pruning and training vines, and controlling pests and diseases with regular spraying. She hopes to continue making wine after graduation and plans to stay in Georgia.

The days can be long and hot, but Lyons relishes the work. She even listens to podcasts about wine while she works in the vineyard.

“One thing I’ve heard universally on these winemaking podcasts is that winemaking is an art,” she says. “It’s not just the wine I’m making or the weeds I’m pulling. You start with a seed, then plant it, grow it, and you’re there with it every step of the way. Eventually, you have a product you serve to people, and generally, they love it. It’s very rewarding.” GM

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WRITTEN BY ERIC RANGUS MA ’94

NashVegas? How about NashAthens?

Many of Music City’s most talented entertainment industry insiders and performers are Georgia Bulldogs.

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Brent Hyams ABJ ’94 General Manager, Cannery Hall

Colin Keegan BBA ’13, BSEd ’13

Talent Buyer, Brooklyn Bowl Nashville and Live Nation Entertainment

I

peter frey

f you’re a musician in Nashville, you need a stage. Fortunately, in Music City, there are more than 180. With so many opportunities, it can be good to have a connection.

Enter Colin Keegan, talent booker for Brooklyn Bowl Nashville and Live Nation Southeast, and Brent Hyams, general manager at the soon-to-reopen Cannery Hall. They make the deals to bring musicians to the stage and so much more.

Half of the Brooklyn Bowl is a traditional concert venue. The other half is a flashy 19lane bowling alley that overlooks the stage.

It’s open not just for concerts but corporate gatherings, bachelorette parties (another of

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Music City’s most popular industries), or just general bowling and mingling.

Brooklyn Bowl Nashville, like many prominent residents, is a transplant. As the name implies, the concept began in New York, and new venues have been slowly popping up across the country. Nashville’s iteration opened in the rapidly growing Germantown neighborhood north of downtown in 2021.

Keegan worked at the original Brooklyn Bowl for four years before transferring to Nashville, just as the new venue was opening.

The coronavirus pandemic postponed the launch, but once the place got rolling, its impact was substantial. In 2022, the

influential online magazine Pollstar named Brooklyn Bowl Nashville the country’s best new concert venue.

“I love working in clubs because of the energy and atmosphere,” Keegan says. “Not just Brooklyn Bowl but 40 Watt or Georgia Theatre. People remember what bands they saw there. It’s just such a good feeling.”

Cannery Hall, by contrast, is as Nashville as a hot chicken sandwich. It’s located on Cannery Row, a block from the convention center just south of downtown, and has been a staple of the city for generations. The Cannery Hall building opened as a flour mill in 1883 and housed a variety of food-related businesses through the 1970s. In 1981, it opened as a music venue/restaurant and hosted some of the biggest names in country and rock.

When a new owner took over the space in 2019, they decided to renovate the whole thing and hired Hyams to manage the venture. He’s one of the most well-known and experienced venue managers in the city, having spent 16 years at the Tennessee Performing Arts Center, the last six as its COO. “Historic buildings have become my passion,” says Hyams, who worked in marketing at the legendary Ryman Auditorium and Grand Ole Opry early in his career. “We're saving a 40-year-old music venue, but it's a 140-year-old building. It's exciting to be able to breathe new life into it.”

When it opens in early 2024, the refurbished Cannery Hall will include three stages and an event center. It will be the largest independent music venue in Nashville.

Both Brooklyn Bowl and Cannery Hall are relatively intimate rooms that appeal to similar performers and fans, which can lead to some intense competition. It’s a dynamic that Keegan and Hyams both understand.

“It’s good to be part of an ecosystem that’s healthy,” says Keegan, whose role recently expanded to include booking additional Live Nation venues across the Southeast, though Brooklyn Bowl remains his base.

“I think the way you build a community is by having multiple venues with similar capacities that foster competition to help grow artists,” Keegan continues. “Especially if they are local. That’s huge for all of us to be part of that story.”

“We all need each other,” Hyams adds.

“It’s good for all of our businesses to work together as much as we can. It just makes everyone excited about Nashville.”

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L

ike many residents of Nashville, Stephanie Mundy Self harbored dreams of a career on stage. The South Carolina native earned a scholarship to UGA as a voice major in the Hugh Hodgson School of Music but soon saw many of her fellow musicians struggling to get jobs.

She needed a backup plan, and she came up with a good one.

Self added a second major—risk management and insurance in the Terry College of Business—as well as a certificate in music business. She was a member of the certificate’s inaugural class. During her senior year, she received a scholarship that Bill Anderson ABJ ’59 (see page 26) set up in honor of his father, who worked in the insurance industry. Self and Anderson remain friends to this day.

The stars, as they say, were aligning.

After graduating, she took a job at a Nashville business management firm.

During her eight years in the position, Self learned the nuances of the business, how to best work with clients, and how to negotiate the complicated Nashville scene.

She worked with the firm’s largest artist, led a team of six, and frequently hired UGA graduates. While there, she met Kella Farris and Catherine Moore.

Self and Moore worked together. When they broached the idea of going out on their own, they ran their plan past Farris, who’d run her own company for nearly a decade.

Farris suggested that they all go in together.

The trio launched the financial planning and business management firm Farris, Self & Moore in 2015. Their work is distinct from the agents and managers who guide artists’ careers. Farris, Self & Moore manages their clients’ money.

They inherited Farris’ 15 existing clients but none of her staff.

“Our first Christmas party was the three of us and our three husbands,” Self says.

“We started from scratch.”

To build a client base, Self says she sat for 400 coffees and breakfast meetings that first year. Word got out. Artists, unprompted, called the office asking about their services. Soon, the trio’s dream of building a boutique firm became reality.

Farris, Self & Moore now boasts about 60 clients—all of them artists or songwriters.

Stephanie Mundy Self BMus ’07, BBA ’07

Founding Partner Business management and financial planning firm Farris, Self & Moore peter frey

The firm employs 24 staff—seven of them, including Self, are UGA alumni—and they just moved into a new 10,000-square-foot office on Music Row. Self makes sure to get out of that office, though, and she makes the effort count. She has served on the boards of the Nashville Film Festival and the Nashville Women’s Music Business Association, the Terry Young Alumni Board, and now the South Carolina Governor’s School for the Arts and Humanities Board. Self has also collected industry accolades. Billboard magazine named her a Country Power Player and

Top Business Manager. The influential magazine also named her to its Women in Music Executive List. And in 2022, Self was named Business Manager of the Year by the CMA Touring Awards.

“The awards are awesome, but I always want them to be about our firm,” Self says.

“I'm not doing this by myself. I have this team of people around me, and it also includes family and friends. You don't ever get anywhere by yourself. It's from the help of your village, really. Everybody supports each other. There is just this real camaraderie.”

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Jonathan Insogna AB ’04 Talent Agent William Morris Endeavor

Matthew Morgan BBA ’02

Insogna moved to Nashville permanently in 2005. While going to graduate school, he took a series of odd jobs. One of them was at the William Morris Agency, which merged with Endeavor in 2009 forming WME, where he started at the literal bottom: the mailroom.

Morgan began a few floors higher.

He parlayed his CMT internship into a producer job at the network. Through some connections, he ended up backstage at a lot of rock and country shows in town. He met agents and was amazed at their access to artists.

“Why doesn't everybody want to do this?” he recalls thinking. “It felt as close as you could get to artists’ careers and really having a direct impact on helping them grow their own career.”

In 2004, he joined Creative Arts Agency (CAA) where he stayed for nearly 14 years before he was hired at WME. By that time, Insogna had long since graduated from the mailroom and become an agent himself.

“It’s a ladder,” Insogna says. “You have to be the one raising your hand to do the things no one else wants to do. You do that well, and you’ll be asked to do something else.”

Morgan and Insogna worked together for four years at WME, and they have an easy rapport even though they are now significant competitors.

In December 2021, Morgan was hired

by United Talent Agency (UTA), one of the largest agencies in the world. Six months later, he was promoted to partner, and he now leads the agency's 65-person Nashville office. He still represents several artists, including those whose careers he’s guided for years. But as partner, he gets to stretch his leadership skills in a lot of fulfilling ways.

“You’ll see an artist that’s special,” he says, “and we need to figure out how to amplify them and how to put the right team around them. We have to tell the world that they are something to pay attention to.”

Insogna, for his part, is now a 17-year veteran of WME. He continues to represent a variety of clients and has played a key role in the growth of the agency’s Americana department and representation of the genre’s top-touring acts. He’s also something of a sage at WME. At the age of 42.

“I still feel really young. And I am young.

But in the eyes of the 23-year-olds I work with, I’m ancient,” he laughs. “But I have an open door. Anyone who wants to come talk to me can. I really enjoy working with younger people. They’re the future leaders of this industry, and it’s important for us to not only give guidance but to listen too. It helps keep me grounded in the world.”

Partner, United Talent Agency

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atthew Morgan and Jonathan Insogna both graduated from UGA within a couple years of each other. They were in different programs— Morgan studied marketing; Insogna, speech communications—and they didn’t know one another, but they did share a love of live music.

But could a love of music lead to a career?

Did they think that was possible?

“Yeah, the answer is no,” Morgan laughs.

He was passionate about music and even worked for some artists’ street teams, but it wasn’t until his senior year, when he landed an internship at Country Music Television (CMT) in Nashville, that he thought music could be a career.

“Once you’re here and you really start in the scene, you begin to figure out where you want to belong,” Morgan says. “That was a light bulb moment for me: This is something that I could do.”

Insogna saw some potential. While in Athens, he played in a few bands and knew there had to be some musical infrastructure behind the scenes.

“I knew there was someone that booked the concerts and another person who represented the artists. I didn't know if that was a manager or agent or label,” he says. “I didn't know what it was, but I knew I wanted to do something with it.”

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Charles Kelley BBA’ 04 and Dave Haywood BBA ’04

Megan Moroney BBA ’20

Rising country star got her big break singing about … the Vols? david mcclister

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n Nov. 5, 2022, the world was introduced to Douglasville native Megan Moroney.

ESPN’s College Gameday was in Athens for the UGA-UT game. The Bulldogs were the undefeated, defending national champions.

Tennessee was … themselves … but they were also undefeated and ranked No. 1.

Excitement was high. And then Moroney somehow transcended it. Clad in red and black, she performed her hit song Tennessee Orange, a tune she co-wrote that tells the story of a Georgia Bulldogs fan who falls in love with a Vols fan.

“There was a day that I found myself wearing a Tennessee shirt,” she recalls. “So I jokingly had the shirt on, and I thought of the hook, ‘In Georgia, they call it a sin. I’m wearing Tennessee Orange for him.’ And I knew I could write a song about it.

I thought it was a clever take on being from the South and the SEC rivalry.”

That song would eventually hit the country top 10 and sell one million copies. Moroney’s debut album followed in May, and since then, her profile has only risen. She is a singer-songwriter with unlimited potential and perhaps the only one who got her break singing about a team that lost.

Grammy-Award winning co-founders of Lady A andrew davis tucker

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he University of Georgia prepared me to work my butt off,” Charles Kelley told one of the most expansive gatherings he’d ever addressed—the Class of 2018 and their friends and family packing Sanford Stadium.

Kelley and fellow Terry grad Dave Haywood are country music superstars.

They make up two-thirds of the chart-topping trio Lady A (the third member, Hillary Scott, attended Middle Tennessee State). They are no strangers to massive crowds, but the night of May 4, 2018, Haywood and Kelley got to play new roles as they delivered the annual spring Commencement address.

“Be open to things you haven’t even dreamed of yet,” Haywood said. “For Charles and I, we didn’t graduate from Georgia and say, ‘We’re going to Nashville. We want to be country singers.’ We got out there and worked

hard in the real world and kept our minds open and followed our passion and ended up landing in Nashville in a country band.”

Because Kelley and Haywood followed that passion, music fans of all stripes have benefited. Since their 2007 debut, Lady A has won five Grammys, charted 11 No. 1 country songs, performed before millions of fans, and sold tens of millions of records. And they show no sign of slowing down.

Lady A’s most recent album, What a Song Can Do, came out in 2021. They released the single Love You Back over the summer and spent October touring the Eastern U.S.

Lady A has won five Grammys and charted 11 No. 1 country songs.

See additional photos of our Nashville alumni at NEWS.UGA.EDU/NASHVILLE-NETWORK.

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Bill Anderson ABJ ’59

Country Music Hall of Famer and one of the most revered songwriters in Nashville history peter frey

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ore than six decades into a career that has not just spanned trends but set them, Bill Anderson can still work a room. And not just any room.

The Grand Ole Opry, one of the most famous rooms in the world.

Anderson’s masterful stage presence is not that surprising. The Opry truly is his second home.

Each night the Opry books multiple acts—new and old, superstars and up-andcomers—and each gets about 15 minutes on stage. Anderson plays for close to 20.

He banters with the crowd, and plays hits that are comical, sincere, or rollicking, sometimes all at the same time. He makes fans feel like they have known him all their lives.

And they love him for it.

The night of his Aug. 22 performance, he received a standing ovation. It was the only one of the night.

“I guess if it was gonna get old, it would have gotten old by now,” Anderson says,

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relaxing in his dressing room after the show. He has been a member of the Opry for 62 years, longer than anyone else. He still performs there several times a month.

“This is what you work for and you strive for,” he continues. “To walk onto that stage and see the people, it’s still special.”

Anderson was born in Columbia, South Carolina, but he grew up in Decatur. His first love was baseball, and he was good, even earning a tryout with the Chicago Cubs. But after graduating high school, Anderson’s path brought him to Athens.

He wrote his first hit song while he was studying journalism as a student at UGA. He had a job as a DJ at a station in Commerce, and one night he ventured to the roof of the town’s tallest building, just three floors off the ground.

Anderson wrote what he saw, and in 1957 he cut a version of the song City Lights. But it was in 1958 when Ray Price took his own recording of it to No. 1 that Anderson’s career truly began.

Although Anderson’s recording career includes seven No. 1 country hits, eight No. 2 hits, and a total of 35 top 10s, he didn’t enter the business to be a singer.

“Songwriting is what brought me to Nashville,” Anderson says. “I'm not a great singer, and I know that people all over the place can out-sing me. But I was able to develop a style and to do something a little bit different. I worked at it very hard, and I worked to learn to entertain a crowd. If I couldn't bowl them over by singing to them, I was gonna make them laugh. I was gonna make them cry. I'm gonna do something to get through to them if I could.”

Anderson is still known as “Whisperin’ Bill” because of his hushed singing style. But that softness belies the energy Anderson brings to all his work.

The foundation as a communicator that Anderson built at UGA has served him well throughout his life. It’s why he is so skilled at connecting with an audience. It’s also why, in the late 1970s and throughout the

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Bill Anderson has been a member of the Grand Ole Opry for 62 years. Longer than anyone else. “This is what you work for and you strive for. To walk out onto that stage and see the people, it’s still special.”

1980s, he branched out into other forms of entertainment. He did some acting, and he hosted two game shows. One of them, the trivia game Fandango, was a weeknight staple on The Nashville Network.

He still recorded and he still wrote, but the hits were not as high or as numerous.

However, in 1992, country star Steve Wariner hit the top 5 with a remake of a 30-year-old Anderson song, The Tips of My Fingers, and interest in Anderson’s work returned.

Soon, he connected with country superstar Vince Gill. One of the songs that emerged from their writing sessions was Which Bridge to Cross (Which Bridge to Burn). Gill took it into the top 5 in 1995.

“I just never thought I could book an appointment with somebody and sit down and write a song,” says Anderson, who had written almost all of his previous hits solo.

“But then I noticed that all these records were coming out, and they were co-written.

So I thought maybe I could look into it.”

Working with other people kicked off a creative burst that has hit previously unreached summits.

In 2005, Anderson won CMA Song of the Year for the Brad Paisley and Allison Krauss duet Whiskey Lullaby. It was the first time in his career he’d won the CMA’s most prestigious songwriting honor. Then he won it again in 2007 for Give It Away, a No. 1 hit for George Strait.

“People were finding me that hadn't known me before,” Anderson says. For instance, one of them, outlaw country star Jamey Johnson, was a co-writer on Give It Away and helped introduce Anderson to new generations of fans.

He continues to write every week, and while Anderson no longer tours, his

stagecraft remains fresh with his Opry gigs. Anderson is also one of Nashville’s most decorated citizens.

He’s a member of the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, the Songwriters Hall of Fame (which includes all genres), both the Georgia and South Carolina Music Halls of Fame, and the Country Music Hall of Fame. In September, the Country Music Hall of Fame exhibition “Bill Anderson: As Far As I Can See” wrapped up after nearly two years on display. Many of its items were on loan from UGA’s Special Collections Library, where Anderson has donated a great deal of material.

“My UGA diploma is up there!” he announces. It is, eye level and easy to see.

Anderson’s career has taken him around the world, but he never forgets where he came from. GM

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healthy as a horse UGA’s College of Veterinary Medicine has treated thousands of patients. With a new $5.5M facility, it hopes to save thousands more.

WRITTEN BY LEIGH HATAWAY MA ’17

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t first, Janna Kimmons wasn’t even sure what she was looking at.

It was 5 a.m. as Kimmons stared at the iPad she uses to monitor the horse stalls at her farm in Jefferson, Georgia.

Was that a foal lying on the stable floor just behind her mother’s leg or was it a shadow?

Liz, the mare, wasn’t due for almost another month. But after her pregnant pasture mate IKandy got sick and died—along with her foal—the stress got to Liz. That March morning, the mare went into labor 25 days early.

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Janna Kimmons' horse Faith was born almost a month premature, but under the care of UGA veterinarians and students, she's made a miraculous recovery.

Below, an early photo of baby Faith and her mother, Liz.

Barely the size of an adult Labrador retriever, the foal was lying on the stable floor, partially obscured by her mother’s much larger body.

Kimmons watched as the foal stood, shakily at first but growing somewhat steadier as the minutes passed.

When Liz’s foal started trying to nurse, though, Kimmons knew immediately something wasn’t right. The baby wasn’t latching well and didn’t have much of a suckle reflex.

“Babies sink very fast,” says Kimmons.

“I just wanted to do everything I could to make sure I didn’t lose her.”

That last month of development is critical for any species.

Premature babies often have underdeveloped body systems, including the immune system, predisposing them to a variety of potential infections and complications. If the foal couldn’t latch to nurse, it wouldn’t get the nutrients and immunity it needed to survive.

Having raised horses for 33 years, Kimmons knew they were in for a fight.

A Ray of Hope When IKandy and her foal died, Kimmons took the loss hard.

IKandy’s hoof got infected. Kimmons worked with her regular veterinarian and did all the right things—hoof soaks, keeping the abscess clean—but it wasn’t enough.

She rushed IKandy to UGA’s Veterinary Teaching Hospital. It was too late.

The veterinary team did a terminal c-section to try to save her foal.

Kimmons named the baby Hope, praying something good would come from the loss of one of her favorite mares. But Hope died a couple of days later.

Determined to save Liz’s premature baby, Kimmons and her husband, Barry, ial wrapped the tiny foal in a blanket c e sp and raced off to Athens.

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When Faith was born, she could barely stand.

Now she shows off her speed at the Equestrian Complex at the Will Rogers Memorial Center in Fort Worth, Texas. chamberlain smith

Faith is currently being trained to show in competitions by trainer Joe Engle, pictured here.

An Emergency Visit The emergency veterinary team met them at the door.

Dr. Naomi Crabtree, an emergency and critical care specialist, and Dr. Hunter Greer, an internal medicine resident, worked to get the foal IV fluids. They had to hydrate her and start administering plasma to boost the preemie’s immune system, and they had to do it fast.

The foal had bacteria in her blood, causing a life-threatening infection known as sepsis, so the duo also started her on antibiotics.

“She definitely needed some help from us, but she was within that window that gave us some hope of getting a good outcome,” Greer says.

Veterinary students and technicians monitored the foal around the clock, ensuring she got the medications and nutrition needed to thrive.

When Kimmons picked her up a week later, the foal looked like a different animal. Still small and a little weak. But she was alert, and that was a promising sign.

Kimmons settled the foal in her stall when they got home, and about four hours later, she realized the baby had gone to sit under a mark on the wall that resembled a cross.

“I’m not hugely spiritual; I don’t go to church every Sunday,” Kimmons says. “But I do believe in God, and I believe that things happen for a reason. And that, that was a sign to me. God gives you signs when you need them.”

For Kimmons, the foal was that sign that something good could come out of all the bad, a bit of light in the darkness of loss. At that moment, Kimmons knew just what to name the little one: Faith. chamberlain smith

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The Veterinary Teaching Hospital provides a modern space for animal care and veterinary education.

More than Just a Hospital

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Located at 2200 College Station Road, less than two miles from the main campus, the UGA Veterinary Teaching Hospital treats tens of thousands of animals every year.

As part of the College of Veterinary Medicine, the hospital also provides hundreds of veterinary residents, interns, and students with hands-on experience diagnosing, treating, and managing care regimens for a wide variety of species, including everything from dogs and cats to more exotic creatures like lions, anacondas, and koi fish.

The sprawling 300,000-plus-square-foot complex offers more than 25 specialty services, including the 24-hour emergency service that Kimmons relied on to save Faith.

“There aren’t a lot of large animal vets in the area,” Kimmons says. “It’s beginning to be a lost art. It’s nice to know that UGA’s there and that there’s a place for students to learn how to treat large animals.”

Janna Kimmons, shown holding her horse's reins, has relied on UGA's expert equine care team many times over the past few years for multiple horses.

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A horse is walked through the Veterinary Medical Center Large Animal Hallway.

Inset, Veterinary Medicine alumna Meg Korpita examines Bailey. Class sizes at the college number 150 students, making it one of the largest in the country. andrew davis tucker

An Increasing Shortage of Veterinary Care There are more than 124,000 veterinarians in the U.S., according to the American Veterinary Medical Association.

They’re largely focused on companion animals—dogs, cats, and the like.

Only about 4% specialize in horses.

Even fewer—only about 3,600 veterinarians—provide care to food animals and livestock.

Dr. Brenton Credille, an associate professor in the College of Veterinary Medicine, is one of the few.

“By 2050, which really is not so far away, the current supply of food is going to have to increase between 70 and 100% to meet the demand of the world’s growing population,” he says. “One of the roles we have as food animal veterinarians is not

just managing the health, well-being, and welfare of those animals but also looking into how we can implement practices that can help make food animal farms more sustainable over the long term.”

To reach that goal, Credille says, we need more vets.

“It's important that people understand the role that our university is playing in training the next generation of veterinarians to contribute to animal health,” he says.

Over the past few years, the College of Veterinary Medicine has increased its class size from 114 to 150, making it one of the largest in the country. Many of those students receive specific training in large-animal care. The college also has partnerships with UGA’s College of

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Agricultural & Environmental Sciences and the Georgia Department of Agriculture that focus on food animals and livestock.

Of course, there’s only so much you can learn in a classroom, which is why Credille and other faculty at the university bring their students, interns, and residents into the field.

Support the College of Veterinary Medicine at VET.UGA.EDU/ALUMNI/GIVING.

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A HANDSOME GOOSE

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Cows at Double H Farms in Covington wait for their annual checkup and shots by UGA veterinary students and faculty. andrew davis tucker

Herd Health On a balmy August morning, Credille, four students, and a food animal medicine and surgery resident piled into a truck headed more than 50 miles southwest of Athens to perform a herd check and provide care to the cows at Double H Farms in Covington.

“What do y’all think about her condition?” he asks them, gesturing to one of the almost 100 cows and calves assembled for their quarterly health exams and shots. “You’re the doctor, not me.

What do we do?”

That day, the answer was relatively simple. The animals needed dewormer medication and basic vaccines. Credille lets the students take the lead, but he’s always there, offering support and guidance when they need it.

The owners of Double H, Tamara and Kevin Holmes, aren’t your typical cow farmers. All their animals have names, like a beautiful red cow named Cayenne and her baby Tabasco.

“I just think they’re happier when they have names than when they’re just No. 55,” Tamara says.

The Holmes family tries their best to do right by their animals.

UGA and Credille’s team, specifically, help them do that.

But it’s a two-way street.

“I feel like we’re paying it forward in a way,” Tamara says. “We do everything we can to make sure the animals are healthy and happy, and the students get to come out and get experience here.”

andsome the Goose is certainly that.

A Chinese goose with light brown and white feathers and a fun dark knob on the top of his beak, Handsome stands out among his Canada geese friends who frequent his parents’ pond.

He was about 3 months old when the Brights got him, and they instantly fell in love with his loud honking and protective instincts.

So when Kelli Bright saw that Handsome (below) had separated himself and was lying with his head down on the bank of the pond, she immediately called her husband.

Mike Bright got home and tried to catch the goose, but Handsome still had a bit of fight left in him, not letting his owner get close. The next day, neither of the Brights saw Handsome. They were worried.

Mike searched for him again and found the lethargic goose lying in a grassy area at the back of the pond. Handsome let Mike pet him and pick him up.

Something was wrong.

The Brights searched for a vet but couldn’t find anyone to take the exotic bird. Until UGA, that is.

They rushed Handsome to the Teaching Hospital the next day, where the veterinarians immediately gave the goose oxygen and IV fluids. As they ran tests, the vets made an interesting discovery.

Handsome had lead poisoning.

“He had picked up a sinker or something, and the lead from it was leeching into his bloodstream and shutting down his system,” Mike says. With medication and diligent care, Handsome perked up after a couple of days.

“When I went to pick him up, they had been giving him strawberries and blueberries. I was like, ‘Y’all done already spoiled him!’” Mike remembers with a laugh.

Now Handsome is back to his usual goose self, squawking, eating grass, and helping some of his Canada geese friends raise their goslings.

“We’re animal people, and when your animal is like your kid, you want to know what’s going on with them,” Mike says.

“UGA was there to help us through that process.

It’s awesome to see him out here thriving once again and enjoying himself, just doing what geese do.” mike bright

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Faith has the potential to be a big winner in future competitions, according to Janna Kimmons, shown holding Faith's bridle.

As for Faith, she’s doing just fine.

Better than fine, actually, thanks to diligent care from her owners and veterinary care team.

The gorgeous, 600-pound 4-monthold is in Texas now, learning all the manners needed to show in national competitions.

According to her trainer there, Faith does need those lessons.

Horses often compete under longer names. Faith’s competition name is Naughtier Than Most, and she’s living up to it.

Faith’s already a fierce competitor, and her trainer has high hopes for her. “But she doesn’t really like to be told what to do,” Kimmons says. “She’s a little spicy.”

Kimmons wouldn’t have it any other way. And thanks to the UGA Veterinary Teaching Hospital, she doesn’t have to. GM

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A Preemie Grows Up

FOCUSED ON PET HEALTH

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n another part of campus, a new $5.2 million grant from the Stanton Foundation, coupled with an additional $500,000 in institutional funds, will also help expand the Veterinary College of Medicine’s Pet Health Center by 5,000 square feet, including new exam rooms, space for dog kennels, and expanded and remodeled surgery suites. The grant also supports the Spectrum of Care curriculum.

The Pet Health Center provides routine veterinary care—such as annual checkups, dental work, and outpatient surgeries—for cats and dogs from its base on South Campus, adjacent to the Veterinary College building.

As part of the continually growing UGA veterinary enterprise, the center provides another learning space for senior veterinary students to get hands-on training with the guidance of experienced faculty and staff but with a focus on companion animals.

The Pet Health Center expansion will enable the College of Veterinary Medicine to better serve its clientele of dogs and cats like Kirby Lou, pictured here. dorothy kozlowski

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LAB WORK Kama Palmer throws a ball with her 3-year-old chocolate lab, Romolo, on a fall day.

had developed myasthenia gravis, an autoimmune disorder that weakens the muscles, causing extreme fatigue.

They also spotted megaesophagus, a condition that prevents the esophagus from properly functioning, on his chest x-rays.

A registered nurse, Palmer knew Romolo’s diagnosis was bad.

Though manageable with medication, there’s no cure for myasthenia gravis.

While dogs don’t necessarily die from it, they can develop a condition that makes swallowing difficult, leading them to accidentally inhale food or water.

In turn, that accidental aspiration can lead to pneumonia and death.

One of the veterinarians confirmed Palmer’s biggest fear: Many owners euthanize their pets with the condition.

But Palmer had lost a dog the year before, and Romolo was so young. She had to try to save him.

Luckily, the veterinarians at the Teaching Hospital knew what to do.

They tried a medication, telling Palmer that if their diagnosis was correct, Romolo would be walking the next day.

“They gave him the medicine, and Dr. Brianna Kopec called and said, ‘He’s not

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omolo was a little over a year old when he collapsed.

The Labrador retriever’s owner, Kama Palmer, had let him out into the yard on New Year’s Eve to go to the bathroom, and on his way back in, he ran straight into a pole.

Then he started getting weaker. He stopped walking entirely. And one day, he collapsed, barely breathing and passing large amounts of blood in his stool.

Romolo’s health problems weren’t from running into a pole, multiple veterinarians told Palmer. But they also couldn’t figure out what was wrong.

Some recommended CT scans, supportive care, and a wait-and-see approach. Others said it might be best to put the dog down.

“I couldn’t do it,” she says. “I had to try.”

Palmer rushed Romolo to the UGA Teaching Hospital, where the pup was immediately picked up, placed on a gurney, and wheeled to the back for a full exam.

Almost immediately, the UGA care team pinpointed a likely cause for Romolo’s sudden and dramatic decline.

The formerly energetic chocolate Lab

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walking well, but he’s walking,’” Palmer says.

It was a promising sign, but Palmer knew Romolo still had a long way to go.

After returning home, Romolo started having issues again. He developed pneumonia. The UGA veterinarians recommended a total plasma exchange, a procedure where his blood was filtered through a machine to remove his plasma, which was then disposed of, and replaced with fresh plasma.

Romolo was in the ICU for a week, receiving multiple treatments, but he cleared the infection. His myasthenia gravis went into remission in August 2022, and Kopec recommended gradually weaning him off his medication. Romolo’s been off all his meds since January 2023 and is feeling great.

He’s even the poster dog for a calendar aimed at raising awareness of megaesophagus and myasthenia gravis.

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75 1.

ON THE BULLDOG BEAT

Georgia’s Art Museum Turns WRITTEN BY AARON HALE MA ’16

A

lfred Heber Holbrook was nearly 70 years old when he had an epiphany.

Holbrook, a native of Topeka, Kansas, and retired New York attorney, had a deep connection to the visual arts. He shared that connection with his wife, Eva, by visiting art museums, exhibitions, and even acquiring an enviable collection of paintings.

After Eva died in 1940, Holbrook was thinking of their legacies when he met with Holger Cahill, the director of the Federal Art Project in the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration. That conversation turned into an idea that had begun to blossom in Holbrook’s mind and heart: What if he could create an art museum to share his passion with the public?

Holbrook was interested in hosting such a museum in the South, where art museums—or any exposure to fine visual arts—were a rarity for most of the public at the time. He also believed a university could best fulfill his ideal for a museum, one that was both educational and inspirational.

Cahill supported the idea and suggested the University of Georgia, where prominent artist Lamar Dodd had just become director of the art program. In 1944, Holbrook ventured to Athens, a city he’d never visited, to meet with Dodd. The two shared a vision of what an art museum at the university might look like.

Holbrook left Athens not only impressed by Dodd but also by the city’s existing art culture.

Holbrook followed his hunch. He donated 100 American paintings from his collection—including works by Georgia O’Keeffe, Albert Bierstadt, and Winslow Homer—moved to the Classic City, and became the Georgia Museum of Art’s first director.

In 1948, the museum opened on North Campus in the basement of the university’s library, now the Administration Building.

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1. A 1978 exhibition of Belgian sculptor Pol Bury.

2. Students entering the old museum location, which is now the Administration Building.

3. Alfred Heber Holbrook with his trademark pipe and pink smock.

4. The museum after it moved to its current location in 1996.

5. Lamar Dodd (left) and Alfred Holbrook.

6. Local children in the gallery in 1999.

Once in Athens, Holbrook took art courses at UGA with classmates a half-century younger. The museum director/student was known to arrive to class carrying a pipe, wearing a pink smock, and ready to paint.

Holbrook’s work extended well beyond campus.

He frequently took the museum on the road, stacking treasured paintings into his trunk and driving across Georgia to speak to church and civic groups about the arts.

Holbrook served as director of the Georgia Museum of Art until 1969, by then well into his 90s.

He died in 1974, a few months shy of 100.

In the years that followed, the museum continued to expand its collection, reputation, and footprint. It became Georgia’s official state art museum in 1982, began its free monthly Family Day program in 1986 (which continues today), and moved to its current location on East Campus in 1996.

In 2023, the museum celebrated its 75th anniversary. What began as one man’s late-in-life epiphany has delivered “free inspiration”—as the museum’s tagline goes—for Georgians young and old throughout generations.

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Learn more about the Georgia Museum of Art and its history at GEORGIAMUSEUM.ORG.

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THE NATION

See these events and more at alumni.uga.edu/calendar

2024 DAWG DAY OF GIVING

SENIOR SIGNATURE DEADLINE

March 26 Join Dawg Nation as we rally together for 24 hours in support of the University of Georgia and its mission, people, and promise to the state of Georgia and beyond. To all those who wear the red and black: Join us for this worldwide day of giving. More at givingday.uga.edu.

March 31 Students graduating in May-December 2024 are invited to make a $30 donation to the university, with $20 of that going to any fund they choose on campus (the remaining $10 supports the Class Gift). As a thank you, students’ names will be included on the class plaque in Tate Plaza, and they will get to vote on the 2024 Class Gift recipient. More at alumni.uga.edu/seniorsignature

WHO WILL MAKE THE BULLDOG 100?

We’re once again celebrating the fastestgrowing businesses owned or led by Bulldogs. This year’s list will be unveiled in December. Join us in recognizing the alumni who are leading their companies and organizations to bigger and better things and improving lives, communities, and industries along the way. More at alumni.uga.edu/b100.

END-OF-THE-YEAR GIVING OPENS DOORS Make your gift to UGA before Dec. 31 to enjoy tax benefits while supporting students and faculty who are improving communities and powering economies across the state and around the world. Your gift can reflect what’s important to you—from brain science research to study away scholarships or fellowships for graduate students.

More at give.uga.edu/holidays.

KICK-START YOUR CAREER IN 2024 The UGA Career Center offers UGA alumni free professional development and job search resources online. Looking to climb the ladder? Hoping to find a more fulfilling career path? Planning to reenter the workforce? These tools can help you yearround, worldwide, and lifelong. More at career.uga.edu/alumni.

Find your chapter at alumni.uga.edu/chapters

CHARLESTON DAWGS Chapter President: Paul Kirkland BFA ’05 Number of Local Alumni: 3,013 The Charleston Chapter is the definition of Southern hospitality and is dedicated to building a strong UGA community on the South Carolina coast. From their spirited game-watching parties at alumni-owned Home Team BBQ to their Dawg Days at the RiverDogs games, it’s hard to miss the chapter’s presence in this beautiful and historic city. It’s not uncommon to hear “What’s that comin’ down the track” yelled from a boat in the Charleston harbor— especially during the summertime when the chapter hosts its annual sunset cruise.

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LOOKING TO ADVANCE YOUR CAREER? Sign up for the new Alumni Career Services e-Newsletter, Career Everywhere: Dawg Digest. Get monthly updates about professional development and leadership resources and events, job openings, employer spotlights, and more!

More at alumni.uga.edu/careeremail.

DAWG DECALS: FROM CAROLINA TO CALIFORNIA Snag a Dawg decal from the UGA Bookstore to customize your ride, your water bottle, or your laptop. Each sticker is $10 and $5 of that supports UGA’s greatest needs across campus. Makes a great gift during the holidays and is easy to ship! Get yours at alumni.uga.edu/statedecals.

UGA WELCOMES CLASS OF 2027 More than 5,000 first-year students attended Freshman Welcome on Aug. 15 in Sanford Stadium. They learned gameday cheers, heard from several campus leaders and Bulldog coaches, and then formed the Power G on Dooley Field before heading back to their residence halls to prepare for the first day of classes.

How many living UGA alumni were born on New Year’s Eve? A. 4,001 B. 321

C. 1,058 D. 978

Answer: C, 1,058. This includes anyone who holds a degree or a certificate from UGA, as well as anyone who attended UGA.

How many living alumni have the last name Winter or Winters?

C. 111 D. 32 E.

A. 93 B. 234

Answer: A, 93.

YEAR-ROUND, WORLDWIDE, AND LIFELONG. Check out what's going on for alumni and update your email or mailing address with UGA.

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CLASS NOTES

class notes Compiled by Navya Shukla, Cassidy Hettesheimer, Caroline Kostuch, and Ireland Hayes AB ’23

ALUMNI PROFILE

Island Life

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n November 2017, just three months after they got married, Alex and Meredith Zimmerman quit their jobs in Charlotte, North Carolina, and moved to St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Their plans were vague, but their ambition and sense of adventure were anything but.

“We were the first ones of our friends to get married,” Alex recalls. “We’re gonna move somewhere cool. Just to try it out. If it doesn’t work out, we can move right back and pick up where we left off.”

Well, things are working out just fine.

Alex BSES ’14 owns and operates Fishwater Charters, an aptly named offshore fishing charter business (that also references a song

by Athens’ own Widespread Panic), while Meredith BBA ’15 has turned her photography hobby into a fast-growing career.

“In that first year, we didn’t know where we were going,” Meredith says. “But we started meeting people, and—for me, at least—it started with businesses asking me to take photos and friends asking for pictures. And then someone gets engaged, and it all snowballed.”

The Zimmermans’ selection of St. Croix wasn’t random.

Alex’s mother earned her scuba certification there, and the couple came to the island on their honeymoon. They’d visited several other Caribbean islands in previous years and they were drawn to St. Croix’s more-leisurely/ less-touristy vibe.

But there are still some tourists. And a lot of weddings and a lot of elopements. And that’s where Meredith established her niche.

Alex helps too. Meredith estimates that he’s officiated some 30 St. Croix weddings. But, of course, that’s not his main job.

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Alex and Meredith Zimmerman are living their best lives on the Caribbean island of St. Croix. Meredith is an in-demand professional photographer, and Alex owns an offshore fishing charter business.

photo courtesy of meredith zimmerman

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CLASS NOTES

1960-1964 Ed Nichols ABJ ’62 published his first novel, The Professor and Confederate Gold, in July.

Jody Weatherly AB ’64 is a real estate agent with Dorsey Alston Realtors in Atlanta.

1965-1969 William Moss Jr. BSA ’68 is the secretary-treasurer of the Jackson County Cattleman’s Association.

Patricia Grant BSF ’69 is a naturalist at Indian Springs State Park in Butts County.

Albert Morris III BSPH ’69 is a retired

pharmacist and the owner of Corner Drug Store in Pickens, SC. 1970-1974 Dr. Charles G. Green Jr. BS ’70 was elected chairman of the board of the Medical College of Georgia Foundation.

Sandy Miles AB ’71, MEd ’76 retired

from her position as a school psychologist with the Everett School District in Washington state after 46 years of working in public schools across the country.

Patrick Ashley BBA ’72 retired from his position as a certified public accountant at Meeks CPA after 51 years at the firm.

Alex BSES ’14 and Meredith Zimmerman BBA ’15

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Alex started as a deck hand on a friend’s fishing boat. He made a nice steady income while also learning the nuances of the business. In 2021, he took the leap, purchased his own boat, and hired his UGA roommate and best fishing buddy Cameron Spears BSFCS ’15 as first mate. It’s been smooth sailing ever since. Meredith, who majored in marketing at UGA, helps with promotion and running the website. h p While on land, Alex works part-time with a neighbor’s environmental consulting company. He contributes to projects ranging from native plant breeding and endangered species protection to reforestation and sustainable farming. For the UGA environmental economics and management major, it is a passion project.

“Since I’m a fisherman, I have all these extra scraps after I clean the fish,” Alex says. “Recently, I’ve been making a fish fertilizer with the remains, and I’m excited about delving deeper into that.”

Meredith’s new projects are bit cleaner, perhaps, but no less exciting.

In the five years since establishing her business, she has become one of the island’s best known—and busiest—photographers. While she still has vibrant wedding and portrait work, Meredith also recently branched out into brand photography, promoting St. Croix businesses and even some travel and leisure photography for local hotels and travel publications.

“I’m just trying to do what I can to bring St. Croix to the rest of the world,” she says. “You know, show off our little island.”

Written by Eric Rangus MA ’94

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CLASS NOTES Bob Allen BBA ’81 is the owner and broker of Greater Athens Properties.

Dr. Kay Crosby BS ’81 is the founder, chair, and volunteer medical director at the Coweta Samaritan Clinic in Newnan.

Patricia E. Norris BSA ’82 retired from her position as professor and Guyer-Seevers Endowed Chair in Natural Resource Conservation at Michigan State University in May 2021.

Nathan M. Jolles AB ’83 was recognized as the 2023 Sole Proprietor Statewide Winner in the Georgia Legal Food Frenzy for funds raised to support food banks in the Georgia Attorney General and Young Lawyers Annual Competition.

Alison Horton Mewborne BBA ’83 retired from her position as an LPL financial planner at Capital City Investments after 17 years.

She started a new position as a senior financial planner and investment manager at Seven Hills Financial in Tallahassee, FL. Wayne Hillis BS ’83, JD ’86 is a founding partner of the Bradley Arant Boult Cummings Atlanta office.

Dan Amos BBA ’73 was inducted as a Georgia trustee by the Georgia Historical Society in April.

David L. Burch BBA ’73 was named to the Cambridge Premier Club and was recognized alongside other financial professionals at the club’s conference in June.

John Young BBA ’74 is a managing director with Taplow Group, an executive search firm. He also serves on the UGA Libraries Board of Visitors.

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1975-1979 Ronald Temples BSPH ’75 is a part-time pharmacist at Trion Drugs.

James Moore BBA ’76 is the owner and broker of Lake Hartwell Realty and an associate broker at Berkshire Hathaway Georgia Properties.

Bentz Bagwell BBA ’77 retired from his career in marketing, management, and IT operations in November 2022.

Dr. Ben Treen BSA ’77 earned a board certification in micrographic dermatologic

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surgery and is a physician and surgeon at Carolina Skin Care in Pinehurst, NC. Deborah Reece AB ’79 is an assistant producer of the Clark Howard Podcast, an audio producer and music radio host at Cox Media Group in Atlanta, and a voice talent at Vericom.

1980-1984 Stephen Maurer BSFR ’80 retired from his position as fire warden at the New Jersey State Forest Fire Service in January after 42 years.

1985-1989 Dr. Steven McLees BS ’85 started a new position as a hospitalist/ laborist at Roper Hospital in Charleston, SC. Clayton Whitehead BMus ’85 was named president of Sports Leisure Vacations in Sacramento, CA. Dr. Howard Massey BS ’86 is a professor of surgery and director of the artificial heart program and heart transplantation at Thomas Jefferson University.

Scotty Reiss ABJ ’87 is the founder of A Girls Guide to Cars, a digital automotive site for women.

Kristi Logue BSEd ’98 is a program coordinator at the Emory University Winship Cancer Institute.

Julie Wood BBA ’89 is a founding partner of the Bradley Arant Boult Cummings Atlanta office.

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CLASS NOTES

ALUMNI PROFILE

Irresistible Foods

Leo “Chris” Kasuya BBA ’14, BBA ’14

I

f you ask Leo “Chris” Kasuya BBA ’14, BBA ’14 about his career path, his answer is simple: “Well, I don’t know if I’ve selected one.”

That’s because to Kasuya, it’s not necessarily about picking a path. It’s more important to embrace life’s opportunities and find ways to create value or make an impact.

“Being born in Japan and moving to the U.S. when I was 10, I am a huge believer that once you have experienced more than one culture, one is not enough,” Kasuya says.

“You need to experience and celebrate all different cultures. And that’s something I was fortunate to be born into, and it is something my family has celebrated throughout my life.”

While all of his roles have utilized his business degree from Terry College, Kasuya has worked in several fields. He worked in management consulting after graduation, took time off to travel the world, and founded a digital media company. Now, with several more stamps in his passport, Kasuya works as director of strategy and new ventures at Irresistible Foods Group (IFG), the parent company of beloved bread brand King’s Hawaiian.

“I’ve focused on opportunities that will allow me to learn and grow, to create value, solve problems, and ultimately pursue what I feel like is my life purpose: to build bridges or be the bridge,” Kasuya says.

In his role with IFG, Kasuya leads a variety of efforts related to developing and executing strategic initiatives, including acquiring new brands and international expansion efforts. As a 100% family-owned business, King’s Hawaiian, and now IFG, use a 73-year history to share products with consumers around the world, and Kasuya is at the helm of those efforts. Established in September 2021, IFG has since added two new brands: Grillo’s Pickles and Shaka Tea. “I’ve been with IFG since the beginning and helped build it from an idea to what it is today, and from a personal standpoint, it has been fun to lean into my entrepreneurial energy and spirit,” he says. “It all started by creating our strategic plan which answers three questions. First, when we get there,

As director of strategy and new ventures at Irresistible Foods Group, Leo “Chris” Kasuya helps bring products to new markets and new customers.

He is a 2022 UGA 40 Under 40 honoree, earning congratulations from Hairy Dawg. the decisive moment event photography

what is there? This is about setting our North Star. Once you answer that question, you then need to answer how are we going to get there? And the final question is, what do we do now? What are the things we need to focus on starting today?”

As a part of this strategic plan, international expansion is a key area of focus, and

Kasuya is excited to help continue expansion into new markets. King’s Hawaiian is sold in 18 countries today and continues to grow.

“It’s been really cool to be able to start working on expanding Irresistible products, not just across the U.S., but around the world,” he says.

Written by Erica Techo BS ’15 GEORGIA MAGAZINE

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CLASS NOTES 1990-1994 J. Freeman Elliott AB ’90 retired from his position as president of Orkin USA after 32 years with the company.

Barbara Long AB ’90, MEd ’93 is an assistant principal at McNair High School in the DeKalb County School District.

Lane Andrews BFA ’91 is the vice president of technology, creative, and marketing at U.S. Kids Golf.

Stacy Hawthorne BBA ’91 was named chief academic officer for Learn21, a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving student learning outcomes through technology.

Madenna Landers BSEd ’91 retired from her position as principal at Atha Road Elementary School in Monroe.

John Hunter AB ’92 published Maps and Legends: The Story of R.E.M. in August.

Anthony DeMaria Jr. BBA ’93 is a senior vice president at RSUI Group.

Virna Mendoza ’94, MEdWood ’99 started a TV host BBA Rutledge has built new position as director of events his career by being himself.and (Above) engagement for the Office of theK5 President Wood drives his restored Blazer Peachtree City and (right) poses in at EmoryinUniversity. driveway with a homemade lava Steve F. his Reagin BBA ’94 was promoted to he built for a parade in honor presidentlamp of Signature Bank of Georgia, a of his Netflix show Floor is Lava.

community bank in Sandy Springs and Suwanee.

1995-1999 Dionitia Cornell AB ’95 is a vice president at Risk Strategies Company.

Heather Jordan BSEH ’95 is a custom design technical manager with Shaw Industries and a franchise co-owner of Nothing Bundt Cakes in Warner Robins.

Joe F. Mullins BBA ’95 is the founder and president of The Mullins Companies, the parent company of Mullins Management, Mullins Properties, and Mullins Sports & Entertainment.

Rebecca A. Davis BSEH ’96 is a partner at Arnall Golden Gregory in Atlanta.

Elizabeth Jameson ABJ ’96 is the senior director of the Microsoft Business Desk in Singapore, leading a team that negotiates deals across the Asian market.

Michael Lewis BSA ’96 is a professional land surveyor and an engineering operations manager at the Statewide Location Bureau of the Georgia Department of Transportation.

Britton Glynn BFA ’97 is a co-founder of GLYNNdesignbuild, a custom architecture and

general contracting firm in Los Angeles.

Dr. Michael Kissel BS ’97 opened Southern Comfort Pain & Wellness in Loganville in 2022. He specializes in interventional pain and overall patient well-being.

Amy Robertson ABJ ’97 started a new position as vice president of advertising at Hoffman Media in June 2022.

Laura Walters Tamman AB ’97 earned a doctorate of political science from CUNY Graduate Center in New York City.

Paul Barsness AB ’98 is a founding partner of the Bradley Arant Boult Cummings Atlanta office.

2000-2004 Courtnie Wolfgang BFA ’00, MAEd ’08 started a new position as an associate professor in the Department of Teaching and Learning in Art and Design at the Rhode Island School of Design.

Cristie Conner Meadows BBA ’01 was promoted to director of finance for Cisco Systems.

Paul O’Hagan AB ’01 is the senior regional manager for the United Kingdom, Europe, and Israel at Global Victoria.

Raj Shingadia AB ’01, BS ’03 is the owner of Southeast Aquariums and completed the acquisition of Reef Builders, a leading news source for the aquatics industry.

Kelly Hines ABJ ’02 is the executive director of Coweta Samaritan Clinic in Newnan.

Jason Wheeler BBA ’02 was promoted to vice president of national sales and account management at CorVel Corporation in March 2022.

Scott Zweigel AB ’02, JD ’05 is a founding partner of the Bradley Arant Boult Cummings Atlanta office.

Dr. Richard Thomas BS ’04 is an orthopedic trauma and adult reconstructive surgeon at Northeast Medical Center in Gainesville, GA. Meagan Waid BBA ’04 is an assistant principal and curriculum director at Woodstock High School. She was named the 2023 Assistant Principal of the Year by the Georgia Association of Secondary School Principals.

2005-2009 Latinda Dean AB ’05 started a new position as principal of Whit Davis Elementary School in Athens, GA. Josh Fain BSFR ’05 launched LandYield, a company established to offer U.S.-based small non-industrial forest owners access to carbon offset markets, this year.

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ALUMNI PROFILE

Polina’s Profile

Polina Marinova Pompliano ABJ ’13

In 2017, Polina Marinova Pompliano started The Profile, a web-based media company focused on deep-dive personal stories of newsmakers.

The experience helped inspire her to write her first book, Hidden Genius, which was published earlier this year.

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olina Marinova Pompliano never considered writing a book.

“I’m a journalist. I do short form. I don’t write long things,” she says.

But the editor who’d contacted her was persistent. He’d read The Profile, the newsletter of the web-based media company Pompliano started as a side project in 2017, and was intrigued.

Pompliano was three years into her fiveand-a-half-year stint as a writer for Fortune magazine at the time. It was the latest step in what had been a steady climb up the journalism ladder.

While at UGA earning her degree in newspapers—the last class to major in the subject before it was phased out—Pompliano ABJ ’13 worked at The Red & Black for four years, including a year as the student paper’s editor-in-chief.

That education set Pompliano up well for when she started her professional career, Written by Eric Rangus MA ’94

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first at USA Today and then at CNN. She joined Fortune’s social media team, worked her way up to writer, then editor. She was producing good work for an internationally respected publication, but she was restless.

“So I started The Profile, which was really small at the time,” Pompliano says. “But it was tied to my own name. It was something I built and could never lose.” In the beginning, the newsletter was mainly for family and friends, but readership grew steadily and so did Pompliano’s passion for it.

Editorially, The Profile is exactly what it implies.

In each week’s newsletter, Pompliano deep dives into the life and work of a newsmaker, thought leader, visionary, or allaround interesting human. By 2021, which was when the book editor contacted her, she was writing The Profile full time. And she was stretching out creatively.

Pompliano uses a variety of narrative

tools to explore her subjects, often breaking the fourth wall to offer her own perspectives on those she highlights. Her pieces are engaging, punchy, and relatively short at under 1,500 words.

“Ultimately, if I was to write a book, it would be a compilation of all the lessons I’ve learned from profiling and interviewing people,” Pompliano says.

The editor was sold.

All the publisher needed was a title. For Pompliano, that was perhaps the easiest part.

“I believe we all have a hidden genius or kind of an X factor that makes us exceptional, but a lot of us haven’t discovered it yet,” she says.

Hidden Genius: The Secret Ways of Thinking That Power the World’s Most Successful People was released in June to much acclaim.

Over a nimble 252 pages, Hidden Genius uncovers those X factors through a mix of thumbnail profiles, quoted material, and a handful of slightly longer stories and anecdotes. While management trainers and personal development experts would have a field day with the treasure trove of lessons learned from Hidden Genius, the book appeals to any reader. It is easily digestible and broadly appealing.

Also, while there is no shortage of big names (Matthew McConaughey, Dolly Parton, and Neil DeGrasse Tyson among them) in the book, Pompliano doesn’t necessarily waste time shining lights on the stars.

“To me, success isn’t material wealth or any sort of external status,” she says. “To live a meaningful life is to be able to take the lessons you’ve learned to share them with other people.”

Since the release of Hidden Genius, Pompliano has embarked on an abbreviated book tour and continued to publish The Profile. A move from Miami back to New York and the impending arrival of her second child are complicating things in very good ways. But having spent her career shining the spotlight on others, being the focus of attention is a shift.

“It’s very strange to be the one answering the questions versus asking the questions,” she says.

“It’s a once-in-a-lifetime experience.”

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our georgia commitment Joe BLA ’75 and Penny Hodgson BSEd ’74, MEd ’76 grow apples. Lots of them.

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heir Middle Tennessee orchard yields 20,000 to 40,000 apples annually, and most are donated to food ministries such as the Nashville Food Project. But you’ll be hardpressed to hear the couple boast about their philanthropic endeavors because giving back is truly at their core.

“We’re at a time in our lives where we can give back, so the idea of having an apple orchard and giving the apples away was something we found interesting,” Joe says. “We knew it would be good to do but also was a project where I could learn something.”

They believe in using what’s been given to them to make a difference in others’ lives—particularly when it comes to their alma mater.

“We’re conscious of the fact that with the HOPE Scholarship, a lot of kids can go to Georgia, but not all of them can truly afford to go to Georgia,” Joe says, pointing out that HOPE doesn’t cover gas money, food, and other costs related to the social aspects of the college experience.

The Hodgsons credit some of their successes to the strength of their UGA educations, as well as the support they received from the UGA community. In turn, they are returning that support by fostering growth in others. Penny, a graduate of the Mary Frances Early College of Education, hopes to assist a new generation of teachers, as her own network did in her first teaching role at Barnett Shoals Elementary School in Athens.

“I have a heart for teachers, and I want there to be good teachers,” Penny says.

“The university does an incredible job

GIVE.UGA.EDU

special

preparing young teachers to be well trained to enter the classroom.”

Joe is a College of Environment and Design graduate and enjoyed a successful 40-year career in landscape architecture with HDLA in Nashville.

Since retiring from the field, he’s recognized how much UGA prepared him for his professional journey, as well as his latest pursuits in agriculture.

Today, the couple contributes to

provide scholarships, equipment, and technology to advance student learning in the college.

The Hodgsons are generously planting seeds today that will grow for generations to come. Endowed funds, like the ones they have established and enhanced, will have a ripple effect across countless young people for years to come.

Just like the Hodgsons, you can help put University of Georgia students on a path to prosper, empowering them to transform lives, industries, and communities across Georgia and around the world.

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CLASS NOTES Sara Freeland ABJ ’05 received a Silver Anvil Award of Excellence from the Public Relations Society of America for most effective campaign on a shoestring budget for “Stick Around for Summer,” an enrollment campaign for UGA summer classes.

Douglas Harden AB ’05 has been promoted to the position of export control analyst with the Defense Technology Security Administration in the Office of the Secretary of Defense.

Katie Wood BSFCS ’05, PhD ’23 earned a doctoral degree in counselor education and supervision from UGA in May and started a new position as tenure-track assistant professor at Tennessee Technological University.

Barclay Taylor AB ’06 started a new position as a tax controversy attorney in the litigation practice at Morris, Manning & Martin in Atlanta.

Julia Taylor AB ’06 is the founder and CEO of GeekPack, an e-learning company aimed to help close the digital skills gap for women and other underserved communities.

Margaret Wright BBA ’06 is a managing director and wealth advisor at Truist Bank in Atlanta and was named to the Forbes Magazine America’s Top Wealth Advisors 2023 list.

Edward J. Gerety AB ’07 earned a doctorate of business administration from Drexel University in June 2022.

Chul Kim BSChem ’07 is a senior research and development chemist at J-B Weld Co. Holly Line BSW ’07 is the county director at Fayette County Department of Family and Child Services.

Dr. Brian Mears Jr. BS ’07 was named diplomate of the American Board of Periodontology. He is currently practicing at Columbia

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Periodontal Associates in Columbia, SC. Erin White AB ’07, ABJ ’07 started a new position as senior information architect at Ad Hoc, working to improve digital experiences for federal government websites.

Mackenzie Cole AB ’08 was named chief deputy prosecutor for Teton County, WY. Kelly Rye BBA ’08 is the community leader of the Maple Street Biscuit Company Killearn location in Tallahassee, FL. Jacob Smith BSA ’10 started a new position as vice president of food safety and quality assurance at Gold Creek Foods in Gainesville, GA. Bob White BSFR ’10, MS ’12 is the Forsyth County arborist.

2010-2014 Starlett Carter AB ’10 earned a doctorate in public policy and administration with a specialization in terrorism,

mediation, and peace from Walden University.

Jared Hunt BMus’ 10 is an assistant professor of music, trumpet, and athletic bands at the University of Mary HardinBaylor in Belton, TX. Alex Poirot AB ’10 is vice president of public policy for Beep.

Hayley Chandler BSEd ’11 started a new position as a contract specialist with Hotel Engine in Denver.

Rene Couttolenc BBA ’11 earned a master’s degree in business administration from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management.

Joshua Delaney AB ’11, ABJ ’11 is the legislative director for United States Sen. Raphael Warnock.

Katie Hartzog Walker BSFCS ’11 was promoted to assistant special agent in charge of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation’s Metro Gang Task Force.

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From Athens to Eternity

All the world's a stage for Broadway star and art historian Calvin Orlando Smith. peter frey

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alvin Orlando Smith has taken advantage of every avenue to higher education that UGA has to offer, from evening classes to study abroad to correspondence courses. However, his first year was cut short when, as he puts it, “show business called.”

Smith’s AB ’00 pathway to earning his UGA degree took more twists and turns than most. He was accepted to the university in

1980 and graduated 20 years later in 2000 while he was taking part in UGA’s study away program at Oxford University in England.

Smith continued his education at Cambridge University and was the first African American to be accepted to and receive a degree from the department of history of art and architecture. He graduated with a master’s degree in philosophy in 2004.

Calvin Orlando Smith AB ’00 “It took what it took,” he says. “It was the most wonderful, glorious, informative, difficult thing I’ve ever undertaken. And that’s what made it worth it.”

For two years after Calvin took his first break from UGA, he answered that show business call, singing his heart out on the national tour for Gentlemen Prefer Blondes or on a plane to wherever the next showing was.

He hasn’t slowed down.

Smith made his Broadway debut as the pirate Cecco in Peter Pan before joining the show on its international tour. Since then, he has performed major roles in Music Man, My Fair Lady, and the world premiere of Pinocchio, among others.

In all, over the past 40 years, Smith has performed three shows on Broadway, seven national tours, and too many concerts to count. During the periods he wasn’t on stage, Smith would come back and take classes at UGA. “I was on the road doing Evita for a couple of years, but I kept coming back to the university because that degree was important to me,” he says. “In fact, the entire UGA community has remained incredibly close to my spirit.”

His musical talents have taken him beyond the stage as well. From singing backup on Garth Brooks’ stadium tour to making his debut at Carnegie Hall in Brahms’ Requiem, Smith is a man of many talents.

And he has never forgotten his beginnings in Athens. He has shared the stage more than once with hometown heroes The B-52s, and in 1993, he put his travels on hold to do a one-man show that reopened the historic Morton Theatre. He remembers it as “one of my proudest moments because we all came together as a community.”

This year, his name was added to the Athens Music Walk of Fame just in time for a planned solo concert in 2024 to honor King Charles III’s coronation. Smith won’t be intimidated, though: He once sang The Star-Spangled Banner for the king’s father, the late Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh.

Written by Jayne Roberts

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CLASS NOTES William Stone BBA ’11 started a new position as a tax controversy attorney in the litigation practice at Morris, Manning & Martin in Atlanta.

Chad Williford BBA ’11 is a corporate insurance manager for Kyocera AVX Components Corporation.

Rachel Flint ABJ ’12 is a graphic designer and social media manager at the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Public Health.

Alexandra Boss BBA ’13, AB ’13 was promoted to senior vertical manager at Sage Intacct.

Morgan Davis BS ’14 is a digital forensic intelligence analyst at Securus Technologies and was recently promoted to supervisor.

2015-2020 Christina Elling BS ’15 earned a doctorate in human medical genetics and genomics from the University of Colorado in the spring.

Jose D. Leandro BSHP ’15 is a diplomat currently serving as a health officer with the U.S. Agency for International Development.

Philip Shippey BLA ’15 is a licensed landscape architect.

Logan Brown BBA ’16 started a new position as vice president of marketing at Reagan Consulting in Atlanta.

Ben Jacobs BSFCS ’16, MS ’16 and Cody Nichelson ABJ ’14 opened Fully Financial, a fee-only financial planning and investment management company, in downtown Athens.

Stephen Kirkland BSCSE ’16 is a software engineer at 20 Digits Technologies.

Chase Lyndale BS ’16, JD ’20 is a founding partner of the Bradley Arant Boult Cummings Atlanta office.

Justin Robinson AB ’16 started a new position as an associate attorney in the mergers and acquisitions practice of Smith Hulsey and Busey in Jacksonville, FL. Alexander Boylston AB ’17, AB ’17 earned a master’s degree in international public administration and politics at Roskilde University in Denmark.

Dr. Meagan Thomason BSA ’17, DVM ’21 started a new position as an associate veterinarian at Pine Ridge Equine Hospital in Tulsa, OK. Callie Driver AB ’18 is a supply chain analyst for Chick-fil-A Corporate.

John Pilcher BS ’18, MFR ’20, MS ’21 is a data reporting analyst at HD Supply in Atlanta.

Julia Vollmer BS ’18 is a science teacher at Highline Public Schools in Washington state.

Kyle Aaron BSBE ’19, MS ’22 and Lauren Willis AB ’20, AB ’20, MEd ’22 were married in Rome,

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Alexis Manson AB ’19 received a Juris Doctor with a certificate in refugees and humanitarian emergencies and special pro bono pledge recognition from Georgetown University Law Center in May. She started a new position as an associate at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett in New York City in October.

Tyler Roof BSFCS ’19 is the director of football nutrition for the University of Utah.

Kristen Nicolosi BSEd ’20 is completing a women’s health physical therapy residency at the University of Pennsylvania.

Megan O’Meara BSEd ’20 is a volunteer coordinator at The Painted Turtle, a nonprofit camp that serves children with serious and life-threatening illnesses, in Santa Monica, CA. 2021-2023 Emma Grace Crumbley BSAB ’21, BSES ’21 is an entomologist at Mosquito Squad and manages the company’s social media as “Emma the Entomologist.”

Bridget Hale BSW ’21 started a new position as a child and adolescent therapist at the Center for Healing Arts and Sciences in Houston, TX. Bennett Hardee AB ’21, AB ’21, MPA ’23 started a new position at the Carl Vinson Institute of Government in Atlanta in July.

Zachary Miles AB ’21 was promoted to lead producer at NBC10 Boston.

Christen Camp AB ’22 started a new position as client coordinator at Epting Events in Athens.

Hayden Chunn BBA ’22 is a junior associate product manager at Publicis Sapient.

Cannon Gaines BSEd ’22, MS ’23 is the founder and CEO of Gaines Group Activations, an NIL agency helping businesses with athlete marketing ventures.

Nathan Goggans BBA ’22 is an account executive with AJC logistics in Atlanta.

Kate Sullivan AB ’22 is a TV show editor at Bread N Butter Atlanta Eats TV. Gabrielle Blevins BS ’23 started nursing school at Vanderbilt University in August.

Jordan Brown BS ’23 is pursuing a master’s degree in mental health counseling at Boston College.

Marie Ducey BSFCS ’23 is pursuing a master’s degree in clinical mental health counseling at Mercer University.

Ryan Evans BBA ’23 is a financial consultant at Ernst & Young.

Andrew Tait BSES ’23 started a new position as a business analyst at Alaka’i Technologies.

Megan Zucconi BBA ’23 started a new position as an account executive with the Detroit Pistons.

GRADNOTES ARTS AND SCIENCES Jason K. Vohs PhD ’03 was promoted to professor of chemistry at Saint Vincent College in Latrobe, PA. Samuel Miller MMEd ’07 started a new position as director of choral activities at Southern Wesleyan University.

Lauren Hunt DMA ’16 started a new position as the Linda VanSickle Smith French Horn Chair and Director of Brass Studies at the Interlochen Center for the Arts.

William Potts-Datema DRPH ’18 is serving as interim CEO of the Society for Public Health Education and part-time executive director of Eta Sigma Gamma, the nation’s health education honorary society.

Karen Dauenhauer MFA ’21 started a new position as an assistant professor of scenic design at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.

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Protecting Pets and Animals

In addition to her work as a consultant in animal vaccine development, Camila Pardo is an avid gardener and takes pride in her connection to nature.

M peter frey

aria Camila Pardo MS ’91 knew from a young age that she wanted to help animals. But even growing up with a father who was a veterinarian, she could not have predicted the far-reaching impact of her work.

Pet owners are likely familiar with Pardo’s work. With her team, she developed a vaccine for intestinal disease in dogs and a canine distemper vaccine, which protects against an extremely contagious and potentially deadly virus. She was also involved in the development of a transdermal feline leukemia vaccine, which guards against one of the most common infectious diseases in cats.

These vaccines are part of many animals’ regular vaccine schedules, but they help more than just household pets.

Pardo’s vaccines and the research behind them also safeguards wild, captive animals. During her time at the biological and

pharmaceutical company Merial, now Boehringer Ingelheim Animal Health, she was an important part of the team developing and bringing vaccines to market. This included the commercial distemper vaccine, which is used by veterinarians for pets such as ferrets and dogs and is also used off-label safely in other species.

“Even as a veterinarian, I didn’t know that so many animals could be infected through the distemper virus,” Pardo says. “But it’s so common that in the nomenclature, it’s no longer known as the canine distemper—it’s called carnivore distemper or canine morbillivirus. It kills many wild animals such as red and giant pandas, African lions, black-footed ferrets, and more.”

When there was a distemper outbreak in giant pandas in China in the late 1990s, the Smithsonian National Zoo’s chief pathologist Dr. Richard Montali reached out

Camila Pardo MS ’91

to Pardo about an upcoming recombinant distemper vaccine for dogs. Pardo was able to develop an experimental batch of the vaccines which were used to protect giant pandas in zoos across the country.

Giant pandas are among the species that are susceptible to smaller viral loads of the disease, and they are better protected with a recombinant vaccine—one that uses a smaller part of the virus while still providing a strong immune response.

The project was a highlight of her career, Pardo says, and she is proud to know that her work has positively impacted the lives of countless animals and humans. But it might not have been possible without the University of Georgia.

Pardo studied veterinary medicine in Colombia before coming to UGA for a postdoctorate in veterinary microbiology and immunobiology at the Poultry Disease Research Center in the College of Veterinary Medicine, under Dr. Pedro Villegas.

The resources at UGA not only connected her with future jobs but also helped make Athens home.

“UGA is one of the best veterinary research schools,” Pardo says. “This is a famous spot to study avian and mammal infectious diseases because of our research centers, the world-class veterinary school, and UGA’s microbiologists and pathologists. I originally came here for just two years, but now, I’ve spent most of my life here in Athens.”

Pardo retired from her vaccine development role in 2012, but she remains involved in the process as a consultant. She frequently speaks at conferences, highlighting the importance of vaccines and helping veterinarians communicate that importance to their communities.

This work will only get more important, Pardo says, as development in previously wild areas and rising temperatures give some viruses a wider reach and affect more animals.

“As humans, we are a growing population and keep building neighborhoods and cities where it was wildlife and wilderness before,” Pardo says. “So we’re bringing ourselves and our pets into these areas that were wild, where they can encounter potentially diseased wildlife. We cannot lower our defenses.”

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THIS BULLDOG IS NOW A PANTHER Joan Gabel JD ’93 is the 19th chancellor of the University of Pittsburgh and the first woman to hold Pitt’s top leadership position. Her term began July 17.

She previously served as president and chief executive of the University of Minnesota System and Twin Cities campus since 2019.

But before reaching the highest ranks of academia, Gabel was an attorney. The Atlanta native trained at the UGA School of Law. She credits that legal education for sharpening her skills to think, solve problems, and communicate—skills that come in handy in any job but particularly in higher education administration.

As a UGA student, she was a member of the law school’s Moot Court program, which simulates appellate court proceedings. And she was a protégé of Jere W. Morehead JD ’80 long before he became UGA’s 22nd president.

She began her teaching career at Georgia State University and followed that up with faculty and administrative leadership positions at Florida State University and the universities of Missouri and South Carolina.

At Pittsburgh, Gabel will oversee a community of nearly 34,000 students and more than 14,000 faculty and staff members across five distinct campuses. dorothy kozlowski

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Data Cruncher

Khalifeh Al Jadda PhD ’14

Khalifeh Al Jadda is director of data science at Google. The fun of data science, he says, is that there are always new problems to solve.

K peter frey

halifeh Al Jadda PhD ’14 doesn’t wait for opportunities. He creates them.

In the late 2000s, while teaching computer science at a university in Saudi Arabia, Al Jadda learned from a mentor that UGA was conducting research in data mining, the exact thing that most interested him. So he applied and got in.

While pursuing his doctoral degree, Al Jadda worked with UGA’s Complex Carbohydrate Research Center and describes the experience as “eye-opening.” He applied data science techniques to research being done to fight cancer and other diseases.

“What motivates me is always the impact of my work on people’s lives,” he says.

Fast forward almost a decade since graduating, and—through the power of networking—he’s now a director of data science at Google.

When he was approached about the Google gig in 2022, Al Jadda was leading the online data science team at The Home Depot and was comfortable.

“In order to grow, you need to be challenged, and one of the selling points for me was building a data science department from scratch,” he says.

After living in Georgia for 14 years, Al Jadda’s new job took him to New York. His team works with other departments across Google and uses artificial intelligence to help small- and mid-sized businesses compete with larger companies online.

“You work on problems that are like research problems; they’re open-ended questions,” he says. “When it comes to data science, you use your creativity and critical thinking, explore a large amount of data, and then understand how to use it to solve the problem.”

For Al Jadda, the fun of data science is that there are always new problems to solve.

In 2017, Al Jadda started the Southern Data Science Conference, which sold out a few days before the event. He’s been organizing it ever since.

“I always like to think of the conference as a birthplace for many great things that happen in Atlanta,” he says.

For instance, a colleague shared a story on LinkedIn about a San Francisco organization taking homeless shelter data and creating a more cost-effective way for shelters to operate. During the 2018 conference, Al Jadda held a hackathon to solve the same problem for Atlanta shelters.

Al Jadda also gives back through a nonprofit he created, ATLytiCS, the Atlanta Analytics for Community Service. ATLytiCS has since completed numerous projects, including one with the Dekalb County Fire Department, and started another program to educate underrepresented and vulnerable populations in Atlanta on data science skills to help them enter the field.

“I’m using the skills and knowledge I have to benefit the community, especially our vulnerable population,” he says. “I believe that when we live in a community, we all owe something to that community.”

As a member of UGA’s School of Computer Science advisory board, Al Jadda offers industry insights to help shape the school’s curriculum.

“I always say that UGA unlocked my American dream for my family and me. I owe everything to UGA, so anytime I have a chance to give back, I do it in a heartbeat.”

Written by Alexandra Shimalla MA ’19 GEORGIA MAGAZINE

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ALUMNI PROFILE

CLASS NOTES

Movement with Meaning

Selby Hill ABJ ’14

Selby Hill founded Yonder Yoga to share her passion for movement with others. Yonder has now expanded to five Atlanta-area locations with more studios on the way.

peter frey

S

elby Hill used to joke that yoga was nap time. Now, it’s her lifestyle.

Her first time on the mat was with the University of Georgia equestrian team, and while it provided an opportunity to stretch and relax, it wasn’t something she expected to pursue on her own.

“We understood that it was important to stretch—that’s why we were there—but it wasn’t necessarily igniting a lot of excitement and passion in me,” says Hill ABJ ’14, who rode from 2010 to 2014 at UGA and was part of the 2013-14 NCEA National Championship team.

But a few years later, Hill attended a class in Atlanta. The music, blasting from a large boom box, added to the instructor’s energy and transformed Hill’s relationship with the practice. She embraced not just the physical challenge but also the community.

“I think that was something I missed from my time on the equestrian team,” Hill says.

“We had to do 6 a.m. workouts that were brutal, but we were all in it together. It was something you wanted to show up for because you weren’t just doing it for yourself; you were doing it with others.”

The studio where Hill fell in love with yoga eventually shut down, a fate many locally owned gyms face due to staffing or

financial challenges, even when they have a committed client base. But eventually, an opportunity came along to celebrate yoga in a new way—through her own studio.

Hill, along with her husband Alex Hill BBA ’10, a former UGA tennis player, and Wes Van Dyk BBA ’12, a former UGA football player, brought together their backgrounds in business and leadership to form Yonder Yoga.

“We wanted to bridge the gap of bringing in a local, community feel but also being scalable,” Hill says. “And we’ve been fortunate that our growth found us before we were even ready to look for it.”

A balanced partnership fostered that growth, Hill says. Alex is a real estate investor and able to scout potential locations while managing finances, Selby focuses on operations, and Wes is involved with branding and corporate strategy. They now have five Atlanta-area locations, with plans for even more.

Hill also credits their progress to Yonder’s atmosphere. The studio offers several heated class options ranging in temperature from 90-95 degrees, and they train instructors to inspire progress, build strength, and most importantly, make everyone feel welcome.

Yonder moves away from traditional yogic stereotypes. While Yonder encour-

ages meditation and internal reflection, the instructors don’t require silence and seriousness. Instead, the studio elevates each class’s energy through upbeat music and instructors that match everyone’s enthusiasm.

And when challenges come—whether that’s a new balancing posture, moving through a new sequence of moves, or just attending a different class, instructors offer individualized encouragement.

“We also host events that deepen and foster that sense of belonging and community,” Hill says. “We always said that we wanted to be a lifestyle for people, and that starts with having amenities that fit into your day—we have a shower, towels, and whatever you need. You can just show up, and it fits into your day. “ Outside of her business, Hill stays connected to the university through the UGA alumni board’s student and young alumni committee. The opportunity to connect with current students means she gets to give back while also learning from their successes.

“I owe a lot of my success, my drive, and what inspired me to UGA,” she says. “But there’s a new level of opportunity that these students are chasing because UGA is continuously raising their bar, and that’s raising the level of what you can accomplish.”

Written by Erica Techo AB ’15

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CLASS NOTES Victoria Powell MA ’21 is a production assistant at ESPN, producing and creating content for the SportsCenter enhancement unit.

BUSINESS Tina Stanford MBA ’79 started a new position as an associate attorney at The Manely Firm in Columbus, GA. Jennifer Benvenuto MBA ’15 started a new position as an agile coach for the Bloomberg Industry Group.

Melvin Bradley II MBA ’19 is the CFO of BK Lobster and owns the Midtown Atlanta location.

EDUCATION Flora Tydings EdD ’03 was named one of USA Today’s Women of the Year for 2023. She is chancellor of the Tennessee Board of Regents.

Vivienne McClendon PhD ’08 started a new position as dean of the Tanimura and Antle Family Memorial Library at the California State University Monterey Bay, in Marina, CA. Wanda Tanner EdS ’22 started a new position as a computer science teacher with the Gwinnett County Public School System.

PUBLIC & INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS Benjamin Clark PhD ’09 started a new position as the school director for the School of Planning, Public Policy, and Management at the University of Oregon.

Luke Paul MPA ’23 opened a men’s clothing store, High Pines Outfitters, in Columbus, GA.

SOCIAL WORK Bruce Thyer MSW ’78 published his first book, Experimental Research Designs in Social Work: Theory & Application, in August.

JOURNALISM AND MASS COMMUNICATION Leigh Beeson MA ’17 married James Hataway MA ’10 in September. Beeson is the senior science writer in the University of Georgia’s Division of Marketing and Communications and an associate editor of Georgia Magazine. Hataway is the division’s senior director for Integrated Media Communications.

Alander Rocha MA ’22 is a reporter covering state government and health policy at the Alabama Reflector, a nonprofit news website based in Montgomery, AL.

LAW Chris Hine JD ’80 has restarted in private practice at the Law Office of C.W. Hine after 10 years as general counsel for the Kern Community College District in Bakersfield, CA. John Stephenson Sr. JD ’84 is the judge of the Dougherty State Court.

Kerry Tassopoulos JD ’85 started a new position as counsel at Platt Cheema Richmond in Dallas, TX. VETERINARY MEDICINE Salman Butt PhD ’19 is a member of the Diel Lab at Cornell University. The lab recently discovered that white-tail deer may serve as a reservoir of nearly extinct SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern.

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FACULTY FOCUS

WenZhan Song Georgia Power Mickey A. Brown Professor in Engineering

School of Electrical and Computer Engineering College of Engineering

T

he Internet of Things. It’s an interesting description of a vast web of sensors that provide situation awareness and make intelligent decisions.

It’s also a good synopsis of what WenZhan Song and his lab focus on day in and day out: making our technology and infrastructure work for us.

In health care settings, that means using sensor web to continuously monitor patients remotely, giving doctors and nurses more time to focus on the patients most in need while still keeping tabs on everyone else under their care.

How would you describe what you do to the average person?

Sensor web is kind of like the nervous system of our society, enabling situation awareness and intelligence for society. For example, a sensor web can be embedded at your home to monitor your health conditions, assist your living, and issue health advice. It can also let you know the best time to water your plants, feed your pets, or maintain your appliances.

What kind of difference do you hope your research makes in the world? And how do you and your students plan to do that?

My lab’s vision is to connect the dots for intelligence, where “dots” refer to both sensors and data points.

Toward this vision, we focus on sensor data AI and sensor networks and have pioneered several innovative sensor web systems for health, energy, the environment, and security monitoring. For example, we invented the key idea and design of the first subsurface camera, which can monitor earthquakes and volcano eruptions, help in oil and natural gas exploration, and has applications in national security.

You have a quote on your personal page that says, “If I think something is hard, likely the way I think makes it hard!” Can you explain why you like that quote and what it means to you?

Our ways of thinking affect how we interpret the situation and problem.

Our brain often exaggerates the true situation when challenges arise.

The same problem may appear to be difficult from one perspective but can be easily solved from another perspective. This is what I learned most from participating in math competitions during my childhood. Thus, when I meet challenges or problems, I always tell myself that no problem cannot be solved, and I need to keep my mind open, stay optimistic, and think differently.

peter frey

Endowed chairs—positions that receive supplemental support generated from private donations—are essential to recruiting and retaining leading faculty who are committed to world-changing research and preparing the next generation of problem-solvers, pioneers, and leaders. Learn more about supporting UGA’s leading faculty at GIVE.UGA.EDU.

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