ACU Today Summer 2011

2010 Alumni Awards � AT&T Learning Studio � Freedom Road � Passing the Mobile-Learning Torch

A B I L E N E C H R I S T I A N U N I V E R S I T Y

A C U T O D A YWalking in theSteps of Paul

Study Abroad students retraceearly church history in Turkey

Sum

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T h i s ISSUE

2 Horizons

6 Dr. John Bailey Heads the Class of 2010 Alumni Award Winners

16 AT&T Learning Studio

22 Freedom Road: Riders Recount Important Civil Rights Sites

28 Walking in the Steps of Paul: Study Abroad Students Visit Turkey

34 Passing the Torch: Helping the Next Generation of Mobile Learners

44 Hilltop View 46 Academic News 48 Campus News 50 Wildcat Sports 54 EXperiences 64 Second Glance

OUR PROMISE

ACU is a vibrant, innovative, Christ-centered community that engages students in authentic spiritual and intellectual growth,equipping them to make a real difference in the world

BELOWOn Sept. 17, Cowboys Stadium in Arlington

will become the largest venue in which theWidcats have ever played a football game. e

home of the Dallas Cowboys will host theinaugural Lone Star Football Festival,

headlined by a 4 p.m. game between ACU and the University of North Alabama.

(Photograph by Jeremy Enlow)

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rom Ghana to Guatemala, and from Indonesia to Iraq, Dr. John Bailey

logs some serious frequent-flyer miles as a Doctor of Medical Dentistry who doesn’tknow when to stop seeing patients. Our latest OutstandingAlumnus of the Year could have retired long ago but continues to answer God’s call,now in his 13th year of a global medical missions ministry bringing hope and healingto people often in desperate need of both. Scores of ACU alumni from the health professions follow his lead eachsummer, which is often prime time for them to volunteer in clinics in some of theworld’s largest cities and the most remote third-world outposts. Most labor inanonymity, quietly serving alongside their colleagues as well as interns fromuniversities such as Abilene Christian. There may not be a more life-changingworkplace than their mobile operating and examination rooms, where the GreatPhysician makes friends of humble human beings from all walks of life. That’s one reason why we enjoy presenting our annual alumni award winners to you. They are not always headline-makers in their professions; in fact, many are frequently uncomfortable in the limelight of unsolicited honor. Our 2010 Young Alumnus of the Year, Randy Brewer (’93), owns RevolutionPictures in Nashville, Tenn., an award-winning powerhouse in the highlycompetitive music-video industry with a who’s-who clientele of recording stars:Taylor Swift, Kelly Clarkson, Josh Groban, Justin Bieber and others. Randy prefers to be in the background, and he was surprised when asked recently to speak at hishome congregation about his own spiritual journey. One Sunday morning in July,Randy told a surprised audience about the twists and turns of his personal andprofessional life, and how he has followed God’s lead down trails of answered andunanswered prayer. A portion of his heartfelt testimony gave insights few ever see:

“The Lord has provided for my family and opened doors I could have never imagined. My company is not only an answer to lots of prayer, but it has become a place where I minister to the film community and music starsthrough my love of Christ.

In 2005, a girl named Carrie Underwood decided to give my company a shot at her first music video, “Jesus Take the Wheel.” I still think it’s funny thatmy first major video for a country star was about letting Christ guide your life. I have worked so hard to make that true every day in which I work around those who don’t know His love. I also love to encourage the Christians in the film business. God has created a place that I can mentor to many … sharing my faith with them and confessing my failures to them.

… If I can tell you one thing today, it’s this: God wants you to put your wholelife into Him. He wants you to be the love of Christ to others in the way you treatthem and listen to them. Christ wants us to forgive others even when it doesn’tseem fair. I want God to use me for His glory, and that means I have to humblemyself daily and let Him rule my life.”

It is pure joy to see loving parents entrust their students’ futures to ACU,talented young people become Christ-centered global leaders, successful alumni return to campus to find interns and hire new graduates, and inspired donors givesacrificially to create opportunities for the next generation. In August, ACU began its 106th year, and its future has never been brighter,thanks to generous people such as you, who help us achieve our mission. May Godcontinue to call you to a life of leadership through service to others.�

DR. PHIL SCHUBERT (’91), PresidentThe mission of ACU is to educate students for Christian service and leadership throughout the world.

F r o m t h e P r e s i d e n tACU Today is published three times a year by the Office of University Marketing at Abilene Christian University, Abilene, Texas.

StaffEditor and Graphic Designer: Ron Hadfield (’79)Associate Editor: Katie (Noah ’06) GibsonSports Editor: Lance Fleming (’92)Contributing Writers This Issue: Paul A. Anthony (’04), Dr. Cheryl Mann Bacon (’76), Dr. Kyle Dickson (’93), Katie (Noah ’06) Gibson, Steve Holt Jr. (’04), Deana (Hamby ’94) Nall, Grant Rampy (’87), Tamara (Kull ’77) Thompson

Contributing Photographers This Issue: Mitzi (James ’81) Adams, Sandy Adams, Dr. Richard Beck(’89), Dyann Busse, Steve Butman, Nelson Chenault, Lindsey(Hoskins ’03) Cotton, Dr. David Dillman (’70), Jeremy Enlow,Willis Glassgow, James Karales, Gary Rhodes (’07),

Kim Ritzenthaler, Ronnie Ruiz, Brian Schmidt (’07)Contributing Graphic Designers This Issue: Greg Golden (’87), Holly Harrell, Todd Mullins, Amy Ozment

Contributing Illustrator This Issue: Jack Maxwell (’78)Proofreaders: Vicki Britten, Rendi (Young ’83) Hahn, Robin (Ward ’82) Saylor

ADVISORY COMMITTEEAcademics: Dr. Jeanine VarnerAdministration: Suzanne Allmon (’79), Dr. Gary D. McCaleb (’64) Advancement: Phil Boone (’83), Billie Currey (’70), Paul A. Anthony (’04) Alumni Relations: Craig Fisher (’92), Jama (Fry ’97) Cadle,Samantha (Bickett ’01) Adkins

Alumni Association: Audrey (Pope ’85) StevensMarketing: Jason Groves (’00), Grant Rampy (’87) Student Life: Dr. Jean-Noel ThompsonEx-officio: Dr. Phil Schubert (’91)

correspondenceACU Today: [email protected] Alumni Association: [email protected]

ON THE WEBAbilene Christian University: acu.eduACU Today Blog: acu.edu/acutoday Address changes: acu.edu/alumni /whatsnew/update.htmlACU Advancement Office (Exceptional Fund, Gift Records): acu.edu/giveonlineACU Alumni Web Site: acu.edu/alumniFind Us on Facebook: facebook.com/abilenechristian

facebook.com/ACUsportsFollow Us on Twitter: twitter.com/ACUedu

twitter.com/ACUsports

F

ON THE COVERSophomore Meagan Whitson climbs the

steps of an ancient amphitheater inTurkey while studying abroad this spring.

(Photograph by Ronnie Ruiz)

H O R I Z O N S

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In the Fast Lane Thanks to a generous gift from Randy Hill(’90), ACU became one of the firstuniversities to sponsor a NASCARNationwide vehicle when driver CaseyRoderick competed Aug. 13 in the Zippo200 at Watkins Glen International in NewYork. Hill was approved as a NASCAR teamowner in June, and Randy Hill Racingprepared Roderick for several events on theARCA and NASCAR circuit. The No. 39Ford Mustang with an ACU logo and Webaddress on the hood and rear bumper wasseen by some 40,000 spectators at WatkinsGlen and a worldwide audience watchingESPN’s live broadcast.

MELISSA K. SM

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MELISSA K. SM

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See Bonus Coverage at acu.edu/acutoday

Casey Roderick (left) and Randy Hill

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I’m thrilled we finished the race. We had a fewminor setbacks, but when I think about Casey’sage – you know – he’s only 19. When I was 19, I was just starting at ACU and it was my firstmonth away from home, and look what this kid is doing in NASCAR.” – Randy Hill (’90)

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Photography of Casey Roderick drivingthe No. 39 ACU car for Randy Hill Racing

is by Melissa K. Smith.


e opportunity to bring AbileneChristian University on board for our debut seems only fitting.e university has done so much for me and others; I wanteveryone to know just how greatof a place ACU really is and whatit can offer to others.”

– Randy Hill (’90)

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Alex Carpenter’s father, Larry, was his son’s caddie andencourager March 24-25 during the Arnold PalmerInvitational at Bay Hill. The sophomore became the firstactive ACU student-athlete to play in a PGA Tour event.

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Alex plays Arnie’s tournamentIn March, one of the featured amateurs in the PGA Tour’sArnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill was ACU sophomoreAlex Carpenter, arguably college golf ’s top player the past two seasons. Carpenter earned the opportunity by winning the prestigious Southern Amateur last summer. He shot a 69 on Day 2 of the Palmer event, missing the cut by only three strokes but growing in confidence. Carpenter won seven collegiate tournaments in 2010-11, including six straight on the way to helping his team capture the NCAA SouthCentral Region title, and receiving the Nicklaus Award as Division II’s top golfer. See story on page 52.

KYLE AUCLAIR / IN

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I was 195 yards out in the rough, sitting there, asnervous as could be. But I pulled it together andhit a great shot to about 15 feet. As I was walkingup, Arnold Palmer whistled at me, said, ‘Atta boy,’and gave me a thumbs up.”

– Alex Carpenter

“

Alex Carpenter preparesfor his first PGA Tour eventby warming up on the practice tee at the Bay Hill Club and Lodge in Orlando, Fla.



Photography of Alex Carpenter playingin the 2011 Arnold Palmer Invitational

at Bayhill is by Kyle Auclair of insidetheropes.com


It was a really fun week. I didn't want to end upwatching it on TV on theweekend. But after today'sround, it convinces me I can play with these guys. I mean, Tiger (Woods)beat me by 1 today, and he said he played great.”

“

Alex hands a club to his father, Larry, after hittinghis approach shot to the green.



Carpenter qualified for the 2011 ArnoldPalmer Invitational by winning the 104thSouthern Amateur in July 2010. He sank a 65-foot eagle putt on the 17th hole on thefinal day, winning a storied tournament thatcounts Bobby Jones, Hubert Green, LannyWadkins, Ben Crenshaw and Justin Leonardamong its past champions. A native of Little Rock, Ark., Carpenter shot rounds of 70-67-70-66–272 to finish 16 strokes under par, including an amazing 30 on theback nine of the final round. His birdie putton the 18th green lipped out, or he’d haveshot 65 for the day. The win also qualifiedhim to play in the 2010 U.S. Amateur.

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Playing a practice round with Bubba Watson (a multiple tournament winner on Tour and a devout Christian) and RickieFowler (a rising Tour star and already at age 22 a U.S. Ryder Cupplayer) was great. Aaron Baddeley (a winner earlier this year in Los Angeles and also a devout Christian from Australia) came up to me and welcomed me to the tournament and invited me to the Tour Bible study, which I went to. at was awesome."

“

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After the (second) round, one of theguys I played with, (Tour rookie)William McGirt, told me, ‘I’m nevergoing to be able to explain to anyonehow well you played because all peoplelook at is the score. But you playedgreat. Just keep doing your thing.’at meant a lot to me.”

“

The only other Wildcat to play on the PGA Tour is Jeev MilkhaSingh (’96), who had a breakout year in 2008 when he won fourtimes in Asia, debuted in The Masters and tied for ninth in thePGA Championship. In 2008, Singh, a native of India, became the first player on the Asian Tour to win more than $1 million in a single season, earning the tour’s Player of the Year award. Singh led ACU to the 1993 NCAA Division II national title before beginning his professional career.


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2010 Alumni Awards

Dr. JohnBailey

Outstanding alumnus Of the Year

bilene Christian University’s106-year history is distinguished by the

accomplishments of graduates whotake the university’s mission to heart,using their God-given talents as servant-leaders around the world.

Outstanding Alumnus of the YearProvides timely recognition of the lifetime achievement of an individual who has brought honor to ACU through personal and professional excellence and service to the university, the church or the community.

Young Alumnus of the YearRecognizes professional achievement and/ordistinguished service to the university. To be eligible, a recipient must not have reached 40 years of age at the time of nomination.

Distinguished Alumni Citation Recognizes distinctive personal or professional achievement that has merited the honor and praise of peers and colleagues.

Stories by Steve Holt Jr., Deana Nall and Tamara ThompsonIllustrations by Jack MaxwellPhotography by Gary Daniels, Jeremy Enlow and Greg SmithA

GARY DANIELSA young Chinesepatient proudlyshows his scar froma successful surgery.


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JEREMY EN

LOW

t’s a God thing.” that’s the best way John Bailey,D.M.D. (’57) can explain the success of hismedical missions over the past 13 years. “i don’t know how to say it any otherway,” says Bailey. “it just seems like doorsopen and we kind of go there and thingsseem to work well. ”

since retiring from a lucrative dental practice in 1998, Bailey has seen doors open for medical missions in 20 countriesacross three continents. in 2003, he formally created Body and soul ministries, a nonprofit medical missions organizationheadquartered in his house in Colleyville, texas. through Bands, as it is commonly called, teams of doctors, nurses and lay personnelgive their time to perform needed surgeries and conduct basicmedical clinics for those who would otherwise go untreated.

But Bailey’s work is not limited to medical aid. Working withvarious groups, he also has established orphanages and schooldormitories, provided food and supplies for countries following a disaster or undergoing drought and famine, donated medicalsupplies and pharmaceuticals to local hospitals and physicians, andeven contracted with a single-mothers group to make uniforms forstudents at an impoverished school. Occasionally during a missiontrip, Bailey will mentor local medical personnel or conduct a class at a dental school.

he is, as he likes to say, “standing on the giving side of human need.”

Canadian-born, Bailey, 76, developed his passion for missionsat home. his father, J.C. Bailey, a missionary to Canada from 1921-61, preached in every province there and at age 59 began a missionary work in india. he traveled back and forth to indiauntil he was 88. “i think they estimated when he left, there were

8 S u m m e r 2 0 1 1 � A C U T O D A Y

about 250,000 members of the Church of Christ who had beenunder his influence as a preacher,” Bailey says.

along with his father, John Bailey’s mentors sound like aChurch of Christ hall of fame. as a high school student, the youngerBailey met reuel lemmons (’35), who convinced him to attendaCu. there he developed a preaching style under the tutelage ofBatsell Barrett Baxter (’37), studied “good homiletics” under dr.fred Barton (’37), worked as a graduate assistant and associateminister with dr. Paul southern (’30), and received encouragementfrom dr. rex Kyker (’43).

after graduating from aCu, Bailey returned to Canada to teach at a Christian college and later moved to new hampshire,where he preached. When his parents at age 59 adopted threeChinese children, Bailey and his brothers speculated they mighteventually have to provide for the children’s education, so Baileyheaded off to dental school in Kentucky.

“When i started dental school, i thought that if i ever got towhere i could afford to, i’d like to do medical missions,” Baileyrecalls. after establishing his practice in Colleyville, he beganmaking medical mission trips to mexico, at first just one or two a year and eventually increasing to several annually. after 30 yearsof dental practice, he was ready to give dentistry up and concentrateon his true calling.

“nothing seemed to satisfy me like going on a medical missiontrip,” Bailey says. “i think everything i’ve ever done in my entire life has prepared me to do what i’m doing now. … god put this all together. and i’m thoroughly enjoying it. i think i’m god’s most pampered child.”

“he has such a beautiful heart and such a commitment to the lord that everything he decides is because he’s prayed about it,” says Kathy (gay ’78) halbert, president of Caris foundation. in 2007, halbert asked Bailey to join Caris as medical missionsdirector. he still maintains Bands – “i wear both hats” – but hisassociation with Caris provides him with an office and an assistant,and he funds his travel to help the poor in places all over the world.

Places such as nias island, off the coast of indonesia. after atsunami hit southeast asia in 2004, Bailey discovered this smallisland where cataracts have blinded about 5,000 people. With thegovernment’s permission and using some local physicians as well as his own team, he organized eye surgery missions.

“since the tsunami, we have done right at 3,000 surgeries. We try to do 150 to 200 on each trip, and right now we are doingthree trips a year,” Bailey says.

in malindi, Kenya, surgical teams, many involving localphysicians, work out of two hospitals doing various surgeries,sometimes for up to two weeks. Bands has worked with groups in China to perform surgery on cleft lips and palates, spina bifida,and congenital heart disease.

in the Philippines, Bands conducts mobile clinics in areaswhere no physicians are available. On the Philippine island of leyte,where a large group of high school students were orphaned by a2006 mudslide, Bands funded two dormitories on the campus ofsunrise Christian College. the first students graduated this year.

Bands has taken teams to Belize, guatemala, ecuador,nicaragua, Panama, Peru, ghana, nigeria and Cambodia, where it also supports a chicken-and-quail project to help preachersbecome self-sustaining.

lisa dale, a surgical nurse from grapevine, texas, who handlesmany of the trips’ logistics, remembers most vividly the mission trip to haiti following the 2010 earthquake. Working with hersister-in-law and niece, both nurses, she was overwhelmed by theneed and felt as though their contributions made little difference.“What he taught us … is you help one person at a time, one day

“I

JACK MAXWELL


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at a time. that’s what you do when the need is too big,” says dale.

a medical mission team can consist of28-32 people, including surgeons,anesthesiologists, scrub nurses, circulatingnurses, recovery room nurses and laypeoplewho perform various tasks, such as holdingpatients. everyone donates their time andpays their own travel expenses.

“everybody who goes on these tripstends to have the work ethic of a Puritan.they really work hard,” Bailey says. trips are usually a week long, two, if thephysicians can donate that amount of time. Volunteer recruitment is done totally through networking. however, there is usually a waiting list of medicalprofessionals who want to participate.

the cost of the trips depends on the location, the duration of the trip and the type of need (surgical ormobile). Bands has an annual budget of nearly $400,000 – all donated funds,even though Bailey does not solicitfunds beyond a page on the Bands website.

“i don’t know how to ask for money,” Bailey says. “i’ve never asked anybody for money. i’ve sent out a report, but i’ve never had adinner. i’ve never visited a church talking about medical missions.Only one church supports me. the rest [comes from] foundationsand individuals, mostly [people] i know.

“Bands ministries has virtually no overhead. i office in my house.my wife, rosalyn (Ponder ’58), responds to all the correspondence

and contributions. Our family payswhat overhead there is.”

With Caris paying his travel,virtually all expenses are covered.

“he’s a very conscientious respecterof god’s money, so he loves the bottomdollar being tiny,” halbert says. With thecaliber of teams and medical equipmentBailey takes on the mission trips, she says the contributions would be worth“maybe a million dollars” in medicalservices stateside.

the doctor consciously tries to helpthe health-care systems in the countries he visits. all the medical services providedare free to the patients. Often, the missionteams will leave medical supplies andmedications as donations to that country.

“he works with all sorts of differentreligions, with all sorts of different socio-economic situations,” says halbert. “he’s areal leader. he’s a godly missions person. … he has a real heart for the suffering.”

“he is a great warrior for the desperatelypoor, the poorest of the poor people in this world,” says dale. “and he tries to

choose where he can make the most difference in this world andconcentrate resources in those areas to give those people hope andopportunity for just very, very basic care, which ultimately leads him to be able to spread the Word of god.”

– tamara thOmPsOn

Outstanding Alumnus of the Year

Bailey’s youthful energy comes in handy when meetingand treating new patients around the world.

Bailey performs up to600 surgeries eachyear on missions trips.

GARY DANIELS

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andy Brewer (’93) doesn’t usuallyskip church to watch mtV, but

he had a good excuse sept. 13, 2009. taylor swift’s “You Belong With me,” a video Brewer had produced through his company, revolution Pictures, had been nominated for Best female Video at the Video music awards.

directed by roman White, the video was up againstcontributions from lady gaga and Beyonce, among others. instead of making the trip to los angeles to attend the awards show, randy and his wife, Julie, decided to watch from their home in nashville, tenn.

“i told Julie it was cool that we got nominated, but there was no way we were going to win,” Brewer said.

But swift’s video did win, and the announcement came just as Julie had started up the stairs to put their son, Jackson, to bed.

“i started screaming at the top of m y lungs, ‘We won! We won!’” Brewer said.

By the time Julie and Jackson had scrambled back to the livingroom, Kanye West had joined swift onstage, taken her microphoneand hijacked her acceptance speech to say Beyonce was moredeserving of the award. the surreal moment was the talk of the Web for days and has made its mark on Vma history.

for Brewer, who had come of age in the 1980s when mtV was at the forefront of the music-video revolution, winningrecognition from the cable network came as a shock.

“i never dreamed i’d win an mtV award,” he said.But awards are nothing new to revolution Pictures. at the

2011 Cmt music awards, taylor swift’s “mine” won Video of theYear while lady antebellum’s “hello World” was chosen for groupVideo of the Year.

Both videos were directed by revolution’s roman White. andthe 2010 Cmt music awards brought revolution director theresa

Wingert a Video of the Year award for Carrie underwood’s “Cowboy Casanova.” in fact, it was underwood’s association withrevolution that helped take Brewer’s video company to the nextlevel in 2007. that’s the year underwood’s “Before he Cheats,”another White-directed video, won three Cmt awards. the videowas later named Video of the decade in a 2010 Cmt.com poll, inwhich fans and viewers were asked to name 50 of the best musicvideos from the previous 10 years.

One would think that with so much recognition from the music industry, Brewer would want his name associated moreclosely with his video company. But Brewer believes in stepping back while revolution’s directors take the credit.

“i never wanted the company to be about me,” he said.Brewer’s passion for producing video began in his childhood.

When his father brought a video camera home from work onethanksgiving break, Brewer, his brother Chris and their cousinspent the holiday making movies. after that, there was no turningback. When Brewer wanted to attend a summer video school forhigh school students, his father said he had to choose between thecamp and driver’s ed.

“i chose the school,” Brewer said. “that’s how badly i wanted to do it.”

By working for a video-store owner who shot weddings on theside, Brewer gained more experience and learned how to edit video.When he learned that aCu produced a video yearbook, he decidedto produce one for his high school. after graduation, Brewer headedto aCu and produced the Prickly Pear video yearbook, under thementorship of faculty in the department of Journalism and massCommunication. during his time as an aCu student, he tookadvantage of other video opportunities, including “not Quite live,” a variety show he produced with other members of a video production class.

“in the past, students had done dull interview shows for theclass,” Brewer said. “We wanted to do something more interestingand funny.”

Brewer, his brother Chris (’93) and their classmates produced 15 “not Quite live” episodes, which included segments such as“dwayne’s World,” a redneck spoof of saturday night live’s “Wayne’s World.” Others included “adventure guy,” featuring stunts such as Chris scuba-diving in the gata fountain, and a commercial for “roadkill institute of america.” “not Quite live”eventually won second place in a national competition.

“We were basically given free rein with ‘not Quite live,’ and i’ve always appreciated that,” Brewer said. “Without people giving me those opportunities, i wouldn’t have hadopportunities that came later.”

a believer in mentorship, Brewer now provides opportunities to others by hiring summer interns and serving as a judge for the annual aCu filmfest, which gives student filmmakers

R

“We need more Christians wholive a Christian life in the worldand the media. There’s a hugeneed for that in this industry.”

– RANDY BREWER

JACK MAXWELL

Young Alumnus of the Year

the chance to develop and display their skills. Brewer is doing his part to help Christians seek careers in the field of video.

“We need more Christians who live a Christian life in the world and the media,” he said. “there’s a huge need for that in this industry.”

after the excitement of the Vma win subsided, Brewer decided to rethink his goals for revolution, which led to developing a commercial side of the company. revolution has produced ads for Vimto and Curves, among others, and his commercial for h-e-B supermarkets aired during the super Bowl.

Brewer doesn’t set his convictions aside at work. after

revolution produced a commercial for a major internet hostingcompany, Brewer was asked to do a series of super Bowlcommercials for it. But after he saw the concepts the company had in mind, he turned down the job.

“i’ve had to make a lot of decisions like that,” he said.taking a stand for one’s faith can be challenging in the

secular music industry, but it’s something to which Brewer remains committed.

“i can’t control everything,” he said. “i can just do the best i can to love the people around me.”

– deana nall

isa (Lawrence ’90) Holland loves whenpeople experience “a-ha moments”

in the theatre. “Whether someone is a patron,

a student or an artist, i live for the momentwhen they connect to something, learnsomething new or see something in a newway,” holland says.

she experienced such a moment as atheatre major during her senior year at aCu,when dr. lewis fulks (’48), then chair of thetheatre department, and adam hester (’77),the current chair, asked her to student-directa production for the first time.

recalling the experience, holland says it was a “watershed moment because itclicked. … there’s something about thecollaborative process, working with actors,that gives me more joy than anything.”

“it was clear to me even during lisa’sformative years that she possessed adistinctive vision with regard to interpretingtheatrical literature,” hester says. “lisa could talk articulately about the work shewas directing to both cast and designers. she had the ability to inject an enthusiasmand clarity in the work for actors. she made the transition mentally from actor to director extremely well for an undergraduate student.”

her directing skills and creative talents landed her a position with the dallas theater Center, where she worked for 14 years, first in the artistic office and later as director of education andcommunity programs.

“lisa has proven to be such a vital forcein theatre, especially through her work at the dallas theater Center,” hester says. “she has proven herself an exciting directorin the professional arena. she also has been a dynamic influence in theatre education and has hired numerous aCu students as interns.”

“students love working with her,” saysdtC artistic director Kevin moriarty. “she changes their lives forever. many artseducators create students who are replicas of themselves or privilege technique over

honesty and personalization. lisa, on theother hand, sees each student as a unique,special person and helps unlock theircreative potential and find their own voice.”

in 2010, holland left dtC to becomeexecutive director of the advisory board forBooker t. Washington high school for thePerforming and Visual arts, an independentnonprofit organization supporting the public arts school in a variety of ways.

holland is highly engaged with her almamater. she has served as an outside reviewerof the aCu theatre’s five-year self-studyProgram review and has taught campusworkshops in directing and auditioning. she also is planning a fundraising gala for this august.

– tamara thOmPsOn

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LDistinguishedAlumni Citations

Lisa (Lawrence) Holland

Class of 1990

Dr. Gayle CroweClass of 1963

Marcus BrecheenClass of 1984

Dr. Dale BrownClass of 1968

Dr. Nathalie (Akin)Vanderpool Bartle

Class of 1960

JACK MAXWELL

arcus Brecheen (’84) looks back with fondness on his childhood around “the hill.”

he remembers sitting on the floor of their living room at the feet of countless friends of his father, aCu Bible professor dr. Carl Brecheen (’52), and his mother, smitty (smith ’94 m.s.).

“there were so many of those conversations that i overheard that took ona shape inside of my heart that still exists tothis day,” Brecheen said.

Brecheen heard the call to ministry inhis 20s through a sermon by rick atchley(’78) at the hills Church of Christ in northrichland hills, texas. after earning abachelor’s degree in business and an m.B.a.at aCu, Brecheen was enjoying a lucrative career negotiating contracts for generaldynamics (now lockheed martin). hebegan to look forward more to sundayworship than work, however, when hestarted volunteering in the church’s singlesministry. maybe a big change was in order,Brecheen thought. then, one sunday, heheard atchley say something he’d neverheard anyone say before: “sometimes, god puts things on people’s hearts.”

“it rocked me,” Brecheen remembers. “at that moment, i knew that god wasputting it on my heart to go into ministry.”

and so he did.

after paying off his debts and saving a little money, Brecheen moved back toabilene and began working toward hismaster of divinity degree at aCu’sgraduate school of theology. Within a fewweeks, he’d met lexa King (’92), his futurewife. after graduating in 1994, Brecheenserved churches in Pampa and decatur until2002, when he joined the staff of the younggateway Church in southlake.

gateway drew about 300 worshipperswhen Brecheen was hired, and almost adecade later gateway now welcomes more

than 20,000 weekly at four campuses.Brecheen serves as campus pastor for the north richland hills branch and hasbeen charged with strategizing gateway’saddition of 10 new extension campuses in the next five years.

“in a way that only god can orchestrate,i am now in a place where i am using bothmy business training and theologicaltraining,” Brecheen said.

numerous people, experiences andclasses at abilene Christian combined toform the foundation that would defineBrecheen’s life and ministry. Brecheenpoints specifically to drs. Bill Petty (’64) and Jack reese (’73) as mentors who taught him as much about how to think as what to think.

dr. Brady Bryce (’95), director ofministry events at aCu, finds in Brecheen a minister who embodies the love of god and neighbor.

“his deep roots in the restorationmovement provide him with the ability to see the diverse body of Christ inexpansive and global ways,” Brycesaid. “despite facing both success and failure in ministry, he remains resolute in finding his identity in god.”

– steVe hOlt Jr.

n one of his first trips to st. Petersburg, russia, with

World Christian Broadcasting, Dr. Gayle Crowe (’63) visited

the famous state hermitage museum. hemarveled at the imagery of rembrandt’s“the return of the Prodigal son.” sincethen, the striking painting has served as avisual symbol of WCB’s mission: peoplecoming home to god.

“We get letters constantly from peoplewho say, ‘as i listen to your program, i’mhearing that there is hope for me, despitewhat i’ve done,’” said Crowe, the vicepresident of programming for WCB.

Crowe joined WCB full time in 2007, but his service to the evangelisticorganization began many years earlier. even while preaching for churches in new Jersey and indiana, Crowe worked with WCB, writing and editing scripts,developing programming and steering the organization’s vision as a member of the Board of directors – the second-longest-serving board member (27 years). Crowe now oversees a staff ofsome 50 multilingual writers, technicians,

translators, stringers, speakers andproducers. he leads the production of 20 hours of programming in more than five languages each day and, with the completion of an additional station in madagascar later this year, will overseethe production of 50-60 hours daily.

“i don’t believe gayle could ever imaginethe positive influence he has had upon themillions of people who have heard and willcontinue to hear his programming everyday,” said Charles Caudill, CeO of WCB.“the world will benefit from his great workfor years and years.”

Crowe’s fire for world evangelizationwas fanned at aCu, where he earned abachelor’s degree in biblical text. he wenton to Wheaton College for a master’s degree in Old testament, attended seminary at harvard on full scholarship and received his doctor of ministry degree from harding university. But it was at aCu – more specifically in a class onromans taught by dr. J.d. thomas’ (’43) – where Crowe experienced atheological transformation that woulddefine his life’s sermon from then on.

“i had a very works-oriented theologyuntil i took that class,” Crowe said.“through that class, i came to understandwhat grace was.”

he is now a member of the VisitingCommittee for aCu’s graduate school of theology and the proud father of two aCu alumni – darren (’90) and lauren (’92).

– steVe hOlt Jr.

M

ODistinguished Alumni Citations

JACK MAXWELL

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Distinguished Alumni Citations

JACK MAXWELL

henever you floss yourteeth, chances are good thatDr. Dale Brown (’68) is behind

the chemistry that makes itpossible. same story if you’ve treated your yard for fire ants or addressed acockroach problem.

Brown, CeO and chief technical officerof Whitehill Oral technologies, holds morethan 30 patents – many of which are used inpopular pest-control products, as well as anumber of oral hygiene products.

aCu’s department of Chemistry servedas a springboard to Brown’s later success inhis field. Brown was delighted to find that ataCu, chemistry professors actually seemedto trust the students not only to enter the laboratory but to partner with them oncutting-edge research.

“most universities would not letsomebody work in the lab with that littleexperience,” Brown said. “there was anopportunity at aCu for an undergraduatestudent to be involved in research – usually you have to be a graduate student to do that.”

the late dr. tommy mcCord (’54), a chemistry professor who supervisedBrown’s research while he was at aCu,became Brown’s professional mentor.

“i was interested in [research] before,but [mcCord] helped me to focus mythoughts and investigate different thingsthat had a chemical impact,” Brown said.

after Brown graduated from aCu, hischemical curiosity took him to tennecoChemicals in new Jersey – a position he got through fellow aCu alumnus ira hill(’56). When he returned to the university of north texas a few years later to pursue a Ph.d., he studied under aCu graduate dr. scotty norton (’59).

Back in new Jersey at americanCyanamid, Brown was the sole or

co-inventor on 12 patents, including a well-known fire ant insecticide and aninsecticide used in the roach motel. for his discoveries, american Cyanamidhonored Brown with one of five scientificachievement awards in 1987.

Brown got into the oral care business developing dental floss in hill’s basement. Years later, Whitehill still develops a number of well-known dentalproducts for Johnson & Johnson. in total,Brown has collected more than 22 oral care patents, leading to research into newtreatments for various cancers, diabetes and other maladies.

dr. Kim Pamplin (’91), chair of thedepartment of Chemistry and Biochemistryat aCu, said Brown serves as an inspiringexample of a scientist who started in the lab and ended up in the boardroom.

“We are proud to have an alumnus such as dale, who has been a successful chemistand a faithful Christian as an example to our prospective and current students,”Pamplin said.

for Brown, chemistry has become much more than a job.

“i would do it for free,” he said.– steVe hOlt Jr.

or Dr. Nathalie (Akin ’60)Vanderpool Bartle, a career

in public health isn’t just a way to earn a living. it’s her passion

and her ministry.“Public health has a spiritual quality

to it,” she said.as professor in the department

of Community health and Prevention at drexel university’s school of Publichealth, Bartle focuses on maternal and child health, adolescent health,community-based participatory researchand program planning and evaluation. in her Philadelphia community, she has directed the local evaluation of a federally funded program to reduce infantmortality. her book, Venus in Blue Jeans:Why Mothers and Daughters Need to Talk About Sex, is the result of some of the first research on sex education in aninter-racial setting.

following her passion has taken Bartle from the farmlands of north texas to a doctorate from harvard university. But she has never forgotten her rural rootsand the girl who graduated from high schoolin henrietta, texas, in 1956. no other girlsfrom her class were going to college, and,

except for a brother who went to texasa&m university, no one in her family had furthered their education beyond high school. But in her tiny countrycommunity, Bartle was surrounded bypeople who believed in her.

“it was particularly unusual for a girlfrom my high school to go to college,” Bartle said. “i was fortunate enough to have parents who understood the importance of a college education.”

family, friends, teachers and othermentors chipped in to send Bartle to aCu,where she entered as a shy, scared freshmanin fall 1956. But she soon settled in, madelifelong friends, and graduated in four years– despite having worked 30 hours a weekthroughout her undergraduate career.

“at aCu, i observed and experiencedwhat it meant to love one’s neighbor asoneself,” Bartle said.

in addition to her position at drexel,Bartle also has served on the faculty of theuniversity of texas medical Branch atgalveston and the hahnemann universityschool of Public health. married to federaljudge harvey Bartle iii, she mentors othersin the same way she was guided as a teenand aCu student. she believes the

influences she encountered along the wayhelped lead her to her life’s passion.

“it’s been an amazing journey,” she said. “Public health is a field in which i can really make a difference in the qualityof people’s lives.”�

– deana nall

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JACK MAXWELL

JACK MAXWELL

(RIGHT) Bailey listens to apatient, who speaks throughan interpreter, during amedical mission on NiasIsland, where thousands of people have regainedtheir sight after surgery to remove cataracts.

(BELOW) Bailey crossesManda Bay, heading to Pate Island in Kenya to visit villages to evaluate if they are candidates for future medical clinics.

A Vision of Health

B C 1 3


ohn Bailey, D.M.D., has traveled the world to providemedical assistance to thousands in the past decade, but none of those experiences has touched him like giving sight to the blind.

After the Southeast Asia tsumami in 2004, Bailey discovered Nias Island, off the coast of Indonesia, where5,000 people had lost their sight as a result of cataracts.

Since then, through his Body and Soul Ministries,

J

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GREG SMITH

GARY DAN

IELS


GARY DAN

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Bailey talks with Raila Odinga, prime minister of Kenya.

Members of the Siyu village council on Pate Island discuss the feasibility of hosting a clinic run by one of Bailey’s medical mission teams.

Bailey is interviewed by local media during a trip to China.


GREG SMITH

GARY DANIELS

GARY DAN

IELS

Bailey organizes medical mission trips three times a year to remove cataracts. In addition to taking teams of American medical personnel and supplies, he hires local Indonesian doctors to perform the surgeries. To date, the medical missions teams have done 3,000 eye operations.

e miracle of such a surgery can be life changing. In 2010 a 10-year-old girl showed up at the hospital with her mother.

e 76-year-old doctor’s heart melts as he tells the story of the girl who hadbeen blind since she was 10 months old.

“We don’t give the patients any pre-medication,” Bailey said. “In other words, they walk into the surgery, they lay back, and we anesthetize their eyes,but we don’t give them any kind of sedation. So you have to sit perfectly still, and without being sedated, that’s pretty tough. is girl couldn’t do that.”

One of the Indonesian doctors offered to help calm her. He spent most of the day with her, and by the end of the day, she was ready for surgery.

“When they brought her in, she sat so still that we did something we don’t usually do. We did both eyes,” Bailey said.

When the bandages came off the next day, the girl could see for the first time in nine years. In the hospital ward half the size ofa gymnasium, about 90 patients with bandaged eyeslay on mats on the floor around her. e caregivers, including the girl’s mother, lined the walls around theedge of the room. “She was just amazed. She walkedaround touching things. She didn’t know that she couldwalk without holding on to something,” Bailey said.

e mission staff wanted to see if the girl couldrecognize her mother, whom she had not seen sinceshe was a baby. So they asked each mother in the roomto call the girl’s name.

“As soon as her mother spoke her name,” Baileysaid, “she walked towards her.” e little girl used her hands to feel the contours of her mother’s face, “her way of recognizing that it really was her mother.”

Although cultural morés on Nias Island do not permit hugging or crying, “there was a lot of emotion in the room after that,” Bailey said.

Stories such as this make all his work worthwhile. “I will take a lot of grief from the government giving me a hard time getting in and not letting our stuff throughcustoms, to have one case like that,” Bailey said.

– TAMARA THOMPSON


(RIGHT) Bailey preachesat Arapal Christian Camp,near the Philippine cityof Cebu.

(BELOW) Bailey and a young friend at anorphanage in China.

GREG SMITH

GREG SMITH


Bailey greets apatient in Kenya.

GARY DAN

IELS


One of Bailey’s surgical teams atwork in a Kenyan medical mission.

GARY DAN

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GARY DAN

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Bailey and orphaned boys at Momma Jo’s Housein the Christian Care Center in Biyang, China.

GAR

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Bailey assists in patient triage to select suitable candidatesfor surgery in a medical mission in Malindi, Kenya.

Danny Carrigan and Bailey sit in the doorway of a house onNias Island, joined by children.

GARY DANIELS

GARY DANIELS


(ABOVE) John and Rosalyn were married in September 1960.

The Baileys enjoy time with a group of single mothers in Kenya.

(LEFT) Rosalyn Bailey helps with post-op care for an infant in Xi’an, China.


GAR

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GREG SMITH

1 4 S u m m e r 2 0 1 1 � A C U T O D A Y

“The skills at the heart of the Learning Studio – creation and editing of media,collaboration and communication – are the tools today's students need to gain a competitive edge in the 21st-century workplace.”

DR. LAUREN LEMLEY (’05)Assistant Professor of Communication and Director of the Speaking Center

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Inventing the FutureB Y D R . K Y L E D I C K S O N • P H O T O G R A P H Y B Y J E R E M Y E N L O W

AT&T’s generosity makes new Learning Studio possible,enables continued work in media and mobility at ACU

Alan Kay, a computingpioneer whodeveloped conceptsfor the laptopcomputer, the

tablet and the ebook, once said,“The best way to predict thefuture is to invent it.” At ACU, we believe education is at

just such a decisive moment. As mobiledevices continue to transform the way wethink about the classroom, the textbook,communication and learning itself, thetime to begin planning the future ofeducation is now. A pioneering gift of $1.8 million

from AT&T is enabling the next step inteaching and learning innovation at ACU.The most visible result of that gift is thenew AT&T Learning Studio that providesa laboratory for continued experiments in media, mobility and the future of the academic library. The future todayLast year marked the 40th anniversary

of the Margaret and Herman BrownLibrary. Over that period of time, the ACU library reinvented itself as tools,technologies and the needs of the campus changed. In 1970, a university library was

measured by its holdings, so the mostvisible symbol of the Brown Library’s newstature was its card catalog. To visitorsentering the main floor, the card catalogrepresented the beginning and end ofscholarly work. Novice researchers beganhere with searches by author, subject ortitle before journeying deeper into thearchive. Seasoned scholars returned to see their work take its place in the catalogalongside that of their peers. When thenew building opened, a brochure notedproudly that the card catalog had grownfrom 360 to 1,136 trays, one smallindication of the broader ambitions of a college becoming a university. Today, the card catalog is no longer

enough. Our students have access to more content via mobile devices than we could contain under one roof. Forexample, Wikipedia now hosts more than 17 million articles by more than 90,000active authors. In May 2011, YouTubeannounced its users were now uploading

more than 48 hours of content everyminute, a 50 percent increase over 2010.Education is no longer about preparing our students to contribute to conversationsafter they graduate; the vital discussions of our day are already underway and ourstudents are already producing messagesfor a global audience in a wide range of media.After six months of construction,

the Learning Studio opened in February2011 on the top floor of the library. In an8,800-square-foot facility, the LearningStudio brings together media productionstudios, the Speaking Center and thelibrary’s media collections to supportstudents and faculty as they explore theway we live, learn and communicate in a digital world. In the main computer lab, media

production support is available for users at all levels. Trained media specialists helpstudents recording audio for the first timeor faculty editing video slideshows thatincorporate narration and interviews.Users here have access to high-qualitystudios, as well as cameras andmicrophones they can check out tocapture content in the field. Students can make appointments

with Speaking Center tutors to discuss a project, record a practice speech in one of our studios or meet to plan anupcoming group presentation. SpeakingCenter staff also work with seniors nearinggraduation to practice interviewing skillsand strategies. Learning innovationThe seeds of the Learning Studio

project were already present in 2004, when faculty first proposed the LearningCommons redesign on the ground floor of the library. That proposal began:

In recent years, the ways university students learnhave changed. Responding to new technologies,new styles of communication and the changingnature of the teacher-student relationship,students now experience college life in new ways. In response to these changes, manyuniversities have sought to equip students forindependent and collaborative learning as theycontribute to wider conversations on and beyondthe campus. (“A Library for the Twenty-FirstCentury,” Fall 2004)

When the Learning Commons openedin 2006, gate counts to the library doubled.Students and faculty began to see thelibrary not solely in terms of its holdings;as the stacks of books were relocated from the main floor, they also saw the

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“At AT&T, we see mobile broadbandtransforming education, and theresult is a more engaged andenjoyable learning experience forstudents and educators. Teaching and learning now take place not just in the classroom, but virtuallyanywhere. … AT&T has a long history of working with education to enhance today’s classroomexperience, and we are proud tosupport ACU, and look forward tocontinuing to collaborate with themto help shape the next generation of innovators, fueling this country’s future success.”

XAVIER WILLIAMSSenior Vice President for Public Sector and Healthcare, AT&T

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importance of services provided by partnerssuch as the Writing Center. Librariansemphasized their role as information specialistsat the new Research Desk. The years after the opening of the Learning

Commons were marked by students and facultycontributing to wider conversations on andbeyond our campus. This short period saw fresh thinking in projects such as mobilelearning, active learning classroom redesign and the new general education curriculum. The Learning Studio is a result of the same

type of intense collaboration that sparked theseother conversations. Over a period of threeyears, faculty and librarians from manydisciplines have worked with students,technology leaders, architects, and constructionand design teams to produce a one-of-a-kindstudio environment. Almost every element –from the ground plan to the technologypurchases, from furniture selection to graphicdesign – was the product of many hours ofintentional planning.Media not just for specialistsOne remarkable detail in the 1970 design

of Brown Library was a downstairs corner setaside for a Media Center. Students had access to “50 individual study carrels equipped withstereo cassette players, providing for leisurelistening as well as supplementing classroominstruction with specially prepared materialsand professional tapes and records.” Though there were exceptions, educational

media in these years were directed primarily one way, from teacher to student. Just as the volumes lining the shelves of the library represented the collected wisdom ofprofessional authors, audio-visual resourceswere carefully selected from national experts or campus lecturers. The work accomplished here by generations

of students, faculty and librarians was central tothe university’s educational mission. Here onegeneration found its own voice in hearing andtesting the messages of a previous generation.However, students today inhabit a very differentworld. Publishing in the 21st century is nolonger the province of professionals; citizenjournalists and bloggers around the worldchallenge us to think deeply through therunning dialogue of social media. This has been a key finding from our

experience with mobile learning. The mobiledevices we carry with us on a daily basis are not simply media players, receiving official news reports or media “specially prepared” byprofessionals. They are communication deviceswith which we record, remix and publish ourexperience to the world. The Learning Studio provides students and

faculty from any major the opportunity todevelop media creation skills in short trainingevents that help increase their confidence andsophistication in telling digital stories. This spring we hosted workshops in which

faculty could expand their skills in digitalphotography or video editing. Neither was tied

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The Learning Studio provides students and faculty the opportunity to develop

media-creation skills in short training events that help increase their confidence

and sophistication at telling digital stories.

A C U T O D A Y � S u m m e r 2 0 1 1 2 1

to creating media for a particular class; instead,these events created safe communities whereteachers could learn from our trained staff and one another. A vision with global impactFor almost a decade, the U.S. Department

of Education has worked with educators at alllevels to identify the skills needed to prepare our students for careers in the global economy.While technological proficiency is important,the skills essential to our students’ future successinclude creativity, which inspires innovation, aswell as digital communication and collaboration. The Learning Studio was designed with this

combination of skills in mind. While academiclibraries often have been defined in terms ofindividual study and critical analysis, the leaderswho will shape the future are those who canlisten and speak effectively, create new ideas in teams from many different disciplines, andcommunicate fluently in a range of media. The AT&T gift has provided ACU more

than a laboratory to explore these assumptionson campus. Through investments in teachertraining and research, our students and facultyare sharing that vision with the world. Forexample, this summer media specialists fromthe Learning Studio have worked alongsidefaculty from teacher education, chemistry and biochemistry, and the Adams Center forTeaching and Learning to train more than 150 teachers from around the country. Groupsfrom the AT&T K-12 Digital Learning Institutesand a Gates Foundation Next GenerationLearning Challenges grant developed originalmedia content to support project-based andinquiry-based learning.

Where past and future meetIn a recent presentation to the Friends of

the ACU Library, Dr. Abraham Malherbe (’54)reflected on moving from ACU to Harvard inthe 1950s. While there, he learned that a librarymust be a place that anticipates the future whileit preserves the past. So much of the work of the 21st-century university lives between thesetwo imperatives. Throughout its first 40 years,the Brown Library and its professional staff have demonstrated a deep commitment topreserving and sharing the treasures of the past through their teaching and digitization of historic collections. What makes the Brown Library truly

exceptional is its track record for anticipatingthe future. The Learning Studio is only the most recent illustration of this commitment.While the future of mobile collaboration,textbooks and interactive media have yet to be mapped, we’re confident the road leadsthrough Abilene.�

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“In one image, I needed to show the purpose, theeffort and the power of the march. I concentrated on the marchers every day. It was a five-day shoot,10 miles a day. On the last day I saw this cloud. It was the only cloud in the sky. Then the people andthe landscaping came into perfect view. I shot threeframes. I almost missed it,” wrote the late JamesKarales, who was shooting images for an article inLook magazine about the involvement of clergy in the civil rights movement. “Selma-to-MontgomeryMarch for Voting Rights in 1965” became one of the most iconic images in American history.

A C U T O D A Y � S u m m e r 2 0 1 1 2 3

T

By Dr. Richard Beck

his May, I was sitting with Drs. David (’70) and Jennifer (Cole ’85)

Dillman, along with 22 of ourACU students, listening to JamesZwerg. We were in Montgomery,Ala., almost five decades to theday when James, along with theother Nashville Freedom Riders,got off the bus at the Greyhoundstation just down the street. The Nashville Freedom Riders

were in Montgomery that day in1961 because the original group of Freedom Riders had beenattacked in Anniston andBirmingham. Knowing theywould face similar hostilities,

the Nashville riders had come toMontgomery to finish what theoriginal riders had started. James was one of the first off

the bus to face the mob, many of whom were carrying pipes,chains and clubs. Being the firstwhite Freedom Rider to come

JAMES KA

RALES / ESTA

TE OF JA

MES KA

RALES

WILLIS GLASGOW


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Nonviolence is for courageouspeople. Innocent suffering can both educate and transform, andright will ultimately prevail; theuniverse is on the side of justice.”

– James Zwerg

Dr. Richard Beck plays theguitar while the grouptravels along the highway.

WILLIS GLASGOW ACU students visited Little Rock Central High School,

where nine black students attended with the help offederal troops in 1957, after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled

that racially segregated schools were unconstitutional.

“

DAVID DILLM

AN

A C U T O D A Y � S u m m e r 2 0 1 1 2 5

into sight, James knew he’d face the bruntof the mob’s fury. Just before the blows fell upon him, James stopped, gatheredhimself, and asked God to forgive thoseabout to beat him. How did we wind up in Montgomery on

the 50th anniversary of the Freedom Rides? For years David (professor of political

science), Jennifer (assistant professor ofsociology) and I (professor of psychology)had separately dreamed of a bus trip takingACU students through significant sites in the American civil rights movement.Last summer, I scouted various locationswith my family on the way home from avacation. Back at ACU, having shared ourvisions for such a future trip, David and I huddled over maps determined, along with Jennifer, to make this experience a reality. We settled on a route. Abilene.

Little Rock. Memphis. Birmingham.Montgomery. Selma. Jackson. Abilene. The circuit would take us through some ofthe most dramatic moments in Americanhistory. Brown vs. Board of Education. The Little Rock Nine. Police dogs and firehoses in Kelly Ingram Park. The Letterfrom Birmingham Jail. The bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church. Rosa Parks. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and theMontgomery Bus Boycott. Bloody Sunday.The Selma-to-Montgomery Voting RightsMarch. The balcony of the Lorraine Motel.Freedom Summer.And, of course, the Freedom Rides.We didn’t plan it this way, but David,

Jennifer and I quickly realized we wereplanning our trip the very year marking the 50th anniversary of the original 1961Freedom Rides. We also realized we’d be on the road the same week in May as theoriginal Rides. All sorts of commemorationswere being planned for the time we’d be in Alabama. PBS was airing an originaldocumentary about the FreedomRides during the week of the trip,

Journey Reflections

ames Zwerg’s account of having a profound religiousexperience and feeling embraced in love rightbefore being beaten very badly by the mob at the Montgomery Greyhound bus station spoke

volumes to me. … I teared up listening to him. As I reflected upon the talk, I am not sure if it isbecause I am so moved by and impressed with hisactions and his life story or if it is because I amsaddened that I am not so in touch with God as he wasat that time. I had respect for him as a Freedom Rider, but after meeting with him, I would say I definitely have a new role model. I have only actually met a few people who inspire me in an extreme way, and I cannot express my feelings about how valuable I feel this experience was.

Rebecca DialJunior political science major from Lexington, S.C.

J

“Boy With Flag, March from Selma toMontgomery,”an image of 15-year-old Lewis Marshall, was photographed by

award-winning Look magazinephotographer James Karales, whose

coverage of the civil rights movement ischronicled in museums and books.

JAMES KARALES / ESTATE OF JAMES KARALES

James Zwerg, one of the original Freedom Riders,met with the ACU group in Birmingham, Ala.

DR. RICHARD BECK

2 6 S u m m e r 2 0 1 1 � A C U T O D A Y

and every day we awoke to newspaperarticles discussing the significance of theFreedom Ride. As our bus rolled down the road, it was like stepping back in time.Of course, the great blessing of this

timing was getting to meet with two of the original Freedom Riders. The day after meeting with James Zwerg, ourstudents also met with Dr. BernardLafayette, a participant in the Nashville sit-in movement, co-founder of the StudentNonviolent Coordinating Committee,Freedom Rider and close associate of Dr. King. A world leader in the philosophyand training of non-violence, Dr. Lafayettelooked at our students and said, “Find anissue in life that you are willing to die for.We’re all going to die. The question is, how are we going to live?” Everywhere we went, the atmosphere

was thick with stories of heartache andheroism. As we walked the Edmund PettisBridge in Selma, we were able to experiencethe courage of the Bloody Sunday marchers.Cresting the bridge, you see below wherethe line of troopers, many on horseback andwearing gas masks, waited for the marchers.The courage of that march really can’t becommunicated until you trace that journeywith your own two feet as I had thesummer before with my wife and two sons.Every day of the Freedom Ride was like

that. We kept finding ourselves on holyground and, sometimes, quite unexpectedly. We were pulling out of Memphis,

having just visited the Lorraine Motel,where Dr. King was assassinated. One ofour students, Theron, came to the front ofthe bus and asked if we might stop by theMason Temple, a landmark building whereDr. King made his final speech. When our bus pulled up to the church,

a security guard came alongside us. We explained who we were. Suddenly, heturned into the best tour guide of our trip.He pulled out his keys, let us in and showedus around. And then the moment camewhen he let each of us walk to the front ofthe building – which is part of the worldheadquarters of the Church of God inChrist – and stand in the last pulpit of Dr. King. The students were visibly moved

while standing in that spot. Just hoursearlier, they had looked out over thebalcony of Room 306 at the Lorraine Motel,where Dr. King had been gunned down. We had left that place with a sense ofsadness and loss, but here in this church,our spirits were lifted. The man we had lost hours before came back to us in theincandescent vision of his final message.Standing behind that pulpit, you couldalmost hear his voice cascading again over the seats:

“I've been to the mountaintop … and I've looked over. And I’ve seen the Promised Land.” �

Journey Reflectionslooked at an older black woman as she watched Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s face on the big-screen television. I walked over to her and asked, “How do

you maintain a smile?” She looked at me and said, “Pride.”I thanked her for her response and explained that I feel so many different emotions … sadness, anger, frustration,hope, etc. She then showed me the goose bumps on herarm. I stepped away and looked at pictures while listeningto the power spoken through this young man … all thewhile wiping tears from my eyes. “ ‘This will be the daywhen all of God’s children will be able to sing with a new meaning, ‘My country, ’tis of thee, sweet land ofliberty … ’” In my mind I emphasized the following words:my country, sweet land, liberty. In that moment, it was too much for my heart. “Let freedom ring … let freedomring … let freedom ring … ” I cried and walked away.

Jennifer WatsonJunior B.A.S. sociology/psychology/social work major from Abilene, Texas

Students and faculty were allowed to stand in the pulpit of Mason Temple in Memphis,Tenn., where the late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.made his last speech. “I may not get there withyou. But I want you to know tonight, that we,as a people, will get to the Promised Land,”King said. “So I'm happy tonight. I'm notworried about anything. I'm not fearing anyman. Mine eyes have seen the glory of thecoming of the Lord.”

SANDY ADAMS PHOTOGRAPHY

I

A C U T O D A Y � S u m m e r 2 0 1 1 2 7

Find an issue in life that you are willing to die for. We’re all

going to die. The question is, how are we going to live?”

– Dr. Bernard LafayetteThe ACU group toured the Dexter Parsonage inMontgomery, Ala., where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.and his family once lived.

WILLIS GLASGOW

ACU student Cha’ronn Williams-Devereaux met

Dr. Bernard Lafayette, one of theoriginal Freedom Riders.

DR. RICHARD

BECK

“



ACU TODAY BONUS COVERAGEACU students ChaRonn Williams-Devereauxand Alvina Scott, followed by Dr. JenniferDillman and student Rebecca Hipes, walkacross Edmund Pettus Bridge with theirtour group. The bridge on U.S. Highway 80,which spans the Alabama River in Selma, Ala., became one of the symbols of the American civil rights movement. On March 7, 1965, known as“Bloody Sunday,” more than 3,000 voting rights marchers headed from Selma to Montgomerywere violently confronted by law enforcement personnel on the bridge.

Students share their experiences as they retrace the journey of the civil rights movement


e are on this bus ride to literally feel and live out the journey of the Freedom Riders, and I believe walking their actual footsteps could not

have embodied our mission better. As humans alwayslooking towards advancement and brightening our future,we must first remember to reflect on the past andacknowledge the progress we have made. I think walkingacross that bridge today, foot by foot, gave me thatrevelation. Our passage across the bridge was so peaceful.People were smiling, laughing, reflecting and simplyenjoying the moment. But the true Freedom Ridersexperienced anything but that. The Riders were met with armed troopers, willing to enforce all violent meansnecessary to stop the marchers. We clearly had no threatof danger. I think it is so important to look back on thefight they struggled through in order to truly appreciatethe free and blessed life we live today.

Christina BurchSenior journalism major from Northridge, Calif.

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WILLIS GLASG

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hen anger and hatred rises up in me because of the oppression, the Lord tells me, “Don’t you dare hate them, Mary. I am a God of love and my

love is big enough to cover a multitude of sins – yours aswell as theirs. Yes, what they did was wrong, but I came forthem, too. May their sins break your heart, may you fightfor justice and freedom, but you are called to love, not tohate. As soon as you hate you become like them, and youare mine. I bought you with a price, and the devil cannothave you back.”

In my opinion, the most impressive aspect of nonviolentaction is the patience that it requires. Violent revolutionsoccur throughout history where injustices are present overand over again. Even now, the United States is engaged in a war that is supposedly f ighting terror. But the patienceand endurance these Americans possessed in choosing toremain innocent by not fighting back in the midst of someof the most cruel injustices in our nation’s recent historyastounds me. I am proud to call these people fellowAmericans and more so brothers and sisters in Christ fortheir lives are tangible examples of the gospel I read.

Mary DeLaughterSenior sociology major from San Angelo, Texas

W

ACU student Alvina Scott looks at the 16th Street Baptist ChurchMemorial in Birmingham, Ala. On Sept. 15, 1963, four schoolchildren were killed whenmembers of the Ku Klux Klanbombed the church just before its 11 a.m. service.

ACU student Tony Rolof wearsa T-shirt commemorating

the group’s tour.

I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing …

It is a medicine necessary for thesound health of government.”

– Thomas Jefferson, while writing toJames Madison in 1787

“

WILLIS GLASG

OW


Jim Zwerg was one of 21 college students attacked by amob of Ku Klux Klan supporters

on May 20, 1961, when theGreyhound bus the students were

riding arrived at the station on South Court Street in

Montgomery, Ala. A white man,Zwerg was a member of the

Student Nonviolent CoordinatingCommittee who became a

spokesperson of the integratedFreedom Riders group. Today, the building is no longer used as a bus station, bu houses a

museum and is on the NationalRegister of Historic Places.

The ACU tour group met withZwerg while it was in

Montgomery. Zwerg is a retired minister who

lives in Arizona.



The 40’ x 20’ Wall of Tolerancedisplays names of more than500,000 people who have pledgedto support justice and tolerance in their daily lives. The interactivedigital display is located at the Southern Poverty Law Center.

The Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery,Ala., includes a Civil Rights Memorial featuring adramatic water sculpture across the street from thecenter. Created by Maya Lin, who also designed theVietnam Veterans Memorial, this art honors theachievements and memory of those who died duringthe civil rights movement. It features a circular black granite table with names of martyrs, and acurved black granite wall engraved with words

of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., a paraphrase of Amos 5:24 – “We will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters andrighteousness like a mighty stream.” A thin layer of water flows across both pieces of granite.

WILLIS GLASGOW

was surprised to discover that many of the prominent civil rights players did not find themselves a part of the movement purposefully. For example, Dr. Martin

Luther King Jr., moved to Montgomery, Ala., with theplan of pastoring the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church. It was not until he was asked to step up as a leaderduring the bus boycott that he became a significantfigure in the civil rights movement (CRM). Likewise, I assume Rosa Parks did not realize that, by refusing tomove from her seat, she would become the face of thebus boycott and be labeled the Mother of the CRM. Inone of the museums, there was a segment stating thatordinary people did extraordinary things during theCRM. … most people do not know the power they havewithin them to bring change and influence the world.

Brittany PartridgeJunior political science and history major from Annandale, Minn.

I


also found this experience spiritually challenging as it presented the idea of a church as the nexus and pillar of a community, instigating and leading change.

Too often in contemporary churches the community isfocused on themselves and their individual family lives and church is a Sunday morning pastime. I think themessage of the 16th Street Baptist Church, and thecountless hundreds of other civil rights-minded churchesacross the south, that church should be more than just aSunday meeting place but rather should be at the center of a community.

Jared PerkinsSenior sociology major from Saginaw, Texas

I

ACU student BrandonBolden gets a close lookat an inscription at theCivil Rights Memorial atthe Southern Poverty

Law Center.

WILLIS GLASGOW

WILLIS GLASGOW

See our Bonus Coverage at acu.edu/acutoday

2 9A C U T O D A Y � S u m m e r 2 0 1 1

hey came on Easter Sundayunder clear blue skies, touring

the ruins of Ephesus, a stormy cradle of Early Christianity.

ey passed bleached marble, the remains of homes – some marked with an ichthys, the classical Greek word usedas a secret symbol by Christians – and the probable site of the synagogue where Acts reports Paul preached for more than twoweeks upon his arrival in the then-bustling Asia Minor port cityabout 50 A.D.

e 10 ACU students and four faculty members ended their journey through the ancient city in a massive open-air amphitheater where, 2,000 years before, the city’s silversmithslaunched a riot to protest Paul’s increasingly successful admonitionsagainst idol worship.

e ACU group sat near the top of the ruined stone steps, readfrom Paul’s letter to the Ephesians and shared Easter communion.

Seated below them, a group of Christian tourists from Chinabegan singing a hymn.

“I remember thinking that I was so blessed to be there,” said Elizabeth Medlicott, sophomore biology major from Denton, “and that we have an awesome God.”

e Easter journey to Ephesus highlighted a 12-day trip to Turkey as part of ACU’s recently initiated Study Abroad program in Leipzig, Germany.

e trip to early Christian sites, together with visits to keyplaces in the history of the Protestant Reformation, provided aunique hands-on education for the students, who took Survey ofChurch History, a course taught by ACU’s chancellor, Dr. RoyceMoney (’64), while in Leipzig.

“One thing I really love about Leipzig,” Money said, “is its central location. From Leipzig, almost anywhere in Europe is accessible by rail.”

Stephen Shewmaker (’91), assistant director of the ACU Center

Students tour the ruins of an ancient theater in Termessos,a site in the Taurus Mountains of Turkey.

BY PAUL A . AN THONYPHOTO GR APHY BY RONNIE RUIZ

Study Abroad students findLeipzig a perfect portal to some of the most significant landmarks in church history

STUDY ABROAD | ACU’s Vision to become the premier university for the

education of Christ-centered, global leaders means expanding its reach nationally and

internationally. Studying abroad enriches experiential learning opportunities for students.

3 0 S u m m e r 2 0 1 1 � A C U T O D A Y

for International Education and director of the spring Leipzig program, took full advantage of that centrality, scheduling trips to Berlin, Dresden, Prague, Weimar, Wittenberg and the Buchenwald concentration camp.

Shewmaker and CIE director Dr. Kevin Kehl first traveled to Leipzig in 2006, seeing an opportunity to expand ACU’s Study Abroad program – already with semester-long programs in Montivideo, Uruguay, and Oxford, England – to the European continent.

“We were impressed with the people and the things that we saw,” Shewmaker said.

A group of psychology students studied in Leipzig during the summer of 2007. In 2010, Shewmaker and Kehl expanded thesummer-only schedule to include a three-year spring-semesterpilot program.

Students take 16 hours of classes while in Germany, including two German-language courses and an internationalstudies class dedicated to exploring the country’s history and culture.

Germany has proven to hold a wealth of topics for study,Shewmaker said, given its role in the Reformation, the Holocaustand the downfall of communism, as well as its status as the home of numerous famed composers, authors and artists such as Bach and Goethe.

“It was very hard to jump right into a different culture,”Medlicott said. “It was definitely a humbling learning experience.Every day you learn something new. I really loved it.”

(ABOVE) Nathan Spencer, a psychology major from Joplin, Mo., makes a purchase from a vendor in Turkey.(RIGHT) Amanda Sheldon and Elizabeth Medlicott climb the amphitheater steps in Termessos.(BELOW) Jessica Rasa and Elizabeth Ellery walk along the beach in Olympus, Turkey.

“ere is something about literally walking in the path of someone great that gives you the courage to be great.”– NATHAN SPENCER, from the ACU Today blog

3 1A C U T O D A Y � S u m m e r 2 0 1 1S

SO MUCH MORE REALBefore the warmth of Turkey in spring, students first dealt

with the frigid German winter, visiting Buchenwald concentra-tion camp on a cold, foggy day – one of the coldest of the year.

e conditions, nearly unbearable, seemed appropriate for such a place, whose inhabitants 70 years ago had far less protection against the elements.

Marissa Marolf, sophomore biochemistry major from McKinney, said she was struck by the horrible irony that the camp’s prison building, which was one of Buchenwald’s mostfeared sites, provided a welcome shelter from the cold and wind for the students.

“It was one of the worst locations in the concentration camp. ey knew if they went in there it was a death sentence,”she said. “e very building they dreaded the most was where we found relief.

“I was glad it was really cold,” she continued. “It made it so much more real.”

Buchenwald was one of the first Nazi concentrationcamps, built in 1937, and grew to be the largest on German soil. Roughly 56,000 of the nearly 240,000 people imprisonedthere died.

“I don’t think I’ve ever been so cold,” Medlicott said.

A FASCINATING PLACEe idea for a trip to Turkey came from Shewmaker’s

ACU roommate, Jim Reynolds (’91), who owns a travel agencyin the country. Shewmaker and Kehl joined him for a tour of early Christian sites in Istanbul and elsewhere as a sort of trial run.

In preparation, Shewmaker and his wife, Dr. Jennifer(Wade ’92) Shewmaker, associate professor of psychology and faculty-in-residence for the Leipzig program during the semester, assigned the Turkish novel Snow by Orhan Pamuk as a way to give students a glimpse of modern Turkish culturein a format easier to digest than studying textbooks.

“Visiting a secular Muslim country was something we really wanted to do,” Shewmaker said. “Turkey was attractivefor a lot of different topics to really engage the students.”

ough climaxing with the Easter visit to Ephesus, the trip also included visits to the ancient ruins of Pergamon –known as Pergamum in the Bible – and Termessos, a mountaintop city that avoided conquest by both Alexander the Great and the Roman Empire before succumbing to an earthquake; it is considered one of the best-preserved ancient sites in the world.

It began, however, with Istanbul, the 2,600-year-old onetime capital of the Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman empiresstraddling two continents.

“It’s a fascinating place,” Money said. “You’ve got layers of history that are so impressive.”

As the early Christian church began to formalize its beliefs, councils were held in Constantinople – within churchesand rooms that still exist today, Shewmaker said, providing aconcrete visual for events and dates that otherwise could be difficult to grasp.

With 13 million people, Istanbul is a mix of secular and sacred, Money noted. ough the regular Islamic calls to prayer were an ever-present feature, many residents appearedto pay little attention. Women dressed in styles ranging from an occasional head-to-toe burka to the much more commonhijabs, headscarves and modern western fashions with no head coverings at all.

Students visited the Hagia Sophia, the ancient Christianchurch converted to a mosque in the 15th century that is now a museum, and the Blue Mosque, technically called the Sultan

Ahmed Mosque, built in the early 1600s, when Istanbul was2,200 years old – and English settlers were first landing in the New World.

“I’d never really been exposed to the Muslim culture,”Medlicott said. “I went to my first mosque – that was really an amazing thing to see.”

“ey all came away from it with a greater understandingof the complexity of Muslim culture and society,” Shewmakersaid. “I think they got a better sense of that – things are complex. It was a unique and challenging experience for all of us, certainly. We learned a lot.”

A MEMORABLE EXPERIENCEEphesians is one of Elizabeth Medlicott’s favorite books

in the Bible.“I love how Paul is writing to a church struggling in

Ephesus and teaching them how we should live, treat peopleand be unified by Christ,” she said. “Paul is able to say things in such an encouraging and loving way, and the content is still very applicable for us today. ”

So when Shewmaker asked her the morning they werescheduled to visit Ephesus if she would read a passage from theepistle during their Easter service in the city, she didn’t hesitate.“I couldn’t believe it,” she said. “at was really cool. I was really glad that he let me do that.”

With Ephesus a major tourist attraction – and with theamphitheater constructed for maximum acoustic effect – theservice was not the serene moment Shewmaker and othersmight have wished.

3 2 S u m m e r 2 0 1 1 � A C U T O D A Y

ABOVE) Dr. Royce Money lectures in Termessos.(LEFT) Bread is shared during an Easter Communion service.(BELOW) Elizabeth Ellery tours the ruins of Pergamum.

See our Bonus Coverage at acu.edu/acutoday

“ey all came away from it with a greater understanding of the complexity of Muslim culture and society.”– STEPHEN SHEWMAKER

But background noise didn’t keep the 14 members of the ACU community – the 10 students, Stephen and JenniferShewmaker and Royce and Pam Money – from reading Paul’sletter to the ancient residents of the city in whose ruins they sat, sharing communion and praying for each other.

“If I were to have a Top 10 communion experiences, that may be No. 1,” Money said. “I think it is. at was a very memorable experience.”

e Bible indicates a rocky relationship between Paul and Ephesus during his two years there, during which time he is believed to have written Galatians and 1 Corinthians. Despite the riot sparked by opposition to his anti-idolatry sermons, some biblical scholars believe he wrote Philemon and Philippians while imprisoned there by the Roman emperor Nero.

As the students shared communion, Money said he kept thinking back to the biblical account of Paul’s time in Ephesus as told in Acts 19.

“It suddenly hit me what Paul had to give up in order to be a Christian,” Money said. “He believed it so much he was willing to risk his life. e other thing that hit me was the enormous influence he must have had” to become the center of attention in such a large, cosmopolitan city.

“I sat there, and I looked at the columns,” he continued. “I looked at the city. In my mind’s eye, I could see the peoplecoming into Ephesus. I could see Paul and his companionsmaking their way up from the seaport.”

No person other than Jesus himself played a larger role inthe formation of the early Christian faith, Money said, and Paulspent two years walking those marble streets, likely sitting onthe steps of that amphitheater, taking communion with his own traveling companions.

“Since then, I’ve reflected often on that scene,” he said. “It’s embedded. It’s burned into my memory.”�

3 3A C U T O D A Y � S u m m e r 2 0 1 1S

“Since then, I’ve reflected often on that scene. It’s embedded. It’s burned in my memory.”

– DR. ROYCE MONEY




ACU sophomores Marissa Marolf (left) and Kelli Ingram touredthe ruins of Pergamonwith their classmates and professors.

If Dr. Kevin Kehl were to create a jobdescription for the perfect faculty-in-residenceat one of ACU’s Study Abroad sites, it might

look like this:Part teacher, part counselor, part

administrator, part travel agent, part parent, part bookkeeper. Significant international experience preferred.

Piece of cake finding someone like that, right?“You live with students,” says Kehl, executive

director of ACU’s Center for InternationalEducation. “We don’t have a job on campus herewhere a faculty memberlives with students. It’s aunique and probably oneof the most complicatedroles we have.”

ACU has three long-term Study Abroadsites. In Oxford, England,and Montevideo,Uruguay, site directorslive most of the year on location. ey are administrators first, Kehl said, and do some teaching.

In Leipzig, the newest of the programs, ACU does not own any property, so the faculty are teachers who also manage the details of arranging housing, travel and the rest of the intricacies of bringing a dozen college studentsthousands of miles across an ocean into a country with completely different language, culture and norms.

“You’re going somewhere where you’re all foreigners,” said Dr. Jennifer (Wade ’92) Shewmaker, associate professor of psychology and faculty-in-residence for the Leipzig trip last semester. “You’re really running this close-knit support system.”

at presents the obvious challenges, Shewmaker said, but it also presents tremendousopportunity for close bonds and in-depth learningamong faculty and students alike.

“Being a faculty in residence offers you a really unique opportunity to know your students asindividuals,” Shewmaker said, adding that while shecan come to know her students in an on-campusclassroom setting. “It’s different when you’re living in community together.”

In Leipzig, Shewmaker and her husband,Stephen (’91), were an ideal fit, Kehl said, because Stephen is assistant director of the Center for International Education, fulfilling the administrative duties while Jennifer focused on maximizing teaching opportunities for the 10 students living with them in a series of loft apartments near downtown.

And teaching opportunities abound, Jennifer said.

“I think everyone learns better if you’re reallyready to push your students to think and confronttheir own cultural values,” she said. “You can justride along, but I don’t think they learn as much.”

Perhaps more than anything else, faculty andstudents both learn more about what it means tobe the other – the foreigner, the outcast – whenthey are thrown into a foreign society without somuch as a common language.

For Shewmaker, that occurred when she tried to explain herdaughter’s burn injury to German-speaking nurses at a doctor’s office. Such experiences help forge abond between the facultyand students, Shewmakersaid, because in many ways they all are learning together.

“ose little thingslike learning how to shop at a grocery store, it’s challenging for all of us,”she said. “We’re living in a

foreign country, too, with our three kids, finding anew school for them, finding doctors for them. I have stories of dealing with those things myself. I try to normalize that for them.”

e Shewmakers taught a 3-hour International Studies course entitled A MightyFortress, a survey of German history and culture,spanning everything from the ProtestantReformation, the Holocaust and communism to the region’s rich artistic traditions. Day andweekend trips to relevant sites across centralEurope helped bring home the academic lessons.

But perhaps even more valuable were thehours they spent in community with their students.Every Monday, Stephen would cook – usually Mexican food, given its scarcity in the region – and the five Shewmakers and 10 universitystudents fellowshipped together.

“Our children really bonded with the studentsover there,” she said. “It was really special.”

It’s that kind of communion that is so hard toachieve on campus – and makes studying abroadso rewarding, she said.

“As a faculty member here, I really hope students grow over the course of the semester,” shesaid, “but the impact of being in a foreign countryand being in community with a student and sharing the growth and struggles, that’s amazing.”

– PAUL A. ANTHONY

On-site directors fill multiple roles for students and their own families

Dr. Jennifer and Stephen Shewmaker


Among the biblical-era ruins explored by the Study Abroad group was Termessos, one of the few ancient cities Alexander theGreat was not able to conquer in 333 B.C. Located 30 kilometers northwest of Antalya, Turkey, it is extraordinarily preserved,but requires a steep walk above the surrounding countryside. Termessos encompassed a main square, shops and houses alonga street lined by columns and statues, an outdoor theatre, six temples, cemeteries, and a gymnasium.

Pam Money and her husband, ACU chancellor Dr. Royce Money

Elizabeth Medlicottand her classmateslisten to Dr. RoyceMoney in theamphitheater in Pergamon.

Elizabeth Ellery, JessicaRasa and Kelli Ingramcapture images of the viewatop the Basilica of St. Johnin Selçuk (modern Ephesus).


The ruins of Pergamon include a 10,000-seat amphitheater with the steepest seatingof all similar structures in the ancient world – and a breathtaking view of the Caicus River valley below.



(LEFT) The ACU group included 10 students, here learning about the Zeus Altar at Pergamon, which overlooks the city of Bergama, Turkey. (BELOW) ACU students Raymond Lowe and Elizabeth Medlicott capture video and still photographyof the ruins at Ephesus. Experiencing history also is memorable for Catherine Shewmaker and Alexandra Shewmaker,two of the three children of on-site directors Stephen and Dr. Jennifer Shewmaker.



Curetes Street in the ancient city of Ephesus stretches from the Heracles Gate to the Library of Celsus. It once servedas a primary city street and an important processional route in the cult of Artemis, and was lined with shops and inns.


Bustling markets in Turkish cities such as Istanbul offer a wealth of spices, pottery, carpet and clothing. ACU student Hannah Jones tries on a scarf with the help of a vendor in the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul, one of the largest and oldest covered markets in the world. It emcompasses more than 58 streets and 4,000 shops, and was first opened in 1461.




(LEFT) Leipzig has a long, rich history linked to the Protestant Reformation and the history of Western thought, as well as the fall of Communism in Eastern Gemany. It also was the home of music composer icon Johann Sebastian Bach and theplace where Felix Mendelssohn died in 1847. Dr. Jennifer Shewmaker (standing, above) and her husband, Stephen (below),served as on-site directors for ACU’s Study Abroad program in Leipzig during the Spring 2011 semester.



Software apps such as Skype allow Study Abroad participants such as Meagan Whitson (left) to stay in touch with familyand friends. Time differences between the U.S. and Leipzig (seven hours) can make communication a challenge, but even occasionally homesick students are never far away from a friendly face and voice from home. Skype Unlimited, which ownsthe Skype network, is headquartered in Luxembourg, one of Germany’s bordering countries.


One of the most enjoyable ways to tour Europe is by bicycle, as Kelli Ingram, Jessica Rasa, Amanda Sheldon,Nathan Spencer and Elizabeth Ellery learned. ACU students can rent bikes in Leipzig, Germany, and ridethrough nearby forests and countryside to lakes and other attractions.


3 4 S u m m e r 2 0 1 1 � A C U T O D A Y A

ACU teacher education students team up with local schools to share mobile-learning technology

obile learning is headed to kindergarten, and ACU students are paving the way for this new kid on the block. In today’s world,

kindergarteners are no strangers to playingwith mom’s or dad’s iPhone. And usingmobile technology in the classroom hasbecome second nature to ACU students since the university began distributingiPhones to freshmen in 2008. So it was anatural partnership for teacher candidates at ACU to help a local kindergarten teacher integrate mobilelearning into her classroom last fall.

Last school year, three students in ACU’sDepartment of Teacher Education teamed up with Taylor Elementary School teacher Jody(Whitfield ’76) Reese to help her young learnersdevelop digital stories using mobile devices.Research gleaned from the project has beenpresented at two professional conferences with more on the horizon.

From the familiar to the unfamiliar“We started by interviewing each child individually

to determine his or her experience with the device andknowledge of vocabulary related to the device,” said ACU senior Tiffany Siegel. “We talked about words such as icons, apps and upload.”She and the other teacher candidates – seniors

Kendra Kleine and Paul Sims – then worked with smallgroups of kindergartners to create a digital story aboutNative Americans in the desert Southwest.“We had the kids record themselves, record each other

and practice uploading and transferring data from the iPodtouch to the Macbook,” said Siegel. The students used iMovie to create a short film. After the project was finished, the ACU students had

several other opportunities to take mobile devices to theschool and observe the youngsters using them. “Theseobservations allowed us to determine the device’s abilityto create higher-level thinking and processing when linked with instruction,” Siegel said.

Real world experience ACU’s Jenn Rogers (’04), instructor in early childhood

education, said the experience has been invaluable to her students.“We want our ACU students to see that they can take

technology they are familiar with into the classroom,”

A C U T O D A Y � S u m m e r 2 0 1 1 3 5

By Robin Saylor

The iPod touch becomes a learning tool forkindergarten students with the help ofACU’s teacher education department.

MITZI ADAMS

M

MOBILE LEARNING | ACU’s Vision to become the

premier university for the education of Christ-centered, global leaders

means expanding its reach nationally and internationally. Faculty and

students will become significant voices in national higher education circles.

These 5- and 6-year-olds don’t play withprojectors and Promethean Boards at home;they play with their parents’ iPhones. Most ofthese children are savvy, to say the least, withthese devices, and we can only hope to givethem the opportunity to apply their ‘street’knowledge toward an educational goal.

– Jenn Rogers (’04)Instructor, Early Childhood Education

3 6 S u m m e r 2 0 1 1 � A C U T O D A Y

“”

Young learners develop digital stories with the help of ACU teacher candidates.Research gleaned from

the partnership has been presented at two national conferences.

MITZI ADAMS

Rogers said. “We want to give them theopportunity to apply this process in a realclassroom setting. We can give them ideasall semester long in our instruction, but untilthey have the moment to watch technologyused effectively in a real-life setting, it is notrelevant to them.”

Win/win partnershipThe project has been a boon for the

young learners as well, said kindergartenteacher Reese. “It was an exciting time, and we all

learned a lot about how quickly youngchildren learn and become comfortablenavigating with technology,” Reese said. “We quickly realized that most, if not all, ofthe children viewed the iPod touch as just away to play games. As they worked with theirACU students, they began to realize there istechnology available beyond just these games.” The transition from play to learning was

easy, said Rogers. “These 5- and 6-year-oldsdon’t play with projectors and PrometheanBoards at home; they play with their parents’iPhones. Most of these children are savvy, tosay the least, with these devices, and we canonly hope to give them the opportunity toapply their ‘street’ knowledge toward aneducational goal.”Dr. Dana (Kennamer ’81) Pemberton,

professor and chair of the Department of Teacher Education, agreed. “It was pretty amazing to watch how easily thekindergarten children learned to navigate the touch technology of mobile devices,” she said. “Our candidates learned that whilethere are kinks to be worked out, technologyintegration with young children is notsomething to shy away from. We want ourgraduates to be willing to try new things and to trust that children can rise to theirexpectations. This includes technology.”

Plunging into researchThe project was a great opportunity

for ACU students to participate inundergraduate research as they prepare for their future careers.“This experience has already taught

me so much,” Siegel said. “My ideas of howmy future classroom should operate havechanged because of the data we collected. I have seen firsthand the impact thatintegrating technology can have on a young learner. It allows each student toexplore, create, question and to develop andso many other higher-level thinking skills.“This experience also has given me

confidence and a greater passion for my field of study,” she added. “As I research andcollect data, I am realizing how important itis that we, as educators, stay in tune to whatour students need. We must constantly bestriving to make our classrooms a placewhere every student, with individual needs, is challenged, encouraged andinspired to explore.”

Kleine said she, too, gained a new respect for research. “I have learned that bycollecting and gathering data, I am not only discovering how technology can beintegrated into the classroom, but also howI will be using it in my future classroom,” she said.

A memorable impressionThe research also opened a door

for the ACU students and their facultymentors to present their work at twoprofessional conferences. The group traveled to Nashville, Tenn.,

in March, when they were on the programfor the annual Society for InformationTechnology and Teacher Education (SITE)Conference. They presented their researchagain in June at the International Society forTechnology in Education (ISTE) conferencein Philadelphia, Pa.Michelle (Coronel ’04) Faerber,

technology integration specialist for ACU’sDepartment of Teacher Education, found thegroup’s reception in Philadelphia gratifying. “What seemed almost normal to us

was considered groundbreaking to otherparticipants at ISTE,” she said. Dr. Billie McConnell (’84), assistant

professor of teacher education, encounteredthe same response.“A lot of people were going to the

exhibits and were seeing software companiescreating cutsie ‘drill and kill’ programs. ‘Juststick the kid in front of a computer and hope he learns something,’” McConnell said.“But what the other teachers told me wasthat the ACU presenters were the only onesreally talking about learning: How does thistechnology impact learning? How do we useit to help students develop 21st-century

(skills, to think on a higher level and be creative? So that’s what really makes ourprogram different and we’re excited aboutthat – and I think that’s why these otherteachers were excited.”McConnell’s daughter-in-law,

senior physics education major Stacie(Donaghey ’11) McConnell, presented at both conferences, talking about herexperience creating a project-based physicscourse at Abilene Christian High Schoolsupported by iPads and iPod touches. These and other undergraduate

research opportunities provide invaluableexperience for ACU’s teacher candidates,McConnell said.“What it means for our candidates is

that it puts them a step ahead,” he said. “Notonly are they learning the newer, innovativeways to teach, but they are getting in theclassrooms and being able to try out thesenew instructional styles and find out whatworks and what doesn’t.”The end result is “it’s making our teachers

different,” he said. “A number of districts aresaying, ‘Let us talk to your candidates first.’So when a principal sees an ACU resumecome across the desk, it goes to the top ofthe stack. Our teacher education degree isgoing up in value because of that.”

Just the beginningThe Taylor Elementary project is only

the beginning of a long-term technologypartnership between ACU and localelementary schools, said department chair Pemberton. Every semester, teachercandidates will spend time in kindergartenclassrooms to facilitate technologyintegration projects. ACU will provide

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Senior physics education major Stacie (Donaghey ’11) McConnell works with students at Abilene Christian HighSchool on a full-year physics course she developed, supported by iPads and iPod touches.

GARY RHO

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high school English classis studying The GreatGatsby. But instead ofreading the classic novel,memorizing vocabularyand writing a literaryanalysis, the students

are forming independent groups and using iPadsto create a movie trailer for the upcoming remakeof the film version that will star LeonardoDiCaprio, due out in 2012.

Along the way, the students will learn thesame lessons they would have while writing aresearch paper, but they’ll become more engaged,exercise more creativity and, best of all, see howskills used in their English class can translate intoa real-world setting.

This is called Project-Based Learning (PBL), and was the focus of Abilene ChristianUniversity’s first K-12 Digital Learning Institutethis summer, sponsored by the Department ofTeacher Education.

Sixty-four secondary teachers and 56elementary teachers attended one of the three sessions held in June, facilitated by ACUfaculty and guest presenters from several PBLschools in Texas.

Julie Garner, English teacher at Jim Ned High School in Tuscola, Texas, is eager to take PBL to her classroom using her Great Gatsbyidea to teach classic themes in a new way.

“It’s pretty exciting,” Garner says of whatshe’s learned from ACU. “It’s not the contentthat’s different; it’s the delivery of the content. It is allowing students to have more control over their own learning, and pushing them in that direction.”

Dr. Billie McConnell (’84), assistant professorof teacher education, says this is the whole ideabehind ACU’s K-12 Digital Learning Institute.

“In an ever-changing world, school is nolonger about a set core of information you needto know, because it’s going to be different by thetime you get out,” he explains. “So what we wantare independent self-directed learners who canthink, who can collaborate, who can be creativeand innovative. Technology is a support to that. So that’s what these weeks are all about.”

The Project-Based Learning concept has beenaround since the 1990s, says McConnell. What’snew to teachers at ACU’s institute is the waytechnology is integrated into the PBL lessons, with emphasis on iPads in the classroom.

Garner, who’s in her 11th year of teaching,says her students often struggle with why they have to learn subjects such as English and math.“Telling them these communication skills arecrucial is not the same as showing them how they

can use them in the real world,” she says. So shehas high hopes that using the PBL model willprovide a more “authentic” learning experience.

Though a small rural school district, Jim Nedstepped into the world of mobile learning in 2009 by issuing iPod touches to all high school students.

“ACU has been a huge resource for us in usingthe iPod touches,” says Kay Whitton (’77), JimNed business teacher. “But for some of us olderdogs, it’s been kind of hard trying to find the timeto learn that new technology.”

For Whitton, the institute has represented aparadigm shift. “Everything we were taught in our education classes, especially those of us whowent through school a couple of decades ago, has changed so much,” she says. “A lot of thisweek has been showing us ways to integratetechnology more in our classroom. The workshophas been great.”

Jeff Montgomery, English teacher at AustinWestlake High School, a 5A school, likens PBL to “guerrilla education – you’re in, you’re out and they don’t even know what hit them.” Afterattending ACU’s institute, he is ready to wrap his entire lessons around PBL, noting that alljuniors and seniors at his high school will receive iPad 2s this year.

He is excited about the future of digitallearning. “I think we are probably just knocking on the door of bigger and betterthings,” he says. “If we’re afraid of technology or intimidated, we’ll just be stagnant. If we keep embracing technology that comes our way, the sky’s the limit.”�

By Robin Saylor

Texas teachers learn ways to integrate technology intotheir curriculum at ACU’s first K-12 Digital LearningInstitute. From left are Jeff Montgomery, AustinWestlake High School; Helen Wilcox, Abilene ChristianSchools; and Tami Weaver, Fort Worth Christian School.

A

each of these “kindergarten teams” with a cart of iPads this fall, she said. Other elementary schools are benefiting

as well. For example, Mitzi (James ’81)Adams, coordinator of field experiences and professional development for ACU’sDepartment of Teacher Education, hasdeveloped an app for math and has begunresearch at Reagan Elementary using iPads.Fifty-six teachers from local elementary

schools participated this summer in ACU’sfirst K-12 Digital Learning Institute, whereattendees learned some of the basics ofusing iPads in their classrooms. A key component of the Digital

Learning Institute is that the professionaldevelopment will continue after attendeesleave campus, said Faerber. She and herACU teacher candidates will continue

throughout the year to be a presence in local classrooms, providing support andanswering questions.

Blazing new trails“It is our hope that our students

will become leaders for innovative practice on their future campuses,” ACU’s Pemberton said.Taylor Elementary’s Reese would

say that leadership has already begun.“I am so thankful that the teacher

education department at ACU continues tobe innovative and challenging – not just totheir students but also to teachers like mewho have been in the classroom for manyyears and yet want to try new things and stay current,” Reese said. “It’s one more way ACU is changing the world.”�

K-12 Digital Learning Institute helps teachers embrace technology

JEREMY EN

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hether it’s the football game, a social club breakfast or areunion event, ACU Homecoming 2011 has something for you!

Join us Oct. 13-16 in welcoming the reunion classes ending in “1” and “6,” cheering on the nationally ranked Wildcats againstWest Texas A&M, and reconnecting with your ACU family.

Register online for reunion dinners, and the Golf Classic atacu.edu/homecoming.

Turn the page for schedule highlights!

Reunion years: 1966, 1971, 1976, 1981, 1986, 1991, 1996, 2001, 2006

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Homecoming has been a tradition at ACU since 1927, each year providing alumni the

opportunity to return to Abilene, a city that still holds a piece of our hearts and a place I know I still

consider in many ways to be “home.”

I love ACU. I love showing my children my favorite place to study in Brown Library; the window of

McKinzie Hall from which I could see the “mush rush” on Friday nights my freshman year; and the

third floor of the Don H. Morris Center, where we spent late nights frantically making deadlines for

the Optimist and Prickly Pear. I love Moody Coliseum and the place it had in my life as a student and

athlete – and how it now is a place of worship for me and my family when we return to campus.

I love how ACU has a vision looking forward while embracing the past. I love how some of my

dearest and most precious friends are the ones I made on this West Texas campus. I especially love how

ACU contributed to the spiritual development of David Stevens, the man I love and married 25 years ago.

One of our greatest joys is watching ACU become home to our children as well! It has

been such a blessing to watch them become involved in Freshman Follies, weekend campaigns, social

clubs, Sing Song, Study Abroad, intramurals and Wildcat athletics. ey are making their own unique

memories that will sustain them through many future Homecomings.

Lauren, a 2011 graduate, will return for her first Homecoming this fall, and she is eager to attend

Kojie breakfast and reconnect with her friends. Whitney, a sophomore, is soaking up all the student

activities and loves competing on the ACU volleyball team. Logan, a senior in high school, has already

completed early application and looks forward to entering as a freshman in Fall 2012.

If you have not visited campus for a while, you are in for a treat! Incredible buildings and

upgrades have been added in recent years, including the Hunter Welcome Center, the Jacob’s Dream

sculpture and the Royce and Pam Money Student Recreation and Wellness Center. ACU is on the cutting

edge of educational technology, and our students, faculty and alumni are making an

innovative difference for Christ around the world. It is an exciting time to be a Wildcat!

With ACU in common, we are a worldwide family. No matter where I am,

I find alumni who are eager to share memories and experiences from their time as

students. It is this sense of family that keeps me coming “home.”

I hope you’ll be able to join me Oct. 13-16. Coming home to ACU is a

heartwarming experience for me, and I think you’ll find it quickly becomes

one for you too!e Lord bless you and keep you,

Audrey (Pope ’85) Stevens, President, ACU Alumni Association

4 2 S u m m e r 2 0 1 1 � A C U T O D A Y

T hursday OCTOBER 13

Gutenberg DinnerHunter Welcome Center, 6:30 p.m.

A highlight of the yearlong 100th anniversarycelebration of the Optimist will take place when theDepartment of Journalism and Mass Communicationhonors three alumni for distinguished careeraccomplishment: Dr. Mimi (Simons ’81) Barnard, pastvice president for professional development and researchfor the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities in Washington, D.C.; Tasha French (’00), director of e Contributor in Nashville, Tenn.; and Ken Smalling(’87), vice president of global communications forKimberly-Clark in Irving, Texas.

Friday OCTOBER 14

Homecoming Golf ClassicDiamondback Golf Course, 1510 E. Industrial Blvd., 9:30 a.m.

Get your friends together for some friendlyHomecoming competition at one of Abilene’s finestcourses. is year’s event includes an instructional clinic,great gifts and prizes, and a fish fry lunch. Proceeds from the tournament benefit the V.W. and Loreta KelleyScholarship and Susan Scott Endowed Scholarship for Students with Disabilities.Chapel Moody Coliseum, 11 a.m.

Start Homecoming weekend with a praise-filleddevotional, followed by a presentation of the 2011Homecoming Court.Carnival Location TBD, 5-8 p.m.

Students and families will enjoy music and fun for all ages, including inflatable rides, a petting zoo, facepainting and much more.Wildcat Sports Hall of Fame Celebration and Lettermen’s Reunion

Dinner and Induction: Hunter Welcome Center, McCaleb Conference Room, 6:30 p.m. Lettermen’s Reunion: Hunter Welcome Center, Atrium, 8 p.m.

Join in celebrating the induction of Les Vanover (’54),Dub Stocker (’74), Reid Huffman (’77), Corey Stone (’95), Anita Vigil (’92) and Julie (Mavity ’99)Maddalena into the 2010-11 ACU Sports Hall of Fame. Following the induction ceremony, all Wildcat lettermen from each sport are invited to attend the Lettermen’s Reunion.Jam Fest and Fireworks Show East Lawn of Hunter Welcome Center, 6-9 p.m.

Student bands will rock the campus in short sets duringthis popular event. Bring a lawn chair or blanket and enjoythe live music. Fireworks to follow!

Musical: The King and IAbilene Civic Center, 1100 N. 6th Street, 8 p.m.

e beloved musical classic pits East against West in adramatic, richly textured love story. When summoned toBangkok’s Royal Palace in 1862 to tutor the many childrenand wives of the King of Siam, English widow Anna struggles with the King’s barbaric behavior. e dazzlingscore includes such highlights as “I Whistle a Happy Tune,”“Getting to Know You,” and “Shall We Dance.”

Saturday OCTOBER 15

ParadeLocated around perimeter of campus, 9:30 a.m.

See colorful floats and the Big Purple Band, catch candy,and enjoy music and special guests. Arrive early to get agood viewing spot!Homecoming ChapelMoody Coliseum, 10:45 a.m.

Be part of the devotional in Moody Coliseum, plus seethe presentation of the 2011 Homecoming and ComingHome Queen Courts.Football Game (ACU Wildcats vs. West Texas A&M)Shotwell Stadium, 2 p.m.

Wear purple for the battle between the rival Wildcatsand Buffaloes, and don’t miss halftime, featuring the BigPurple Band and crowning of the Homecoming Queen.Reunion DinnersVarious locations on campus, 6 p.m.

All alumni and families are invited to dinners celebrating reunion years ending in “1” and “6”. Please visit acu.edu/homecoming for registration details.Musical: The King and IAbilene Civic Center, 1100 N. 6th Street, 8 p.m.

Sunday OCTOBER 16

Musical: The King and IAbilene Civic Center, 1100 N. 6th Street, 2 p.m.

4 3A C U T O D A Y � S u m m e r 2 0 1 1

September 18-21, 2011Register online

acu.edu/summit

Featuring Max Lucado, Sharon Cohn Wu and Rachel Held EvansTheme Speakers include Billy Curl, Barron Jones, Rick Marrs, Dusty Rush, Mark Hamilton, Dan Rodriguez and Harold Shank

� �Money Student Recreation and WellnessCenter steams ahead to Sept. 2 openingAbilene’s record summer heat has

not been kind to ranchers and weekendhorticulturalists, but crews working on the Royce and Pam Money StudentRecreation and Wellness Centerappreciate the unusally dry weather as they work toward a formal opening Sept. 2. And if you ask students, the $21 million, 116,000-square-footrenovation and expansion of the GibsonHealth and P.E. Center may be the mostanticipated campus building in decades. Besides being the home of the newlyrenamed Medical and Counseling CareCenter, and Department of Kinesiologyand Nutrition, the Money Center features an array of new and improved fitnessfacilities specifically reserved for students,faculty and staff. “Students are going to be wowed whenthey see the finished product,” said BrianDevost, executive director of the MoneyCenter. “It’ll be amazing. It’s exciting to be a part of this.” The complex features four gyms, a lap pool and a leisure pool, cardio andweight-training areas, two large studios forgroup aerobics, an eighth-mile runningtrack, a bouldering wall, racquetball courtsand an outdoor basketball court. The official opening kicks off RecFest, a24-hour marathon of games, competitions,

parties and giveaways for students. For the latest updates on the project,visit blogs.acu.edu/srwc.

� Forbes, Princeton Review honor ACU again The newest editions of college rankingguides continue to list ACU as one of the top universities in the West. The Princeton Review’s “2012 BestColleges” rankings – determined in part by a university’s academic rigor as well asstudent opinions – included ACU among the best schools in its region. Totalenrollment, SAT and ACT scores andother information provided by theuniversity also factor in the rankings. ACU was rated especially high for itsclassrooms and computer labs. Forbes’ “America’s Top Colleges” for2012 includes ACU among the nation’sbest 650 institutions. Rankings areprovided by the Center for CollegeAffordability and Productivity (CCAP), a Washington, D.C., think tank.

� Abilene teacher wins Morlan Medal Award Abilene ISD teacher Cheryl

Cunningham (’78)received the annualMorlan Medal Awardfrom ACU’s Departmentof Teacher Education at a dinner March 4.Cunningham, who

has master’s degrees

in communication disorders and schooladministration and supervision, is director of early childhood programs for AISD. She also is principal for Woodson andLocust early childhood centers. The Morlan Medal Award honors thelate Dr. Grover C. Morlan, who taught 42years and served 36 years as chair of theDepartment of Education and Psychology.

� �JMC’s Gutenberg Awards to honor three Another robust alumni-recognitionprogram is the Department of Journalismand Mass Communication’s annual Gutenberg Award, which recognizesdistinguished professional achievement. The 2011 class will be honored at adinner Oct. 13. It includes Dr. Mimi(Simons ’81) Barnard, past vice presidentfor professional development and researchfor the Council for Christian Colleges andUniversities; Tasha French (’00), directorof The Contributor, a nonprofit newspaperserving the homeless community inNashville, Tenn.; and Ken Smalling (’87),vice president for global communicationsfor Kimberly-Clark. For tickets, call 325-674-2296.

� Back issues of student newspaper,yearbook now available online Thanks to West Texas Digital Archive(WTDA) and ACU’s Brown Library, youcan now read free digital versions of backissues of award-winning student printmedia from Abilene Christian.A collaborative project of the AbileneLibrary Consortium, WTDA containsmore than 100,000 digital images including photographs, maps, recordings,newspapers, documents, manuscripts andlecture series, as well as free lesson plansfor grades K-16. ACU collections nowonline at WTDA include the Center forRestoration Studies, the LeMoine LewisChurch History Lectures, historic photosof early ACU, and many others.Back issues of theOptimist and

Prickly Pear (see page 64) are included, as

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For the latest, visit acu.edu/newsfacebook.com/abilenechristian

twitter.com/ACUedu

Living Free in an Anxious WorldWHAT YOUR DOCTOR AND PASTOR WANT YOU TO KNOW ABOUT WORRY

By R. Lanny Hunter, M.D. (’58) and Victor L. Hunter ISBN 978-0-89112-680-5 • 160 pages www.leafwoodpublishers.com

Two brothers – one a physician and the other a minister –bring perspectives on medicine and faith together to helpreaders find freedom from debilitating worry.

Soul WorkCONFESSIONS OF A PART-TIME MONKBy Randy HarrisISBN 978-0-89112-272-2 • 160 pageswww.leafwoodpublishers.com

Harris – instructor of Bible, missions and ministry and2011 ACU Teacher of the Year – shares insights from visits to monasteries through the years. “When I wantedto learn how to pray,” he said, “I sought those who hadspent their lives praying.”

Hi l l t opVIEW

STEVE BU

TMAN

Work continues on the Money Center’s new leisure pool.

4 5A C U T O D A Y � S p r i n g 2 0 1 1

For the fourth straight year, ACU was recognized as a “Great College to Work For” by The Chronicle of Higher Education. The university was recognized in four areas: Facilities, Workspacesand Security; Work/Life Balance; and Supervisor/Department ChairRelationship. Only 85 four-year universities were selected for 2011.

Courageous CompassionA PROPHETIC HOMILETIC IN SERVICE TO THE CHURCH

By Dr. Jerry TaylorISBN 978-0-89112-545-7 • 208 pagesleafwoodpublishers.com

A collection of 10 sermons by Taylor – associate professorof Bible, missions and ministry – whose preaching style echoes the voice of long-ago prophets. It includescommentary from world-renowned Bible scholars and is edited by Dr. David Fleer.

Historical Dictionary of Westerns in LiteratureBy Dr. Paul VarnerISBN 0-8108-6092-9 • 408 pagesscarecrowpress.com

Varner – English scholar-in-residence – tells the story of the Western through a chronology, a bibliography, an introductory essay, and hundreds of cross-referenced dictionary entries on authors such as Owen Wister, ZaneGrey, Max Brand, Clarence Mulford and Louis L’Amour.

well as academic catalogs from 1906-2004,at acu.edu/publication-archives.

� Condra retires from President’s Office Tevyan (Nunnally ’71) Condra, who served as executive secretary for two ACU presidents, recently retired. She served the university’s 10th and 11th presidents, andboth were on hand at areception May 18 to helpwell-wishers express theirappreciation for her calmdemeanor, pleasant voiceand quick smile. Condra helped keep upwith the busy schedules of Dr. Royce Money(’64), now chancellor, and Dr. Phil Schubert(’91) during a 21-year ACU career.

� NYC theatre agents, PFSweb presidentamong campus speakers• New York theatrical agents John Shea andNancy Carsonwere on campus April 30 to watch ACU theatre majorsperform in the fifth annual SeniorShowcase. The event has been pivotal in helping graduates such as Ben Jeffrey(’06) land jobs on Broadway, off-Broadwayand Broadway touring shows. Jeffreycurrently plays Pumbaa in The Lion Kingat Broadway’s Minskoff Theatre.• Jessica Jackley, co-founder of kiva.org, a groundbreaking international micro-finance company, spoke April 7 at the Springboard Ideas Challenge award dinner, hosted by the Jack and Ann Griggs Center for Entrepreneurshipand Philanthropy in the College ofBusiness Administration. • Joel Salatin, known as “America’s Most Influential Farmer,” spoke March 31 during “Just Food,” sponsoredby the ACU Locavore Club. The club’smission “is to promote the health,environmental, social and spiritualbenefits of locally-grown food, and to

participate in sustainable, small-scaleagricultural systems.” • Los Angeles City Council member Janice Hahn (’74), who was elected in July by California voters to be ACU’snewest member of the U.S. House ofRepresentatives, was invited by the Jack Pope Fellows Program to speak inChapel on March 21 and to visit withpolitical science majors.• Mike Willoughby (’86), president ofPFSweb, co-taught a digital marketingclass on campus with Mike Winegeart(’85) during the Spring 2011 semester.Guest speakers helped teach studentsabout driving customers to a website,product merchandising, establishing trust online, and integrating social media. • Dr. Abraham Malherbe (’54),Buckingham Professor Emeritus at Yale University, spoke March 24 “OnBeing a Lover of Libraries” for Friends of the ACU Library’s Spring Gathering in the Hunter Welcome Center.• Russ Roberts, professor of economics at George Mason University and author of The Price of Everything: A Parable ofPossibility and Prosperity, was the featured speaker March 28 at theUndergraduate Research Festival.• The 10th annual Sacred RelationshipsWeek, Feb. 7-12, featured presentations inChapel and at Chapel Forums by MichaelJohnson of Future Marriage University,Joy Eggerichs of marriage ministry Love and Respect, and Dr. MarkYarhouse, professor and Rosemarie Scotti Hughes Endowed Chair ofChristian Thought in Mental HealthPractice at Regent University.

� �Alumni phone survey work to begin this fall ACU has contracted with The BarnaGroup to begin a comprehensive scientificsurvey project to gauge feedback fromalumni. Thanks in advance for taking time to speak with a researcher, should they call you.

A CU BY THE NUMBERS116,000 Square footage of the Royce and Pam Money StudentRecreation and Wellness Center. It is asignificant renovation and expansion of theGibson Health and P.E. Center, which openedin 1968.

836 Number of homeless children inAbilene supported by ACU Student SocialWork Association project.

141 Record number of studentsattending 2011 Leadership Summit,a weeklong short course/retreat at FrontierRanch in Colorado, sponsored by ACU’sCollege of Business Administration. Whilethere, students learn from Christian CEOs who serve as inspirational speakers and mentors.

88 Number of consecutive Lone StarConference matches won by the women’stennis team. The Wildcats haven’t lost in LSC play since the 2011 seniors were insecond grade.

84 Combined years of service to ACUby siblings James Fulbright (’47) andJoyce (Fulbright ’46) Whitefield. Fulbright,who managed campus bookstores and ACUPress, died in May 2011 (see page 63).Whitefield, who was director of alumni filesand development records, died in 2004. Each served a 42-year career at ACU.

40 Percent of campus precipitationcaptured in Faubus Fountain Lake. If youhaven’t been to campus in a while, the lake islocated on Judge Ely Boulevard, just east ofthe Hunter Welcome Center.

39 Number of the Randy Hill Racingcar driven at Watkins Glen (N.Y.) Internationalin the Zippo 200 NASCAR Nationwide eventtelevised by ESPN. A Texas entrepreneur, Hill (’90), received his NASCAR team ownercredentials in June, and offered to make ACU the sponsor of his car at Watkins Glen. (See pages 2-3 and Bonus Coverage).

STEVE BU

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Powell’s MEIBL program receivesgrant, expands to other colleges Since the beginning of ACU’s mobile-learning initiative in 2008, Dr. Cynthia (Barton ’81) Powell, assistantprofessor of chemistry, has sought to useiPhones and iPod touches in her classroomin innovative ways. Her students use their mobile devices to record lab results, access supportinginformation and convert measurements.Powell also provides podcasts of herlectures and lab procedures, givingstudents on-demand access to instructionsand course content and minimizing thetime spent lecturing in class. This spring, Powell’s program (officially named MEIBL, short for Mobile Enhanced Inquiry-Based Learning)received a $250,000 grant from NextGeneration Learning Challenges, anorganization dedicated to using technologyto improve the quality of learning andeducation in the U.S. With the grantmoney, Powell and her collaborators willexpand and scale the MEIBL program toimplement it at two partner researchinstitutes, Del Mar College and CaliforniaUniversity of Pennsylvania. “MEIBL has really changed the way we think about training our students in alaboratory setting,” Powell said. “One of thebiggest problems we face is that studentscome in with uneven preparation. Some of them may be really well prepared andhave lots of experience in the laboratory,and some of them may never have seensome of the equipment we use. “A resource available in the lab – justwhen students need it – has made a bigdifference in our laboratory curriculum,”Powell said. “Our research faculty say thatstudents coming into their research labsare better prepared to work independentlyin a research setting because of the

inquiry-based training they’ve received intheir lower-level science classes.” To learn more about MEIBL andPowell’s work, visitmeibl.org.�

Springboard Idea Challengewinners hear from Kiva.org co-founder Jessica Jackley In April, dozens of ACU students and members of the Abilene communitycompeted in the fourth annualSpringboard Ideas Challenge. Sponsored by the Griggs Center forEntrepreneurship and Philanthropy atACU, the competition awarded a total of$44,500 in prizes to mini-business planswritten by Abilene-area entrepreneurs.Winners also receive feedback and adviceon implementing their ideas.

“The process helps participants moveone step closer to making their idea areality, and it provides valuable feedbackfrom judges and a chance to win significant cash prizes,” said Jim Litton, director of theGriggs Center. Contestants can competealone or in teams of up to four members.After a preliminary round of judging basedon their written plans, finalists presenttheir ideas to a panel of judges who selectthe winning entries.

Chad Hutchins (’10) won first prize in the Community Pre-Revenue Divisionwith Landman IO, an app that simplifieslease acquisitions for professionals inmineral, oil and gas exploration. Hutchins’app also won the Most Fundable Award. In the Community Post-RevenueDivision, Randy Barnett took first placewith Indivijual Custom Eyewear. In the Student Division, Scholar Sphere,an online learning environment aimed atthe homeschool market developed by AsaKusuma and Tim Johnston, took first prize. The Social Entrepreneurship Awardwent to Suffer Not the Children, a faith-based website developed by Christinaand Kevin Batten and offered to satisfy theParent Education and Family Stabilizationcourse required in Texas divorces. Jessica Jackley, founder of Kiva.org, was the keynote speaker for this year’sSpringboard awards dinner. Jackley co-founded Kiva in 2005 to help connect lenders to entrepreneurs indeveloping countries. Her company lets users lend as little as $25 to entrepreneurs, providingaffordable capital for them to start orexpand microenterprises. Jackley also is founder and CEO of a new company,ProFounder, which provides new andinnovative tools for entrepreneurs to reach out to friends and family to raiseinvestment capital. Jackley encouraged the Springboardentrepreneurs to remove the words“failure” and “success” from theirvocabularies and exhorted them to be willing to take risks. “What webelieve defines what’s possible,” she said.“Choose to believe thattomorrow can be betterthan today.” To learn more aboutSpringboard, visitacu.edu/springboard.�

A c a d e m i cNEWS

Students excel in academic competitions, win scholarships

Twenty-four students from the Department of Journalism and MassCommunication won awards – 12 of them for first place – in Texas IntercollegiatePress Association competition. The JMC Network staff won first place for bestonline community engagement for The Optimist online. TIPA is the largest andoldest journalism organization in the nation. ACU’s speech and debate team won two national titles and placed in thetop 10 of every category at the Pi Kappa Delta National Tournament in Portland,Ore. Freshman Sam Groom won Novice Individual Parliamentary Debate, andjuniors Jeff Craig and Jared Perkins won Open Parliamentary Debate titles.

Seventeen physics majors from ACU attended the American Physical Society’s meeting in Dallas, hearing presentations from seven Nobel laureates,including Konstantin Novoselov, winner of the 2010 Nobel Prize in physics. Seniors Ashley Ohlhausen and Alex Potess and junior Haley Buffingtonwon awards in the 2011 Brass Ring Design competition. Their entries were among1,500 submitted from across the nation from interior design majors. Students from the Department of Theatre’s Advanced Directing class, taught by Dawne Swearingen (’95), created original works based on scenes fromMichael Frayn’s play Copenhagen, about Nobel laureates who find themselves onopposite sides of World War II, working on atomic physics.

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LINDSEY COTTO

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GARY RHODES

Jackley

Powell

TEA features ACU in documentary As ACU prepares its students to liveand work in an increasingly digital world,those from one department are doing thesame thing – for a much younger group of students. ACU’s Department of TeacherEducation has added mobile learning to the list of topics taught by its students inAbilene schools, and their work will be thesubject of an upcoming documentary fromPower on Texas, a project of the TexasEducation Agency. Power on Texas had previouslyproduced a set of videos highlighting K-12 school districts whose teachers andstaff exemplified effective technologyintegration on their campuses. This year,the TEA wanted to go further and learnhow educator-preparation programs were training their teacher candidates tointegrate technology in today’s schools. “The crew filmed us on site at Taylor Elementary School, where ourteacher candidates worked with thekindergarteners to develop digital stories,”said Dr. Dana (Kennamer ’81) Pemberton,chair of ACU’s Department of TeacherEducation. “They were quite amazed thatwe spent the time later to debrief with our candidates, reflecting collaborativelywith them on what we all learned and how to take these lessons into their own classrooms.” The crew interviewed several ACU education professors, includingPemberton, Dr. MaLesa Breeding (’80),dean of the College of Education andHuman Services, and Dr. Billie McConnell(’84), assistant professor of education. They also filmed teacher education major Stacie McConnell, who used mobiletechnology in the physics class she taughtat Abilene Christian Schools. To learn more about ACU teachereducation, visit acu.edu/education.�

Faculty members receive grants, awards

Dr. Michael Sadler, professor of physics, was named a Fulbright Scholar forthe second time, and spent the Fall 2010 semester researching and lecturing at theUniversity of Tuzla in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Dr. Chris Willerton was named the James W. Culp Distinguished Professor ofEnglish. Founded in 1986, the professorship is named after Culp, a prominentEnglish department scholar who taught at ACU from 1952-67 and 1986-92. Dr. Nancy Shankle, professor and associate dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, received the Frances Hernandez Teacher-Scholar Award, the mostprestigious honor given by the Conference of College Teachers of English. Dr. Josh Willis (’97), assistant professor of physics, worked the Spring 2011semester at the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics in Hannover,

Germany. He assisted on a project to improve computer software that searches the data found in gravitational waves. Dr. Rick Lytle, dean of ACU’s College of Business Administration, has beenappointed to the Board of Directors for CEO Forum, whose members includeleaders of Walmart, Procter & Gamble and ExxonMobil. The organization iscomposed of more than 150 Christian CEOs from corporations around the worldwith at least $100 million in total annual revenue. Lytle is the only board memberwho is not a CEO. He says his service will include aiding strategy and buildingbridges between academics and business. Eight teams of faculty and students from the Department ofCommunication Sciences and Disorders presented research in Houston at the annual convention of the Texas Speech-Language Hearing Association.

4 7

UNDERGRADUATERESEARCH

For 31 years, scholars, educators and students have gathered annually to celebrate the interaction of faith and scholarship at the ChristianScholars Conference. The organizers of this year’s CSCmeeting, hosted at PepperdineUniversity in Malibu, Calif., sought to begin featuring the research of honors collegestudents from Christianuniversities. Among theundergraduate studentsmaking their firstappearances as presentersat a conference were threestudents from ACU. “I’m very proud of these young men becausethey've shown a highdegree of initiative anddetermination in theirresearch projects,” says Dr. Greg Powell (’80),professor of chemistry anddirector of undergraduateresearch at ACU. “It wasan honor and a privilege for thesestudents to be among a handful ofundergraduates asked to participate at this level. Their presentations were of the highest quality and were very well received.” At the conference, which carried the theme “The Path of Discovery:Science, Theology, and the Academy,”senior chemistry major David Kempe presented his research resultsconcerning the synthesis of new andknown osmium cluster compounds in “Microwave Chemistry: A BetterWay to Make Potential Anti-CancerAgents.” Junior biochemistry

majors Blaine Smith and Evan Joneswere co-presenters of “BehavioralEpigenetics and Pastoral Care,” in asession called “Evolution and Theology.” “Presenting at the Christian ScholarsConference was slightly intimidating atfirst,” Jones admits. “We were amongvery few undergraduates, presentingalongside leading scholars in various

fields. But I wasencouraged by thesincerity and interestfellow scholars showedduring and after ourpresentation.”

Smith agrees. “I wasencouraged to be able tospend time with a groupof scholars who talkedopenly about their faith,and I gained valuableexperience in presentingacademic work, which isan integral part of thework of a physician orscientist.” Both said theyenjoyed listening to

presentations by world-renownedscientists, including Dr. Francis Collins and Sir John Polkinghorne. Collins is aphysician-geneticist who is director of the National Institutes of Health.Polkinghorne is a theoretical physicist,theologian and writer. “This experience should boost thesestudents’ confidence in their abilities toconduct meaningful research and tocommunicate effectively about complexsubject matters,” says Powell. “It wasexcellent preparation for the rigors ofgraduate or professional school.” To learn more, visit acu.edu/academics/undergradresearch.�

ACU students among first undergrads to present at CSC

A C U T O D A Y � S u m m e r 2 0 1 1

“This experience shouldboost these students’confidence in their abilities to conductmeaningful research and to communicateeffectively about

complex subject matters. It was excellent

preparation for the rigors of graduate orprofessional school.”

– DR. GREG POWELL (’80)

Dale and Rita Brown receive first Outlive Your Life award Future recipients of a new major ACU honor need only look to itsnamesakes for example and inspiration. The first Dale and Rita Brown Outlive Your Life Award was presented at May Commencement to the Browns,whom ACU president Dr. Phil Schubert(’91) said “have quietly gone about blessingthe lives of others in powerful ways.” Taking its name from Outlive Your Life, a new book by Max Lucado (’77), the award recognizes all types of servantleadership including civic and communitycontributions, meeting spiritual and/orphysical needs, producing changes withgenerational impact, helping redirect thecourse of people’s lives, and inspiringothers to make an eternal difference. Dale Brown is founder and president of Petroleum Strategies. He served on the university’s Board of Trustees from1988-2011, and is a longtime elder of theGolf Course Road Church of Christ inMidland, Texas. He and Rita have beenstrong advocates and participants inmissions training and support throughtheir home congregation and ACU.�

Endowment earnings performanceone of best in U.S. higher ed, tied with Yale University The investment returns performance of ACU’s endowment is one of the bestamong higher education institutions in the nation, tying it with Yale University. Results are based on a study sponsoredby the National Association of College andUniversity Business Officers (NACUBO)and Commonfund Institute that comparedaverage annual return on investments for five- and 10-year periods ending June 30, 2010. Among all university endowments with assets over $200 million, AbileneChristian had the highest return – tiedonly with Yale University, the longtimeleader in endowment returns. Over the past 10 years, ACU’sendowment has grown from $145 millionto $300 million – more than doubling in a difficult investment environment. Its annual average return over the last 10 years was 8.9 percent, and 9.4 percentover a five-year period. For private universities such as ACU, the strength of the endowment issynonymous with the institution’s financialhealth. To achieve such success in therecent economic climate is remarkable. “One of the keys to our positiveinvestment process and performance is theway our Board of Trustees engages withour endowment staff,” says Jack Rich (’76),ACU’s chief investment officer. “A boardthat is knowledgeable and has both interestand expertise in investment process andtheory gives us a big advantage. Ourconsistent communication about priorityendowment issues has allowed ACU todevelop a progressive portfolio that hasweathered the past few years with aminimal amount of disruption.”

ACU’s endowment management staff focuses on long-term investmentgoals, risk management, portfoliodiversification and a thoughtful approach to spending policy. In July, Rich received NACUBO’sRodney H. Adams Award, whichrecognizes outstanding individualcontributions to professional developmentactivities in the area of endowment andinvestment management at universities. “Jack is a tremendous asset to ACU,"says president Dr. Phil Schubert (’91).“Under his leadership, we have achievedunprecedented results that are playing amajor role in funding the mission andVision of ACU and positioning theuniversity as a national leader in theinvestment area.”�

Fisher chosen to lead alumni ACU searched far and wide, but its newdirector of alumni relations and annualprojects only had to drive south on JudgeEly Boulevard to make a big impression. Craig Fisher (’92) had been president of Abilene Christian Schools (ACS) for

nearly four years, but hedecided to return to theuniversity campus wherehe first discovered Godhad a plan for his life.His perspective

on ACU was refined by time spent on the

Alumni Advisory Board (AAB) and, up the street, as the leader of ACS. “I saw the positive influence ACU hason many in the Abilene community,” saysFisher. “I learned how the relationshipshared by ACS and the university isimportant to both institutions (ACS gotits start on ACU’s campus). I was amazedat the diligent work that goes into makingACU such a great place. Serving on theAAB showed me the dynamics of ACU

C a m p u sNEWS

S u m m e r 2 0 1 1 � A C U T O D A Y4 8


twitter.com/ACUedu

ACU president Dr. Phil Schubert (left) presented the Outlive Your Life award to its namesakes at May Commencement: Rita and Dale Brown.

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Faculty, staff appointments

Dr. Stephen Johnson (’90), associate professor of ministry, is the new dean of ACU’s Honors College. He previously served as director of contextual educationin ACU’s Graduate School of Theology. Dr. Gregory Straughn (’94), is associate professor and assistant provost forgeneral education. He was previously assistant professor and chair of music, andchair of the Quality Enhancement Program planning team. Dr. Brad Crisp (’93), is the new director of ACU’s School of Information Technology and Computing. He also is associate professor of information systemsand has been an ACU Mobile-Learning Fellow since 2008-09. Brian Devost became the new executive director of the Royce and PamMoney Student Recreation and Wellness Center in June 2011. He previously was an

executive director of the Richland County (S.C.) Recreation Commission; executivedirector of the YMCA; director of wellness programs at two hospitals; and foundingdirector of the intramurals, recreation and fitness program at Gettysburg College. MaryEllen Olson became the new executive director of the Career Center in January 2011. A former dean of students for three universities, she was most recently vice president and owner of a Chicago, Ill., company specializing in strategic leadership development for Fortune 500 companies. Russ Kirby became the new director of student multicultural enrichment andsupport in June 2011, replacing George Pendergrass, who moved in May 2011 toNashville, Tenn., to further his music career. Kirby was previously director of studentservices in ACU’s Graduate School of Theology.

and how so many are involved toaccomplish its 21st-Century Vision.” His new role, which consolidatesleadership of the alumni relations andannual giving offices, began June 1. Fisher's experience in strategicplanning, management, networking andfundraising helped seal the hiring decisionof his alma mater. Prior to his work at ACS,he was elementary principal at SouthwestChristian School in Fort Worth. “He truly believes in the kingdom workACU is doing, and he brings the wisdomand experience we need to go to the nextlevel,” says Phil Boone (’83), ACU’s vicepresident for advancement.�

Blackboard award salutes ACU’s mobile-learning innovation In June, ACU’s Connected program was named a winner of the BlackboardCatalyst Award for Mobile Innovation,recognizing members of the educationcommunity who are using mobiletechnology to create a positive effect on students’ educational experience. Blackboard winners are helping definethe emerging field of mobile technology for use in and beyond the classroom, and havecommitted themselves to formalizing,implementing and measuring the impact of mobile learning at their organizationsand/or creating a truly unique campusservice via a mobile platform. “This recognition helps confirm that ACU’s decision to accelerate ourmobile-learning program to the entirecampus last year was the right one,” saidGeorge Saltsman (’90), executive directorof the university’s Adams Center forTeaching and Learning. Blackboard is a global leader inenterprise technology and innovativesolutions that improve the experience of students and learners.�

4 9A C U T O D A Y � S u m m e r 2 0 1 1

INNOVATIVEACU

As the number of mobile devices on campus continues to grow, ACU faculty, staff and students arefinding more ways to incorporate them into campus life. Recently, black-and-white oversizedbarcodes have appeared at variouslocations on campus, oftenaccompanied by a short URL.They are QR codes (short forquick response codes), and theyprovide a lot more informationthan the average barcode. QR codes are used forencoding data in two-dimensionalspaces, such as in the pages ofmagazines, in store windows and inmuseum exhibits. They were originallyused to track auto parts, but havebecome popular for much broader,often commercial purposes(particularly in Japan and Europe). ACU has developed getGO, its own QR reader app – one of the fastestavailable for mobile devices – andprovided it free to students, faculty and staff. It is available to externalaudiences at the App Store for $1.99. “This app allows you to connectquickly to ACU’s digital resources. Just scan these codeswith your devicecamera, and makequick connections to videos, interactiveonline content, andother resources,” said Joshua Tooley(’02), ACU HelpDeskmanager. Alongside eachQR code displayedacross campus, there

is a short URL connecting users to thesame information as the QR code. “We’re seeing people use them in allkinds of ways,” Tooley says. “Users whoscan the QR codes with their devicescan get discounts on products, takesurveys, get more information aboutevents on campus. They also can post

to Facebook about whateverevent or item the code relatesto. QR codes give you theopportunity to provide peoplewith an instant interaction withwhatever you’re doing. It’s a

great, convenient way for folks tocommunicate with their customers.” So far, Tooley says, the biggest usersof custom-made QR codes are campusoffices such as Chapel, the CareerCenter and Student Life, which areusing them to advertise events,administer surveys and keep studentstalking about their events. This spring, ACU’s academicdepartments used a QR code to sendstudents to an electronic courseevaluation system, eliminating the needfor the old, paper-dependent system.When school starts in the fall, ACU’stechnology staff will encourage students

to create theirown codes toadvertise events on campus. To learn more

about QR codesand how ACU is utilizing them,or to create your own code, visitgo.acu.edu.�

getGO app accelerates adoption of QR codes on campus

New scholarship endowments

Recently created endowed scholarships at ACU include:

• Dr. Lee Roger Knight Endowed Scholarship for Pre-Med Majors• James William “Sparky” Sparks Endowed Scholarship• Alexander and Elfrieda Oz Endowed Scholarship• Phil and Rachel Gage Endowed Music Scholarship• Randall W. Truxall Endowed Scholarship• Martha and Tommy Morris Endowed Basketball Scholarship• Barbara and Randy Nicholson Endowed Athletic Scholarship• Pauline Chamness Aven Endowed Scholarship • Dr. T.N. “Tim” McLeod Endowed Scholarship• Pam Money Endowed Scholarship

• Burke Warren Lewis Endowed Scholarship • Timothy and Dede Brown and Katherine and Brett Mach Endowed Scholarship

“Hazel and Jack” sweeps 2011 FilmFest awards

Best Picture, Best Director and Best Producer honors went to “Hazel and Jack,” which dominated the seventh annual FilmFest competition for ACU students.Directed by Lawson Soward and produced by Caitlin Bradford, “Hazel and Jack”was one of several film products shot using 5D digital SLRs donated by Canonthrough the new AT&T Learning Studio. Judges included Dusty Bennett (’03),president and producer of Takeoff Productions in New York; Randy Brewer (’93),owner of Revolution Pictures in Nashville, Tenn. (see pages 12-13); and Kris Young,screenwriting teacher at UCLA and the LA Film Studies Center.

Golding returns to help leadrevival of men’s hoops program;McCasland leaves for Baylor The evening of Sunday, July 17, was

one of the few nights Joe Golding and his wife, Amanda, had been able to enjoytogether since the end of the 2010-11college basketball season at the Universityof Arkansas at Little Rock.Since the Trojans’ season ended in

the first round of the NCAA Division ITournament, Golding (’99) had been onthe road recruiting and found time tosandwich in an interview for the headcoaching job at ACU, a role that eventuallywent to former Midwestern State men’s

coach Grant McCasland in late March.So the last thing Golding expected that

Sunday night while he and Amanda weresitting at a Steak and Shake in Little Rock,Ark., was a call from ACU director ofathletics Jared Mosley (’91), who offeredhim the ACU men’s coaching job. Just a fewhours earlier, the Wildcats’ position hadbeen vacated by McCasland, who left after only a few weeks for an opportunityto join the coaching staff at BaylorUniversity, his alma mater.A stunned Golding talked to his wife

and his boss at UALR. Ninety minuteslater, he agreed to return to ACU to lead a revival of its men’s program.“When Jared called, I asked him to

give me a little bit of time before I made my final decision,” Golden said. “At the

end of the day, I played and coached atACU, and I love the school and the people. My wife and kids loved it, as well, soobviously we’re very excited aboutreturning to Abilene.”In 2010-11, Golding completed his

third season on head coach Steve Shields’staff, helping the Trojans to the Sun BeltConference title and an appearance in thenational tournament. In addition to his normal coaching

duties – which included working with theUALR guards – Golding was the Trojan'srecruiting coordinator.“I can’t say enough about coach Shields,

Joe Kleine (assistant coach) and all of theother people I worked with at Little Rock,”Golding said. “I’ve learned so much, and it’s prepared me to take advantage of this opportunity.”It’s that experience at the Division I level

that led Mosley to call Golding shortly after McCasland’s surprising resignation.“I’m extremely excited to bring Joe in

as the head coach,” Mosley said. “Joe’sconnection to ACU and to the programwill be critical as we prepare for theupcoming season. Joe was a key part of some of ACU’s most successful seasons as both a player and a coach. I’m excited about having Joe and Amanda back and part of the ACU and Abilene communities.”Golding was a four-year letterwinner

at ACU from 1994-98, playing in all 108 games and earning the Teague PointGuard Award as a senior. He shot 46percent from the floor over his four-yearcareer, averaging 4.3 points and 4.2 assists per game.As an assistant coach in 2007-08,

Golding helped guide the Wildcats to their first 20-win season (20-9) since 1998-99. The 2007-08 ACU team qualified for the Lone Star Conferencetournament for the first time sinceGolding’s senior season.�

W i l d c a tSPORTS

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Six inducted into ACU Sports Hall of Fame

Corey Stone (‘96), the leading scorer in ACU men's basketball history, and former women's tennis all-America player Julie (Mavity ’99) Maddalena are among a group of six alumni to be inducted Oct. 14 into the ACU Sports Hall of Fame.

Others include women’s basketball standout Anita Vigil (‘92), track and fieldstar Les Vanover (‘54), and baseball player Reid Huffman (‘78). Football playerand longtime ACU athletics benefactor Dub Stocker (‘75) is the 19th recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award.

This year’s dinner will start at 6:30 p.m. in the McCaleb Conference Center of the Hunter Welcome Center. Tickets are $20 per person and

can be purchased by calling the ACU Athletics office at 325-674-2353.Stone, who starred from 1991-95, tops all ACU career scorers with 1,848

points. Maddalena is the only four-time NCAA Division II all-America player in ACU women’s tennis history, and was twice named academic all-America.

Vigil is the fourth-leading scorer in ACU women’s basketball with 1,795 pointsfrom 1987-89 and 1990-92. An outfielder and pitcher, Huffman finished his careerin 1977 as the Wildcats’ all-time leader in six categories.

Vanover was part of ACU’s 1952 and 1954 NAIA national championship teams,and ranked No. 6 in the world in the high jump in 1954. Stocker was a starter onthe 1973 NAIA Division I national championship football team, and was laternamed honorable mention on the all-decade team for the 1970s.

S u m m e r 2 0 1 1 � A C U T O D A Y

For the latest, visit acusports.com and acusports.blogspot.comfacebook.com/ACUsports

twitter.com/ACUsports

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Golding (inset) was recruitingcoordinator and assistant coach for UALR head coach Steve Shields(left). The Trojans won four of thelast seven Sun Belt Conferencetitles and played in the 2011

NCAA Division I tournament.

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Former Wildcat standouts sign with CFL, NFL teams

This summer, five former ACU stars signed with or changedteams in the National Football League and Canadian FootballLeague as preparations began for the 2011 season.

Offensive lineman Tony Washington was signed by the CFL’s Calgary Stampeders, and soon earned a starting role. Widereceiver Edmond “Clyde” Gates signed a four-year deal with the Miami Dolphins, who had made him their fourth-round choice in April’s NFL Draft. Two other rookies signed free-agent deals:wide receiver Raymond Radway with the Dallas Cowboys andoffensive lineman Trevis Turner with the Pittsburgh Steelers. A veteran free-agent, safety Danieal Manning left the ChicagoBears to return home to the Lone Star State, signing a four-year,

$20 million deal with the Houston Texans. Gates and Radway eachcaught a TD pass in their first exhibition season game.

Bullington, Godfrey added to Big Country Athletic Hall

ACU athletics director emeritus Wally Bullington (‘53) and former basketball standout John Ray Godfrey (‘68) were each inducted into the Big Country Sports Hall of Fame in May.

Bullington was a four-year football letterman who went on tobecome head football coach (1968-76) and director of athletics.

Godfrey was named first team all-America in basketball in 1968, averaging 23.8 points per game. He played on threeSouthland Conference championship teams for the Wildcats and is a veteran public school teacher and administrator.

JAMES

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5 1A C U T O D A Y � S u m m e r 2 0 1 1

Perhaps the biggest early-season dateon the 2011 schedule is a Sept. 17 game at Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, whenACU will take on perennial powerhouseNorth Alabama in one of three games atthe inaugural Lone Star Football Festival.“Everybody’s really

excited about thatgame and has been since it wasannounced,” said ACUhead football coachChris Thomsen. “Ontop of playing in thatstadium, to be able to face a program such as North Alabama adds even moreexcitement. It should be a great day for our fans and everyone who loves the Lone Star Conference.”However, after five straight trips to

the NCAA Division II playoffs, two LSCtitles in the last three years and a pair ofundefeated regular seasons, Thomsenknows that where things end is much more important than where they begin.That’s why he puts so little stock in

the LSC pre-season poll, which seems to trumpet the Wildcats annually as theleague’s team to beat. This year is nodifferent, as for the fourth time in the lastfive seasons, ACU is the early favorite towin the league championship.“The polls and national rankings mean

absolutely nothing to me,” said Thomsen(’00 M.Ed.), who is 43-18 in six seasons asthe Wildcats’ head coach. “And we’ve gotenough veterans on our team who knownot to get caught up in that hype. It’s nicerecognition for our players and the workthey’ve put in and the things this programhas accomplished in the last few years, butit means nothing when the season starts.“I’ve been around this league long

enough to know that nobody cares whereyou’re ranked or anything else,” he said.“The only thing those guys on the other

side of the field will be doing is trying to beat us, and we’ll be trying to do thesame to them.”The two biggest reasons the

Wildcats are LSC favorites again are senior defensive end Aston Whiteside and

junior quarterbackMitchell Gale.Whiteside

(defense) and Gale(offense) werenamed LSCpreseason players of the year.

Gale, who threw for 3,595 yards and an ACU single-season record 38touchdown passes last year in leading the Wildcats to an 11-1 record, was one of nine national finalists for the Harlon Hill Award in 2010 and was the LSCOffensive Back of the Year. Whiteside, who had seven sacks and

was a first team all-region performer in2010, is a pro prospect.“Those two guys have done a great job

of elevating their leadership roles on thisteam after we lost all of those good seniorsfrom last year’s team,” Thomsen said. “Thisteam has a lot of confidence going into theseason following those two guys because of the way they go about their business.”ACU is one of only five programs to

reach the NCAA Division II playoffs ineach of the last five seasons. To extend that streak to six years, the Wildcats willhave to meld a group of 16 seniors with alarge group of third-year sophomores andan even larger group of freshmen andredshirt freshmen.“Those 16 seniors have played and

won a lot of college football games, and we need them to really lead this team,”Thomsen said. “But this is an interestingteam because there’s really three levels oftalent with the older group, the third-yearguys and the new guys. How they mesh

together will dictate how our season goes.”Aside from Gale, the Wildcat offense

will count on running backs Reggie Brown,Daryl Richardson, Charcandrick West and Justin Andrews; tight end Ben Gibbs;wide receivers Taylor Gabriel, DarrellCantu-Harkless and transfer JamaineSherman; and offensive linemen MattWebber, Neal Tivis, Josh Perez and BlakeSpears. On defense, Whiteside will bejoined up front by Donald Moore andnewcomers Rob Boyd and George Woods;linebackers Thor Woerner and Nate Baggs;and defensive backs L.B. Suggs, Richard Havins and Nate Bailey.Fans attending the Homecoming

game Oct. 15 in Shotwell Stadium can look forward to another ACU battle withperennial rival West Texas A&M.For tickets and more information about

the Sept. 17 Lone Star Football Festival,visit acu.edu/lsc-football-festival.�

Cowboys Stadium a great vantage point for fans to see if ACU can ride herd in LSC, NCAA

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In 2010, quarterback Gale was a finalist for national player of the year.

See Whiteside, Gale prepare for season

Vo l l e yba l l• Head coach Kellen (Morrow ‘05) Mock enters her sixthseason at the Wildcats’ helm this fall with a career recordof 115-46 and a 50-12 record in Lone Star Conference play.The only two LSC teams to beat ACU the past two seasonsare West Texas A&M and Angelo State.

• The Wildcats – who last year finished 27-6 and reached the NCAA Division II regional semifinals – have beenpicked to finish third in the LSC this season behinddefending champion West Texas A&M and last year’srunner-up, Angelo State.

• ACU returns starters in senior outside hitter Jennie Hutt,senior libero Kelsie Edwards, junior rightside hitterKalynne Allen and sophomore middle blocker NeelyBorger. In her first season with the Wildcats in 2010,Borger earned LSC Freshman of the Year and honorablemention all-LSC honors, starting every match.

• The key to the Wildcats’ success in 2011 will depend on the play they receive from the setter position, wheresophomore Caley Johnson and freshman Haley Rhoadswill try to replace former four-year starter Ijeoma Moronu (second all-time in assists at ACU).

So c ce r• Despite winning their first LSC crown, reaching theregional title game and returning most of their coreplayers, the Wildcats have been picked to finish second in the LSC in 2011, according to the preseason poll.

• The Wildcats return seven starters, including regional Player of the Year Andrea Carpenter, who also was votedLSC Offensive Player of the Year and third team NCAADivision II all-America as a freshman in 2010. Carpenterled the LSC in goals (22) and points scored (48).

• Also returning in 2011 are junior Julie Coppedge(first team all-LSC and league leader in assists), seniorAshley Holton (second team all-America and second inthe LSC in goals and points in 2010), senior Lexi Stirling,junior Brie Buschman, and senior goalkeeper ElliotLondon, all named first team all-LSC in 2010.

C ro s s Coun t r y• The ACU men’s team is favored to capture its 20th straightLSC title, according to the league’s pre-season poll.

• In his second season as head coach, Chris Woods has noclear-cut top three on the men’s team after losing most ofhis top runners from last year, including conference andregional champion Amos Sang. JuniorWill Pike shouldbe the Wildcats’ top returning men’s runner.

• The ACU women’s team was picked to finish third in theLSC behind three-time defending champion MidwesternState and Angelo State.

• Reigning LSC and regional women’s champion AnaisBelledant returned to her native France to care for hermother, who is battling cancer. The Wildcats will count on juniors Chloe Susset and Alyse Goldsmith to fill thevoid left by Belledant. Susset was third at last year’s LSCchampionship meet and 10th at the regional meet, whileGoldsmith was fifth and 15th, respectively.

Women ’s B a ske tba l l• The Wildcats will enter their ninth full season under head coach Shawna Lavender in 2011-12 with the bulk of a team that finished last year on an 8-6 run that propelled them into the LSC Post-Season Tournament for the fifth straight season.

• The 2011-12 Wildcats figure to be led by sophomore Mack Lankford, who lastyear finished second in the league in scoring (18.1 points per game) on her way to LSC Freshman of the Year, first team all-LSC South Division and second teamall-region honors.

• Also returning to the Wildcats will be center Kelsey Smith (12.7 points, 8.6rebounds in 2010-11), who was LSC South Division Newcomer of the Year.

Also back are junior guard Cecilee Perez, and sophomoreforwards Renata Marquez and Hillari Adam. The Wildcatswill be bolstered by the addition of freshman center PaigeParliament, who helped Brock High School win its thirdstraight Texas Class 2A state title in March. Parliament was twice named all-state.

Men ’s B a ske tba l l• Joseph Golding (‘99) was recently named the 16th head coach in ACU men’s basketball history (see page 50). The Wildcats figure to have an almost entirely new roster in 2011-12, but ACU fans will recognize a few returningplayers, such as senior Zach Williams (last year’s leadingscorer), senior center Eric Milam and senior forward Ben Warton.

Tra ck and F i e l d• The ACU men’s team won indoor and outdoor NCAADivision II championships, giving the Wildcat men’s trackand field program 37 team national titles (32 at the NCAA level).

• The Wildcats won the men’s indoor national title, thanks to the heroics of seniors Amos Sang, Desmond Jacksonand Ramon Sparks; and redshirt junior Nick Jones. Those four combined to score 49 points, which was enough to give ACU the team championship.

• ACU’s version of the “Fab Four” was back in gear at the outdoor championship meet, scoring 60 of the Wildcats’ 68 points and securing another national title. Jones set anNCAA Division II meet record in the discus en route to his third straight national championship in the event, whileJackson won the 200 meters and Sang the 10,000 meters.

Ba seba l l• The Wildcats had a tough 24-23 season that caused them to miss the LSC Post-Season Tournament for the first time in 14 years. However, early in 2011, head coach BrittBonneau won his 600th career game.

Go l f• ACU sophomore Alex Carpenter won the Jack NicklausAward as the NCAA Division II Player of the Year, helping the Wildcats to a share of the regional title and a third-place finish at the national tournament.

• Senior Cyril Bouniol also enjoyed another stellar season,capping it with first team all-America honors and winningthe Byron Nelson Award. Senior Tyler Sheppard was named third team all-America.

Men ’s a nd Women ’s Tenn i s• Both ACU teams put together dominating seasons, winning their respective LSC and regional championships.

• The ACU men beat Cameron in the LSC tournament titlematch for the second straight season and then won theregional to reach the national tournament for the fifthstraight year. ACU beat Shaw, 5-0, before falling to Barry College, 5-0, and finishing the season ranked sixth in the nation.

• The women cruised through regular-season and post-season play to reach the national tournament forthe 16th straight season. ACU beat Mesa State, 5-0, inthe first round before losing to Lynn, 5-1, in the secondround and finishing sixth in the nation.

• Hans Hach, Jake Hendrie, Jaclyn Walker and Julia Mongin were named first team all-America.

So f t ba l l• The Wildcats finished the season 28-27 under the direction of first-year headcoach Bobby Reeves. Senior outfielder Melissa Mendoza was a first team all-LSC South Division and second team all-region selection.�

5 2 S u m m e r 2 0 1 1 � A C U T O D A Y

S p o r t sROUNDUP

JEREMY EN

LOW

DENNY M

EDLEY

Andrea Carpenter

Jennie Hutt

DYANN BU

SSE

Cyril Bouniol

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5 3A C U T O D A Y � S p r i n g 2 0 1 1

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1955Jackie Woolley has self-published a new novel,

The Sound of Windmills. 107 Aster Circle, Georgetown, TX78633. [email protected]

1957Beth Clevenger Summers had oil paintings in

“Spring Forward,” a juried show celebrating women artistsof Southern California. 11449 Tampa, #138, Porter Ranch,CA 91326. [email protected]

1964Dr. Ron Sosebee received the Sustained Lifetime

Achievement Award at the 2011 meeting of the Society for Range Management. 6902 Geneva Avenue, Lubbock,TX 79413. [email protected]

Judith Jeffers Corner Petty lives in Oklahoma. 6316 N. Hammond Ave.,Oklahoma City, OK 73122.

1968MARRIED

Curtis Absher and Kaye Parkhurst Beaver, May 25, 2002. 1001 Overbrook Drive, Nicholasville, KY40356. [email protected]

1972David Bloxom is president of Speed Fab-Crete Corp.,

which won the 2011 Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce

The class years ending in “6” or “1” will celebrate reunions at Homecoming2011. The class of 1961 celebrated its Golden Anniversary on campus April 13-15, 2011.

Submit your news online at blogs.acu.edu/acutoday/experiencesor use the EXperiences card in each issue of the magazine.Deadlines: ACU Today is published three times a year. Because of printing deadlines,

your news could be delayed by one issue. Births and adoptions: Please indicate whether the addition to your family is a boy or girl. Marriages: Remember to indicate the date and place of your marriage.In Memoriam: A member of the deceased’s immediate family should submit this

notification. Please include class year for all ACU exes in the family.

EXPERIENCES

5 4 S u m m e r 2 0 1 1 � A C U T O D A Y

Watching construction near completion on theRoyce and Pam Money Student Recreation and Wellness Center is reminiscent of the waythe Moody Coliseum and Gibson Health andP.E. Center (seen below) transformed the campusin the late 1960s. The Money Center does notalter Moody but includes a renovated andexpanded footprint of the Gibson Center.

It retains the lap pool (seen beingexcavated here in 1967) and adds an indoor leisure pool as part of its overall 116,000 square feet.

Small Business of the Year award. 2741 River Forest Drive,Fort Worth, TX 76116. [email protected]

Steve and Linda (Watkins) Giddens have movedback to Texas after 12 years in Nashville. They have a new grandson, Owen Daniel Seely, born March 11, 2010. 5304 Ravensthorpe Drive, Parker, TX [email protected]

Jim Rabon (’69) and Jody Martin, March 12, 2011.Jody teaches art at an elementary school, and Jim is retiredfrom Dow Chemical. 4207 North Hill Drive, Carrollton, TX75010. [email protected]

1974Cecilia (Hufstedler) Morgan is an attorney and

alternative dispute resolution (ADR) professional. She wonthe 2010 Justice Frank G. Evans Award for outstandingcontribution to ADR in Texas. 3565 Colgate Avenue,Dallas, TX 75225. [email protected]

1976 Reunion: Homecoming 2011Patti (Bynum) Dolen retired from teaching in

May 2010 after 34 years, 32 of them in the Eastland ISD.1017 S. Seaman Street, Eastland, TX 76448.

1980Laura (Thurman) Woolfolk has received several

honors, including the Veterans of Foreign Wars KansasState Teacher of the Year award, the People to PeopleDwight D. Eisenhower Distinguished Citizen Award, and the Mary Francis White full scholarship from DeltaKappa Gamma for research in education leadership and reform. 2300 Roanoke Road, Dodge City, KS [email protected]

1982Dr. Steve Bishop is a newly tenured associate

professor of Old Testament at the Episcopal TheologicalSeminary of the Southwest in Austin. 2404-A TrailsideDrive, Austin, TX 78704. [email protected]

1983David and Karol (Baker) Gray welcomed their first

grandchild, Don Isaac Powell, April 18, 2011. He is namedfor his great-grandfather, Don L. Baker, who served on theACU Board of Trustees in the 1980s. 1412 Elm Brook Drive,Austin, TX 78758. [email protected]

1984Bonnie May Arvin is now a licensed funeral director

and embalmer in Texas, working for Hayes Funeral Homein Galveston County. 301 Ling, Bayou Vista, TX [email protected]

1985ADOPTED

By Terry and Donna (Stroup) Peery, a girl, MorganElizabeth, Feb. 3, 2011. She was born Sept. 28, 2009. 7409Cross Road, Tyler, TX 75703. [email protected]

1988Connie Morrow earned her M.A. in education

with emphasis in adult education and training from theUniversity of Phoenix. 7651 Autumn Park, San Antonio, TX 78249. [email protected]

1990BORN

To Robert Roney and Elizabeth Cambar-Roney, a girl, Victoria Elena, March 4, 2011. 3706 W. 48th Street,Roeland Park, KS 66205.

To Bob and Jane (McLeod) Brumley, a boy, ColtonLandry, Aug. 4, 2010. The couple have three other [email protected]

To Roger and Kimberly (Jarvis ’92) Main, a boy,Riley Austin, June 10, 2010. The family lives in Connecticut.

1992Charles Freeman is attending the NATO Defense

College in Rome, Italy. Unit 9500, Box 48, DPO AE [email protected]

ACU NEWSMAKERSOn July 12, Los Angeles City

Councilwoman Janice Hahn (’74)became the second ACU graduate elected to the U.S. House ofRepresentatives, joiningU.S. Rep. Ted Poe (’70)of Houston. She won arunoff election overRepublican Craig Hueyto represent California’sCongressional District 36.

Texas governor Rick Perry hasappointed three ACU graduates to stateadvisory committees and boards: Abileneentrepreneur Randy Hill (’90) to theTexas Emerging Technology FundAdvisory Committee; Brownsville CPABilly R. Bradford Jr. (’81) to the TexasWater Development Board; and Manorpsychotherapist Dr. Rick Reynolds (’76)to the Crime Victims’ Institute Advisory Council.

In December 2010, Alaska governorSean Parnell appointed Becky (Baldwin’95) Hultberg as commissioner of thestate’s Department of Administration. A native of Anchorage, she previouslywas regional director of communicationsand marketing for Providence Health and Services.

Dr. Carisse Berryhill, RestorationMovement history scholar and

professor of libraryscience, received theDistinguished ChristianService Award on May 4 at PepperdineUniversity’s 68thannnual Bible Lectures.She oversees ACUarchives and the CallieFaye Milliken Special

Collections in Brown Library.

Allen Wilson (’75) was named one of the Top 10 Most Influential People inTexas Football by Friday Night Footballmagazine. A defensive back on ACU’s1973 team that won the NAIA Division Inational title, he recently retired after a37-year head coaching career, includingClass 4A (Paris in 1988) and Class 5A (Tyler John Tyler in 1994) statechampionships and a 247-90-4 record.He coached the last nine seasons atCarter High School in Dallas.

Gary ornton, J.D. (’72), has beenappointed director of the Small BusinessCouncil, a new initiative of the GreaterAustin Chamber of Commerce.

ornton is a former ACU trustee whonow serves on the University Council,and is a partner in the Austin law firm of Jackson Walker L.L.P.

Jennifer ompson (’06) was named Young CPA of the Year by the2,600-member Fort Worth Chapter ofthe Texas Society of Certified PublicAccountants. She also earned an M.Acc. degree from ACU in 2007.

ACU’s Jimmy Ellison was named2010 Outstanding Chief of Police by the Texas Association of College andUniversity Police Administrators. Hemanages a 21-member staff at ACU.

Don W. Crisp (’64), former chair of the ACU Board of Trustees, wasnamed to the Board of Governors of the Dallas Foundation, Texas’ oldest community foundation.

Abilene’s newest school will be namedin memory of the late Myra P. Martinez

(’94), a teacher with a heart for herschool’s bilingualstudents. Myra P. MartinezElementary Schoolwill be built on thesite of the oldFranklin MiddleSchool. The $7.02million project will

replace Fannin and College Heights, twoAISD elementary schools in whichMartinez once taught.

Five graduates received national ordistrict teaching awards for 2010-11: • Kay (Garner ’79) Robbins, Educator

of the Year by the National ChristianSchools Association. The director ofcurriculum and instruction at AbileneChristian Schools, she has served morethan 20 years in various classroom and administrative roles, includinginterim president.

• Jan (Wallace ’65) Shewmaker,American Lawyers AuxiliaryElementary School Law-RelatedEducation Teacher of the Year. She is a teacher at Nebbie WilliamsElementary School in Rockwall ISD.

• Coach Donna Stone (’85), Teacher ofthe Year at Clear Creek ISD in Houston.

• Erica (Jarvis ’04) Crowder, ElementaryDistrict Teacher of the Year forPflugerville ISD.

• Allison Ford (’06), English Teacher of the Year and Teacher of the Year at Naaman Forest High School inGarland ISD.

5 5A C U T O D A Y � S u m m e r 2 0 1 1

STEVE BUTM

AN

Joseph Ezekiel “Zeke” Varney, son of Joe (’01) andRachel (Cass ’01) Varney of Arlington, Texas.

Jackson Matt McCook, son ofMatt (’95) and Alyssa (’96)McCook of Edmond, Okla.

Morgan Elizabeth Peery,adopted daughter of Dr. Terryand Donna Peery (’85) ofTyler, Texas.

Logan Cooke, son of Casey(’02) and Rachel (Fair ’03)Cooke of Plano, Texas.

Ethan Carter Bones, son ofGary (’01) and Kimberly(Mahaffey ’00) Bones of Carrollton, Texas.

Nathan Nembu, son ofKenneth and Sarah Jane(Wilson ’03) Nembu of Fort Worth, Texas.

Ellie and Luke Maloney, twin daughter and son of Ryan (’01)and Lisa (Parker ’01) Maloney of Abilene, Texas.

Case Van Boswell, son ofJeremy and Kara “Rae”(Hanan ’98) Boswell ofSterlington, Okla.

Alaina Hope Cates, son ofSteve (’02) and Renae (Moore’03) Cates of Lewisville, Texas.

Jaxon Rich, son of Mark (’05)and Tara (Conder ’05) Rich ofFort Worth, Texas.

Megan Brown, daughter of Kyle (’01) and Jessica (Clardy ’03) Brownof Fort Worth, Texas.

Trey Cullins, son of TaKory and Terrienna (Willie ’01)Cullen of Rockwall, Texas.

Jack Alexander Sharkey, son of Miles III and Angelica(Lowe ’95) Sharkey ofRamona, Calif.

Harper Reese McKee,daughter of Michael andMelody (Forest ’04) McKee of Lubbock, Texas.

Isaac Bass, son of Benjaminand Anne (Killion ’01) Bass ofFayetteville, Ark.

Caleb Trent McCook, son of Colt (’03) and Kristen(MacKenzie ’03) McCook of Alexandria, Va.

Caysen Steele Adair, son of Steven (’10) and Ariel(Martin ’10) Adair of Kerrville, Texas.

Carson Robert Clark, son of Keith (’05) and Mindy(Mahaffey ’03) Clark ofHohenwald, Tenn.

The Alumni Association will send a FREEWildcat BabyWear T-shirt to the alumniparents of each newborn or adopted infant in your family!

Complete the EXperiences news card andmail it to us, or complete the info online atblogs.acu.edu/acutoday/experiences.

In-focus, high-resolution digital images(minimum file size of 500kb; use your camera’shighest quality setting) of alumni childrenwearing their Wildcat BabyWear should be emailed to [email protected]. All will appear on the alumni Web site atacu.edu/alumni and the best will be printed in EXperiences. Call 800-373-4220 for more information.

B O R N T O B E A W I L D C A T

5 6 S u m m e r 2 0 1 1 � A C U T O D A Y

Dean Elizabeth Wester, daughter of ChazWester (’04) and Bonnie Phillips-Wester (’05)of Edmond, Okla.

BORNTo Greg Staley and Hainey Price-Staley, a girl,

Ava Montinne, Dec. 1, 2010. Greg is the senior director ofindustry communications at the U.S. Travel Association.811 4th Street NW, Unit 605, Washington, DC 20001.ADOPTED

By James and Erin Stokes, a boy, William SamuelHuaibiao “Liam,” from Shanghai, China, March 7, 2011.He was born July 5, 2005. 1218 Park Green, Deer Park, TX 77536. [email protected]

1994ADOPTED

By Cornell and Sally (Wall ’95) Curtis, two boys,Brandon (5) and Sean (3), November 2010. The family hasa new address. 2714 Oaklawn Drive, Vernon, TX 76384.

By Gregory and Dr. Valerie (Osburn ’95) Loe, a boy, Andrew Tianyou, March 7, 2011. He was born Aug. 9, 2009. Greg is a senior engineer for HoneywellSpace System and Valerie is an optometrist. 117011Hidden Treasure Circle, Friendswood, TX 77546.

1995BORN

To Sean and Laurie Terlisyer Mehew, a boy, John Frederick, Dec. 4, 2010. 6628 S. Logan Street,Centennial, CO 80121. [email protected]

To Marc and Stacy (Solano) Wagner, a girl,Gabriella Marie, May 25, 2010. 5811 Fiesta Drive,Newburgh, IN 47630. [email protected]

To Dr. Houston and Karen (Cherry ’98) Heflin, a girl, Gable, March 10, 2010. The couple has three otherdaughters. 118 Cherry Blossom, Abilene, TX [email protected]

1996 Reunion: Homecoming 2011BORN

To Jason and Alisha McArthur, a boy, Maddox Bell,April 6, 2011. 109 Selinawood Place, Franklin, TN [email protected]

To Jeremy and Becky (James) Shaver, a boy, Noah James, Sept. 6, 2010. 1712 Pecos Valley Cove, Round Rock, TX 78665. [email protected]

1997Trent Laing certified as the 65th man to bend the

IronMind Red Nail on Feb. 5, 2011. 1104 E. Copeland Rd.,#312, Arlington, TX 76011. [email protected]

To Eric and Catherine (Henry) Piepenbrink, a girl, Ella Faith, Jan. 1, 2011. 12806 Pinefield Road,Poway, CA 92064. [email protected]

To Russell and Melanie Anne (Miller) Christian, a boy, Russell Jarrod Jr., Dec. 3, 2010. 11608 Crystal FallsDrive, Fort Worth,TX 76244. [email protected]

1998Brad Currey, CFA, is vice president of the valuation

advisory group of Duff & Phillips. 4409 Ashford Drive,Dallas, TX 75214.

Dr. Dave and Dr. Amy (Berry ’95) Fuller havemoved to Houston, where he is on the radiation oncologyfaculty at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center and Amy is inprivate practice as a marriage and family therapist. 4035Durness Way, Houston, TX 77025. [email protected]

To Matt and Nikki (Schweikhard) Wallace, a boy,Kai Melaku, Feb. 24, 2010. P.O. Box 452, Indian Hills, CO80454. [email protected]

To Adam and Julie Beth (Wray) Fox, a girl, CharleyJane, Jan. 27, 2011. 3048 Old Murfreesboro Road, CollegeGrove, TN 37046. [email protected]

To Jeremy and Amy Watson, a girl, DaphneElizabeth, April 5, 2011. 7931 Brazoria Park, San Antonio,TX 78254. [email protected]

To Micah and Kelly Endsley, a boy, Caleb Carl, Feb. 14, 2011. 5128 Wickham Street, Aliquippa, PA [email protected]

To Lewis (’95) and Elisa (Franco) Brown, a boy,Bishop Aidan, April 14, 2011. 2802 River Birch Place,Amarillo, TX 79124. [email protected]

To Kevin (’97) and Sara (Keathley) Whitelaw, aboy, Kellen Rece, Dec. 3, 2010. 14105 Blue Canyon Grove,Colorado Springs, CO 80921. [email protected]

To John and Sharina (Henderson) McMahon, a girl, Adison Kelly, Nov. 29, 2010. 5218 Deerwood Lane,Abilene, TX 79606. [email protected]

To Craig and Carol (Mattei) Miles, a boy, CraigBishop II, March 4, 2011. 4960 S. Nelson Drive, Katy, TX 77493. [email protected]

To Jason and April (Ladyman) Holbrook, a boy,Nate Timothy, July 8, 2010. 1101 Fish Hatchery Road,Huntsville, TX 77320. [email protected]

To Dr. Damond and Amy (Hendry) Blueitt, a girl,Devan Mackenzie, May 5, 2011. 8321 Regency Drive, North Richland Hills, TX 76182. [email protected]

1999BORN

To Joey and Leslye (Starnes) Roberts, a boy,Keaton Reese, Oct. 4, 2010. 688 Bluebonnet, Stephenville,TX 76401. [email protected]

To Jason and Sacia (Glazener) Sosebee, a boy, Wylie Taliaferro, Dec. 5, 2010. 409 S. Boundary Street,Williamsburg, VA 23185. [email protected]

To David and Jana (Varley) Green, a boy, Joshua David, Dec. 31, 2010. 2060 Glenwood, Ingleside,TX 78362. [email protected]

To Casey and Erin Owens, a girl, Hadley Malone,March 18, 2011. 2205 Oleander Way, McKinney, TX75071. [email protected]

To J. Kevin and Sarah (Lau) Parker, a girl, LibertyXiaoLan, Oct. 20, 2010. 1405 Wind Dance Trail, FortWorth, TX 76131.

To Tommy and Elasha (McGhee) Simonton, a boy,Bowen Morrow, July 27, 2010. 201 Lester Street, Burleson,TX 76028. [email protected]

To Wayne and Rebecca (Reasoner) Pace, a girl,Allison Rose, May 14, 2010. 1114 Deep River Drive,Richmond, TX 77469. [email protected]

2000BORN

To Chai and Brenda (Looney) Indrakamhang, a boy, Ken, Sept. 5, 2010. The couple married Oct. 10,2001. 2922 Ladprao Klongchan Bangkapi, Bangkok,Thailand 10240.

To Matthew (’98) and Becky (Clark) Cave, a boy,Brooks Carson, Sept. 10, 2010. 3413 Foot Hills Drive,Weatherford, TX 76087. [email protected]

To Shawn and Emma (Lanier) Montadon, a boy,Levi Casey, April 8, 2010. 4601 Madrid, Georgetown, TX 78633. [email protected]

To Mac and Causha (Myers ’01) Jolly, a boy,Maxwell Edward, Sept. 23, 2010. 7218 Rutgers Drive,Dallas, TX 75214. [email protected]

To Charles and Meredith (Speck) Clayton, a boy,Will, Nov. 19, 2010. 339 River Drive, Mount Juliet, TN37122. [email protected]

To Jacob and Joyce (Martinez ’01) Sledge, two girls, Maliya Analia, July 24, 2009, and Anjalia Elena, Feb. 9, 2011. 2133 Woodward Street, Abilene, TX 79605.

To Bart and Jennifer Roseberry, a boy, Chuck, May 19, 2010. 2300 Maxfield Lane, Carrollton, TX [email protected]

To Jeff and Lyndsey (Gosdin) Wells, a girl, Sarah Kate, Dec. 14, 2010. 1513 Pine Hurst Drive, Coppell, TX 75019.

To Mike and Kara (Jarman) Schlentz, a boy, RyderQuinn, March 23, 2011. 718 Beretta Drive, Abilene, TX79602. [email protected]

To Alex and Nicole (Carter) Dossey, a boy, Carter,Feb. 19, 2010. 500 Long Run, Liberty Hill, TX [email protected]

To Matthew (’03) and Meredith (McLaughlin)Finnie, a boy, Andrew John, Jan. 8, 2011. 1245Massachusetts Avenue, #3, Arlington, MA [email protected]

2001 Reunion: Homecoming 2011Robert and Lauren (Webster ’01) Hance,

and their daughter, Magdalene, have a new address. 1636 S. Jefferson Davis Parkway, New Orleans, LA [email protected]

ALUMNI CONNECTIONSIn 1988 I graduated from high

school and was trying to decidewhere to continue my education.

I decided to followsome friends and attendthe University of NorthTexas in Denton. Notlong before schoolstarted, I asked myparents if we could at least visit the ACU

campus. They excitedly drove me to Abilene. After a tour with BobGomez, the only thing I wanted to do was be a Wildcat. A couple ofweeks later, I moved into my dormroom and realized God had a plan for me to be at ACU.

Abilene Christian’s effect on me began with that visit and tour. It continued with four incredibleyears at a university where the staffand faculty cared for me, taught me,shaped me and inspired my direction.The relationships from my time as an ACU student continue today. My wife, college roommates andother friends enrich my life daily, and I am thankful for ACU being the place that brought us together.

God had another adjustment in mind earlier this summer when I had the opportunity to begin a new role as the director of alumnirelations and annual projects. Now I proudly participate in PurpleFridays and get to be on campusevery day again. I am honored to be on a team at a university thatworks daily to prepare Christianleaders to make a real difference inthe world, and I want my passion and engagement for ACU to growstronger each year.

Our office wants to make sure you remain connected to andengaged with ACU. We keep updatedinformation on the alumni websiteand send a monthly e-newsletter to give you information about ourevents and alumni. Watch for ACUevents in your hometown as well.Help us by hosting a Purple andWhite Party. We love it when alumnihelp us spread the word about ACUto prospective students.

We hope to see you on campus at Homecoming to remember, renewand celebrate the special place this is to each of us.�

– CRAIG FISHER (’92)Director of Alumni Relations and Annual Projects

LINDSEY CO

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5 7A C U T O D A Y � S u m m e r 2 0 1 1

SERVING YOUADVANCING ACU

Do you want to recommend a prospectivestudent, volunteer, host an event, or just learnmore about how you can be involved with ACU where you live?

To help foster relationships with alumni and future students, ACU has assigned personnelfrom its Advancement and Admissions offices tomajor markets in Texas.

A university relations manager (URM)focuses on establishing relationships with churchesand schools, an admissions counselor (AC)reaches out to future students and their parents,and an advancement officer (AO) assistsprospective donors who can contribute funds to ACU.

Through this territory team approach, thesededicated professionals can provide exceptionalservice to those who contribute so graciously to ACU’s mission and 21st-Century Vision.

DALLAS AREADoug Fair • URM

214-208-9625, [email protected] Rideout • AC

325-674-2650 / [email protected]

Ben Gonzalez • AC – Collin, Denton, Wise andParker Counties


Kayla Stringer • AO325-674-4972, [email protected]

Don Garrett • AO325-674-2213, [email protected]

FORT WORTH AREABrent Barrow • URM

817-565-4827, [email protected] Dietrich • AC – Tarrant, Johnson

and Hood Counties325-674-2650 / [email protected]

Lance Rieder • AO325-674-6080, [email protected]

HOUSTON AREACarri Hill • URM

713-582-2123 • [email protected] Lewis • AC


Eric Fridge • AO713-483-4004, [email protected]

AUSTIN AREATunisia Singleton • URM – Austin

512-450-4329 • [email protected] McCall • AC – Austin, Belton, Temple, Waco


SAN ANTONIO AREALaDonna Wilson • URM – San Antonio, South Texas

210-410-9014 • [email protected] Mark Moudy • AC – San Antonio, South Texas


Josh Clem • AO – San Antonio, South Texas210-573-2475, [email protected]

WEST TEXAS AREAKat Burns, Associate Director of Admissions


Mark Rogers • AO325-674-2669, [email protected]

5 8 S u m m e r 2 0 1 1 � A C U T O D A Y

For Carri (Teague ’88) Hill, universityrelations manager (URM) for ACU inHouston, there is no such thing as a typical day.

“It’s like asking if there’s a typical day of being a mother,” Hill says with a laugh.“e work is so varied, depending on thetime of year, what events are coming up –you name it. at’s what keeps it exciting.”

In her work as a URM, Hill visits schoolsand churches, talking with counselors,teachers, youth ministers and other leadersabout Abilene Christian. She also serves asa liaison between ACU and Houston-areaalumni, making sure they stay up to date on campus happenings, and planningevents to connect alumni to each other and back to the university. Finally, Hill works with LaurynLewis (’08), admissionscounselor for theHouston area, to host recruiting events for prospectiveand enrolled students.

“I love my work,”says Hill, who hasexperience working in corporate training, corporate development and university communication. “Being a URM gives me a chance to work in my profession foran organization that makes a difference.”

A longtime resident of Houston, Hillunderstands the challenges of bringing areaalumni together. e city’s size can make itdifficult for people to attend events heldacross town, so Hill has begun rotating the locations of alumni events, calling it“ACU on the Move.” Most recently, sheplanned an evening at the Johnson SpaceCenter with astronaut Robert “Shane”Kimbrough, a volunteer coach for her son’s football team.

“I live in the NASA area, and myhusband is an engineer at NASA, so we are connected to that community,” Hillexplains. “We want to give people a chance

to talk and network at our events, but wealso want to offer them something more.With the ending of the space shuttle periodin our country’s, state’s and city’s history, I thought this would be perfect timing.”

e event included a dinner, tours of Mission Control and an internationalspace station simulator, and an engagingpresentation by Kimbrough.

“He is a strong man of faith,” Hill says.“He talked to us about how God has been a part of his journey and how hisexperiences have been woven together to deepen his faith.”

Hill and Lewis, along with Houstonadvancement officer Eric Fridge (’91) andseveral other area alumni, also hosted a send-off party this summer for students

who will enroll atACU this fall.

“About 100 people– enrolled studentsand their families –came to the send-offparty at MemorialChurch of Christ,” Hill says. “We wantedto reach out to theparents as well as

the students. ese people are entrustingtheir children with ACU, and we wanted toinstill another layer of confidence in them,to show we care about their students.”

To provide further connection and aplace to find information, Hill maintains a Facebook page for ACU in Houston –facebook.com/ACUHouston – and urgesalumni to contact her if they want to getinvolved in recruiting students or hostingalumni events.

“I want alumni in Houston to know I’mhere to serve them,” Hill says. “I’ve lived inHouston for more than 20 years, so I’mhere as one of them. If they need anything;if they have ideas; if they want to engage in conversation, I am an open door.”�

– KATIE NOAH GIBSON

Carri Hill provides an open door for Houston-area alums

LINDSEY CO

TTON

Future Wildcats attended the Houston send-off party.

GARY RHODES

5 9A C U T O D A Y � S u m m e r 2 0 1 1

ONE MORE LAPMembers of Wildcat men’s track and field teams from the 1960s returned to campus inApril to renew friendships. Coached by the late Oliver Jackson (’42) and Bill McClure (’48),they helped build a legacy in the sport that continues today. Wildcat track and field teamshave won 59 of ACU’s 64 national titles. Only four institutions have won more NCAAnational team championships than the Wildcats, including USC, UCLA and Stanford.

(BACK, FROM LEFT) Jerry Dyes (’64), Jerry Miller (’65), Bud White (’64), James Blackwood (’64), Jarrell Edwards (’60), Pat McKennon (’61), Rick Peden (’65), Charles Christmas (’66), Roger Orrell (’65), Terry Young (’67) and Lynn Saunders (’66). (FRONT, FROM LEFT) Sam Gafford (’63), Foy Brown (’63), John Lawler (’63), Bobby Hargrave (’64), Dennis Richardson (’63), Richard Engel (’66), Russell Vail (’63) and Gary Burger (’66).

Jerry Miller (left) andBobby Hargravereminisce by lookingat scrapbooks.

MARRIEDDave Morris and Amy Knox (’97), March 12, 2011.

6303 John Chapman, San Antonio, TX 78240. [email protected]

To Mike and Lauren (Jones) Russell, a boy, ColeAlan, Feb. 8, 2011. 1514 Redeemer Road, Allen, TX 75002.

To Jimmy and Cassandra (George) Criswell, a girl,Kierstin Raine, May 18, 2010. 1490 Summers Drive, CedarHill, TX 75104. [email protected]

To Stephen (’00) and Joscelyn (Prukop) Hill, aboy, Daniel Seth, Oct. 5, 2010. The couple work as Bibletranslators in East Africa. P.O. Box 173, Morogoro,Tanzania. [email protected]

To Jeffrey and Emily (Harrow) Turner, a girl, Mitzi Rae, May 20, 2010. 6012 Portridge Drive, Fort Worth,TX 76135. [email protected]

To Timothy and Jill Kerby, a boy, Jacob Ryan, April 28, 2011. 5713 Pebble Ridge Drive, McKinney, TX75070. [email protected]

To Shane and Kim (Sanders) Lewis, a boy, BowenTucker, Jan. 10, 2011. Kim earned her M.B.A. from theUniversity of Dallas in April 2011. 1401 Danielle CreekDrive, Little Elm, TX 75068. [email protected]

To Matt and Jenny (Siebers) LaSeur, a boy, GregoryFerrin, April 4, 2010. 205 Bonham Drive, Hewitt, TX [email protected]

2002MARRIED

Jon Crawford and Mandy Meister, March 19, 2011.She is an HR generalist for Service Solutions Group. 16801 N. 94th St., #2065, Scottsdale, AZ 85260. BORN

To Jonathan and Aleisha (Rhodes) Kolb, a girl,Emily Lenae, Aug. 9, 2010. The family has a new address.315 Inverness Point, Portland, TX [email protected]

To Richey and Amy (Bromley ’04) Owen, twin girls, Reese Abigail and Riley Grace, Sept. 4, 2008.541 Archer Drive, Coppell, TX 75019.

To John and Bevin (Steward) Williams, a girl,Brady Lynn, Feb. 2, 2010. 7300 Ledoux Drive, Fort Worth,TX 76134. [email protected]

To Michael and Joy (Brenneman) Collazo, a girl, Alexis, March 10, 2010. The couple married in June 2009. 3849 N. 11th Street, Abilene, TX [email protected]

To Christopher (’01) and Rebecca (Boling)McLain, a girl, Nora Ellen, Oct. 2, 2010. 3406 CapstoneLane, Garland, TX 75043. [email protected]

To Ty and Charis (Dillman) Dishman, a girl, Tatum, Oct. 18, 2010. 1318 Lost Creek Boulevard, Austin, TX 78746. [email protected]

To Dustin and Kelly Hawes, a boy, Owen DathinKiplagat, March 29, 2011. P.O. Box 231136, Anchorage,AK 99523.

To David (’03) and Ashley (Read) Wilson, a boy,Rhett David, Dec. 22, 2010. 3284 Golfing Green Drive,Farmers Branch, TX 75234. [email protected]

By Kevin and Angela (Nevius) Dormer, a girl,Shiloh, in April 2011. She was born Sept. 16, 2008. 18 West Dressage Court, Hampton, VA 23666.

2003MARRIED

Carla Lantz and Jason de la Rosa, June 19, 2010, in Laguna Beach, Calif. 1312 Newning Avenue, Austin, TX 78704.

Rick Smith and Melissa Conley, Nov. 7, 2004, in Fort Worth. They have two daughters, Emma and Felicity.Rick runs a photography business and is pursuing a Ph.D.in physical anthropology at The University of Texas atAustin. Melissa is a stay-at-home mom. 2500 SteckAvenue, #32, Austin, TX 78757. [email protected]

To Jeremy and Jill (Lester) Hale, two boys, Jake, Nov. 3, 2008, and August, April 26, 2010. P.O. Box 2465, Eureka, MT 59917.

To Casey (’02) and Rachel (Fair) Cooke, a boy,Logan James, Aug. 9, 2010. 2516 Royal Birkdale Drive,Plano, TX 75025.

To Marc and Molly (Videtto) Usrey, a boy, Luke Edward, May 19, 2011. 1456 Beaverton Trail,Winston-Salem, NC 27103. [email protected]

To Kyle and Jessica (Clardy) Brown, a girl, Megan,Aug. 7, 2010. 616 McNeill Lane, Saginaw, TX 76179.

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To Robert and Amanda (Rutledge) Koiner, a girl,Eleanor Elizabeth, Dec. 27, 2010. 6708 Kirkwood Road,Fort Worth, TX 76116. [email protected]

To Myles (’01) and Lisa (Blackwell) McCormack,a boy, Cameron, April 6, 2010. 9436 Overwood Road,Dallas, TX 75238. [email protected]

To David and Amanda (Peeples ’00) Pittman, a girl, Gentry Kate, Nov. 15, 2010. David is director ofgraduate admissions at ACU, and Amanda does projectmanagement and events for the College of BusinessAdministration. 934 Radford, Abilene, TX [email protected]

To Travis and Kelly (Coffey) Burleson, a girl, ChloeMeredith, May 16, 2011. 6499 West F.M. 1606, Ira, TX79527. [email protected]

To Robert and Kate (Whitton) Henson, a girl, AveryLaine, April 15, 2011. The couple has another daughter aswell. 1721 Sterling Court, Littleton, CO [email protected]

2004Dr. Jason Gipson finished his residency in

family medicine in Tyler and is working at AbileneDiagnostic Clinic.

Griffin Rozell is vice-consul to the U.S. Embassy inWarsaw, Poland, He and his wife, Olga, will serve therethrough March 2013. 50 Roosevelt Boulevard, A-522, Falls Church, VA 22044. [email protected]

MARRIEDMichael Lockridge and Ashley Spencer.

106 Pinckney, San Antonio, TX 78209.Alejandro Ruiz and Larissa Zanatta, Jan. 31, 2010.

2201 Montopolis Drive #1123, Austin, TX [email protected]

By Stephen (’04) and Chrissy (White ’04) Holt Jr.,a boy, Christian (4), May 6, 2011. 68D Marginal St., EastBoston, MA 02128.BORN

To Brady and Katherine (Danley) Lane, a girl,Abigail Anne, Jan. 29, 2011. 1226 Bismarck Avenue,Oshkosh, WI 54902. [email protected]

To Justin and Maggie (Rogers) Damron, a girl,Audrey Kate, Sept. 15, 2010. 3001 FM 1524, Dimmitt, TX 79027. [email protected]

To Michael (’03) and Tara (McCain) Biesboer, a girl, Jordan Dawn, Oct. 29, 2009. They also have a son, Canaan Michael (4). 1090 W. Sloan, Stephenville, TX 76401.

To Emilio (’01) and Rebecca (Davis) Lerzundi, a boy, Isaac Milo, Nov. 24, 2010. 2401 Spanish Circle,#111, Arlington, TX 76016. [email protected]

To Eric and Erin (Bailey) Negron, a boy, Eric“Joshua,” Aug. 18, 2010. 19603 Cypriate Trail, Cypress, TX 77249. [email protected]

To Cameron and Katherine (Holden) Rinard, a girl,Lauren Elizabeth, Feb. 7, 2011. 5004 18th Street, Lubbock,TX 79416. [email protected]

To Daniel and Yukari (Sekine ’07) Garcia, a girl,Diana Izumi, Jan. 16, 2011. 2328 Avenue D, Abilene, TX79601. [email protected]

2005Ben and Gena Rene (Robinson ’04) Lazcano

have a new address. Ben is the new youth and familyminister for the Maypearl Church of Christ. P.O. Box 415,Maypearl, TX 76064.MARRIED

Glenn Hardwick and Kerbi DuBois (’06), June 27, 2009, in Belton. 9531 State Highway 151, #5201,San Antonio, TX 78251. BORN

To John and Crystal (Duggan) Knutson, a boy, JohnHenry III, Sept. 9, 2010. 10408 Whitney Trace, Waco, TX76708. [email protected]

To Kyle and Catherine (Petersen) Hildmann, a girl, Mykal Rae, April 28, 2010. 1385 Warren Street,Buffalo Gap, TX 79508. [email protected]

To Justin and Kristen (Parker) Naylor, a boy, WyattAndrew, Nov. 10, 2010. 4518 Vance Road, North RichlandHills, TX 76180. [email protected]

To Brian (’00) and Nichole (Logue) Nations,

C L A S S O F 19 6 1R E T U R N S F O R G O L D E NA N N I V E R S A R Y R E U N I O N(Clockwise, from left) The Class of 1961 held itsGolden Anniversary Reunion on campus April 13-15,2011, and each attendee received a nametag withtheir yearbook photo; Phil Boone (’83), ACU vicepresident for advancement, accepted a Reunion ClassGift check for $126,659 from (left) George Miller and(right) Kent Comolli; Ann (Allen) Ritchie browsesPrickly Pear yearbooks from the early 1960s; attendeeswere treated to a tour of the campus; the Class of1961 poses for a photo at the Rich Welcome Plazaeast of the Hunter Welcome Center; and classmatesand spouses pause to give thanks prior to a mealtogether in the McCaleb Conference Center.

STEVE BUTMAN

1935Imogene Schwartz Mickey, 96, died on Easter,

April 24, 2011, in Abilene. She was born Sept. 2, 1914,near Crews in Runnels County. She married LeslieMickey (’35) on Easter, April 21, 1935. Leslie preachedfor Church of Christ congregations in Lockhart, El Paso,Vernon, Seymour, Colorado City, Levelland, Gainesville,O’Donnell and Rio Vista. After he died in 1985, Imogenemoved to Abilene, where she was a longtime member of the University Church of Christ. Imogene was a modelvolunteer in the church and community. She taught children’s classes at church, worked at Abilene’s ChristianService Center until age 95, was active in Women for ACU, and received Abilene’s Jefferson Award in 2001 foroutstanding community service. Among survivors are twodaughters, Peggy Elaine (Mickey ’62) Prothro andDoris Jean (Mickey ’73) Graham; two sons, DavidRoss Mickey (’58) and Charles George Mickey (’66);10 grandchildren; 17 great-grandchildren; a brother, R.C. Schwartz; and a sister, Peggy McAnally.

1937Wildring B Sherrod Edwards, 94, died Dec. 21,

2010, in Lubbock. She was born Oct. 15, 1916, to B andEzzie (Robinson) Sherrod. She married Jennings BryanEdwards Sept. 18, 1937. After raising three children,Wildring earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Texas Tech University, and taught in the university’sSchool of Home Economics until her retirement in 1983.

She was named Lubbock Woman of the Year in 1961. She is survived by a son, Bryan Sherrod Edwards; adaughter, Jeanene (Edwards) Fulgham; six grandchildren;and seven great-grandchildren.

1941Eleanor Geline “Jane” Randolph Guynes

Green, 90, died April 7, 2010, in Abilene. She was bornMarch 20, 1920, in Lockney. She earned a bachelor’sdegree from ACU and a master’s from Hardin-SimmonsUniversity. She taught elementary school for 30 years. Jane survived two husbands, Samuel Bexton Guynes(’56) and Brig. Gen. J.N. Green. She is survived by adaughter, Martha Jane (Guynes ’64) Morgan; a son, Samuel Bexton Guynes Jr. (’69); a grandson;and three great-grandchildren.

Leonard C. Waggoner, 83, died Feb. 5, 2011. He served in the armed forces during World War II and the Korean War, then became a minister in churchesthroughout Texas. He married Elizabeth Wilson in 1944.She preceded him in death. Leonard is survived by adaughter, Rosalyn (Waggoner ’70) Boatman; twosons, Don Waggoner and Jon Waggoner (’73); a brother,Carroll Waggoner (’43); seven grandchildren; fivegreat-grandchildren; and two great-great-grandchildren.

1942Virginia R. Burnett, 95, died April 3, 2011, in

Brownfield. She was born Sept. 2, 1915, and marriedJames Burnett (’40) May 24, 1941. She worked as a

social worker and ran a dairy farm with her husband. She is survived by her husband, James; two sons; a daughter; six grandchildren; six great-grandchildren; and a great-great-granddaughter.

Jean D. Moore, 89, died April 8, 2011, in Harlingen.She was born July 2, 1921, in Levelland. She lived in theValley area of Texas for many years and was a member ofseveral service organizations. She was preceded in deathby her husband and is survived by two sons; a daughter;six grandchildren; and eight great-grandchildren.

1943Dr. Morris Patteson Sr., 89, died Nov. 30, 2010, in

Lampasas. He was born Nov. 24, 1921, in Smiley, Texas. Hemarried Ruth Neal Corder Jan. 12, 1946. Morris served inthe Navy as a medical officer and practiced medicine invarious Texas towns before moving to Lampasas in 1951.He is survived by a son; three daughters; a brother, LewisPatteson (’43); two sisters, Nelda Jean Patteson (’46)and Beth (Patteson ’48) Purdom; seven grandchildren;and five great-grandsons.

James Robert Jarrell, 89, died Feb. 2, 2011, inBryant, Ark. He was born Oct. 7, 1921, in Fort Worth. He is survived by his wife, Willa Jarrell; a son, Robert Jarrell (’75); a daughter, Starla Goad; seven grandchildren; and five great-grandchildren.

1944Jane Clark Norman, 87, died Dec. 27, 2010, in

Arlington. She was born June 20, 1923, in Floydada and

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a girl, Avery Nichole, Jan. 30, 2011. 1408 N. Crockett St.,Fredericksburg, TX 78624. [email protected]

To Sam and Traci (Nix) James, a boy, Britton Harold,Feb. 9, 2010. 9737 Minton Drive, Fort Worth, TX [email protected]

To Trent and Tyler (King) Hinton, a boy, Callen Mayes, Jan. 24, 2011. 1233 Kiplinger Avenue, York, NE 68467.

To Coy and Jill (Rowland) Clark, a girl, Cora Mae,Feb. 9, 2011. 1385 W. Weatherby Way, Chandler, AZ 85286.

To Jeremy and Adrienne (Forsythe) Fike, a girl,Laurel Ann, Feb. 26, 2011. 4125 Swiss Avenue, #128,Dallas, TX 75204. [email protected]

2006 Reunion: Homecoming 2011Brandi Jo Magee is traveling the world with

Adventures in Missions’ Global Race program. She willvisit 11 countries in 11 months, ending in Sept. 2011. 1717S. 11th St., Abilene, TX 79602. [email protected]

To Jared and Jamie (Gregg) Peel, twin boys, Gage and Graham, March 25, 2011. The couple marriedJune 2, 2006. 8112 Lido Court, Frisco, TX [email protected]

To Brian and Krista (Wilson) Evans, a girl, LeilaMichelle, Nov. 6, 2010. 1704 Woodstock Blvd., #1210,Arlington, TX 76006. [email protected]

To Robert and Kristie (Clarkson) Wade, a girl, Avery Wynter, April 30, 2011. 523A C.R. 2700,Walnut Springs, TX 76690.

To Matthew and Jennifer (Leal ’07) Sutherland,a boy, Izaiah, Feb. 11, 2011. 4313 Ridgedale Avenue,Odessa, TX 79762.

To Aaron and Debbie (Ortiz) Castellanos, a girl,Nora Liliana, Dec. 2, 2010. They have another daughter,Isabella Elise. The family lives in Mesquite, [email protected]

2007Amber (Tolich) Jacobi earned her master’s degree

in education in 2011. She teaches third grade at GhentSchool in Norfolk, Va. 1835 Lincolnshire Place, VirginiaBeach, VA 23464. [email protected]

Ernesto Villarreal and Lotefa Bartlett (’09), July 17, 2010. Ernesto is the director of diversity servicesfor Milligan College. P.O. Box 500, Milligan College, TN 37682. [email protected]

BORNTo Justin and Katie Webb, twins, Robert Henry

and Abigail Grace, March 8, 2010. 500 Briarglen, Coppell, TX 75019. [email protected]

To Allen (’06) and Casey (Thomas) Watson, a boy, Michael James, Jan. 4, 2011. 1822 ChamberlainDrive, Carrollton, TX 75007.

To Eric and Emerald (McGowan) Lemmons, a girl,Lily, Sept. 4, 2009. 1842 S. 5th St., Abilene, TX [email protected]

To Jason and Heather (Weems) Gallagher, a girl, Ellie Kay, June 8, 2011. 814 Harbor Lakes Lane, Katy, TX 77494.

2009BORN

To Joshua (’08) and Stephanie (Armstrong)Hale, a girl, Kaia, April 21, 2011. 909 Vine Street, Abilene, TX 79602.

2010BORN

To Steven and Ariel (Martin) Adair, a boy, Caysen,Aug. 3, 2010. 1013 Temple Drive, Kerrville, TX 78028.

2012MARRIED

Bryce Williams and Paige Bates, March 13, 2011.750 N. Judge Ely Blvd., #124, Abilene, TX [email protected]

I N M E M O R I A M

Alumni and friends accompanied ACU presidentDr. Phil Schubert (’91), vice president Dr. GaryMcCaleb (’64) and Dr. Brent (’86) and Melinda(Stucker ’93) Isbell on a 10-day tour of Israel inJune 2011. “In the Land of the Bible” tookparticipants to historic sites such as Bethlehem,the Sea of Galilee, Caesarea, Mount Carmel,Capernaum, Nazareth, the Jordan River, Jericho, the Dead Sea, Bethany, and Jerusalem.In the image above, Schubert’s daughter, Sydnie(left), joined the tour’s leaders for a photo at thetop of Masada, Herod the Great's mountainfortress on the western shore of the Dead Sea.Isbell is pulpit minister for Abilene’s UniversityChurch of Christ.

BRENT ISBELL

married Leeman Norman Aug. 28, 1946. She is survived by a son; a sister; and two grandchildren.

1948Judy Beth Sneed, 85, died Feb. 18, 2011. She was

born Jan. 22, 1926, near Hawley. She married Paul JonesSneed Jr. (’49) Aug. 17, 1947. He preceded her in death.She is survived by two daughters; two sons, Paul SneedIII (’79) and Larry Sneed (’86); eight grandchildren; and 14 great-grandchildren.

1949R.C. “Kit” Carson, 87, died May 1, 2011. He served

in the Army during World War II, and married MonaScott (’49) March 16, 1948. He ran Kit Carson FarmersInsurance Agency from 1968-99. Kit was preceded in death by his wife, Mona, and is survived by two daughters;two sons; 11 grandchildren; and five great-grandchildren.

DeAnne (McDonald) Bennett, 81, died in June2009 in Arlington. She worked as an elementary schoolteacher for 20 years. She is survived by her husband, RoyM. Bennett (’49); four children; 10 grandchildren; andeight great-grandchildren.

1950Arthur Joel Halbert, 84, died May 9, 2011. He was

born June 26, 1926. He served in the Merchant Marinesduring World War II and in the Army during the KoreanWar. He earned his Doctor of Podiatric Medicine from theIllinois College of Podiatry and practiced podiatry for 29years in San Antonio. He is survived by a son, Dr. RonHalbert (’81); a daughter, Sarah Marlin; a brother, Dr.David Halbert (’54); a sister, Carolyn (Halbert ’45)Bryan; and five grandchildren.

Thomas J. Seay Jr. died Nov. 20, 2010, after workingmany years as a minister. He had a long association withBoles and Central Texas children’s homes. He is survived by his wife, Jo Anne Counts Seay, and other relatives.

Warren Barret High, 87, died Dec. 13, 2010. Heserved in the Army Air Corps during World War II. Hemarried Jo Ellen High (’49) Sept. 2, 1947. Together, theyfounded and operated High’s Flowers in Abilene, retiring in1995. He is survived by his wife, Jo; two sons, TimothyHigh (’71) and Richard High (’75); a daughter, Jill(High ’83) Falkenberry; six grandchildren; and fourgreat-grandchildren.

Grady Lee Reese, 85, died May 20, 2011. He wasborn Dec. 15, 1925 in Colorado City. He served in the Navy as a radioman in World War II before marrying Betty Chumley (’51) at ACU. He earned master’sdegrees from Eastern New Mexico University and theUniversity of Colorado. He retired from Adams CountySchool District 12, where he was a speech therapist. He was a minister and elder in Churches of Christ in the Denver area for more than 40 years. Among survivorsare his wife of 62 years, Betty; three daughters, AletheaDanley, Peggy Baker and Rebecca Cavasos; eight grandchildren (four of whom graduated from ACU); six great-grandchildren; three sisters and one brother.

1951Bill R. Proctor, 80, died Nov. 22, 2010, in Abilene.

He was a preacher for many years, 16 of them at DudleyChurch of Christ. He is survived by his wife, Betty Proctor;two sons, David Proctor and Mark Proctor (’88); a brother, Bruce Proctor (’49); five grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.

Mary Catherine McKillip Kirkpatrick, 83, diedApril 3, 2011. She was born April 26, 1927, in Fort Worthand married Dr. Foy Kirkpatrick (’46) Feb. 19, 1948. She worked for the FAA, as a librarian, and supported herhusband in his ministry work. He preceded her in death, as did a daughter and a granddaughter. Mary is survivedby a brother; two sisters; a daughter; a son; nine grandchildren; and five great-grandchildren.

Gay Nell Morgan Phillips, 80, died Feb. 12, 2011.She was born Sept. 28, 1930, in Levelland and marriedDon Phillips (’51) March 2, 1952. They planted churchesall over Texas, and Gay Nell worked as a bookkeeper andtax assessor. Don preceded her in death, as did a son, Bart Phillips (’91). She is survived by her mother, JennieMae Morgan; a brother, Roland Morgan; three daughters,Donna (Phillips ’77) Nangauta, Angie (Phillips ’79)Andino and Jamie (Phillips ’89) Hackney; a son,

Wes Phillips (’81); and 11 grandchildren.Charles M. Broom, 83, died March 8, 2011, in

Richardson. A native of Oklahoma City, Okla., he served as a Marine in World War II. Broom played football for the Wildcats before beginning a coaching and athleticsadministration career. He coached high school football inTexline, Shamrock, Plainview and Galena Park beforejoining the Richardson ISD in 1960. He was an offensiveline coach at Richardson High School for eight years before becoming the head coach at J.J. Pearce High School. He was named the Richardson ISD athleticsdirector in 1974. Among survivors are his wife, JoCarolyn “Jodie” (Wallis ’51) Broom; a daughter,Judy Carolyn Broom (’75); a son, Gregory AlanBroom (’79); two grandchildren; and a brother, Wendell Broom (’45).

1952Dr. Paul Raymond Durham, 82, died Nov. 20,

2010. A native of Port Arthur and longtime resident ofJasper, he played football at ACU. He served in the MarineAir Corps and graduated from Texas A&M University. He served as a veterinarian for the U.S. Department ofAgriculture for 35 years before becoming a small-animalveterinarian in Jasper. He was a deacon and elder in his congregation. He is survived by his wife, Janice(Schinnerer ’51) Durham; three daughters, Mary Beth (Durham ’74) Shumate, Dianne (Durham ’76)Bertino and Paula (Durham ’78) Curbo; a son,Robert Durham (’79); and nine grandchildren.

Charles Ray Puckett, 81, died May 26, 2011, inMoriarty, N.M. He was born March 26, 1930 in Hope, N.M.,but lived most of his boyhood years in Carlsbad. He earneda bachelor’s degree in chemistry before serving as a firstlieutenant in the Army during the Korean War. He marriedLois Jean Lobley (’53) on June 1, 1954. He earned amaster’s degree in biochemistry from ACU in 1958. He alsoserved as a minister of the Moriarty (N.M.) Church ofChrist and as chief clinical chemist at the V.A. Hospital inAlbuquerque. Among survivors are his wife of 57 years;two sons, Charles Ray Puckett Jr. (’81) and KeithHoward Puckett; a daughter, Rosemary (Puckett) Elliott;seven grandchildren; and four great-grandchildren. He was preceded in death by a son, Donald Puckett, in 2003.

1955Lola Jewel Anderson Cleere, 78, died March 3,

2011, in San Angelo. She was born Oct. 18, 1932, inLubbock. She married B.E. Cleere in 1954 and moved toOzona, where she taught first grade in the Ozona publicschools. She is survived by a son; a daughter; a brother,Gordon Anderson (’52); and three grandchildren.

Arlona (Ash) Barnes, 78, died Feb. 6, 2011, in Dallas. Among survivors are a husband, Harry A. BarnesJr.; two sons, Mark A. Barnes and Thomas A. Barnes; and a sister, Eula Jean (Ash ’62) McConal.

1957Dema (Atkins ’57) Lunsford, 75, died Aug. 15 in

Olney, Texas, after a lengthy illness. She was born Dec. 5,1935, in Galveston, Texas. She married Richard Lunsford(’55) June 7, 1955, and they moved from Throckmorton toOlney in 1964. She was a homemaker as well as directorand counselor for Camp Cousins, and a member ofNewcastle Church of Christ. She and Richard madepossible The Quiet Place in the Mabee Business Building(opened in 1986) and the Onstead-Packer Biblical StudiesBuilding (1989). Each features quiet, comfortable roomsfor individual or small-group devotion and reflection,furnished and decorated by their family. Led by their son, Holt, the Lunsfords also chose to help provide theLunsford Foundation Trail (2006) to contribute to theCentennial Campaign and provide a lasting enhancementfor the campus and the student body. The more than two-mile-long trail encircles ACU and provides a convenient venue for students, faculty, staff and neighbors to exercise outdoors. Survivors include herhusband, Richard; three sons, Raymond Lunsford (’79),Holt Lunsford (’85) and Will Lunsford (’89); twodaughters, Lynette (Lunsford ’81) Nelson and Lisa Lunsford (’83); a brother, Dick Atkins; 16 grandchildren; and five great-grandchildren.

1958Nancy Culpepper Hill, 73, died Oct. 16, 2009.

She was born Oct. 8, 1936, in Dallas. She is survived by herhusband, Jack Hill (’55); two sons, Larry Hill (’84) andGary Hill; 10 grandchildren; and four great-grandchildren.

Mary Janice Vanderveer Smith, 75, died May 29,2011, in Sparks, Nev., one day after her 75th birthday. She was born May 28, 1936, in Bell County, Texas. Sheearned an associate’s degree from Temple College and abachelor’s degree in elementary education from ACU. Shemarried Dan Smith in 1959 and accompanied him throughhis 52-year career with the Army. She taught special ed,homebound and pre-school children and was a belovedBible class teacher. She was preceded in death by herparents, Alpha and Avis Vanderveer, and two brothers,Gene and Bobby Don Venderveer. Among survivors are her husband, Dan; four daughters, D’Lea (Vanderveer)McDaniel; Danni (Vanderveer) Zavadil, Lydia(Vanderveer ’86) Towell; Cheri (Vanderveer) Hadsell;eight grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.

1959Don Allen Colby, 74, died May 1, 2011. He is

survived by his wife, Jane Colby (’62); a daughter, Karen (Colby ’83) Oxford; a brother, Ted Colby (’57);two sisters, Betty Ruth Colby (’55) and Marilyn(Colby ’63) Williams; and three grandsons.

Carter H. Compton, 73, died Feb. 15, 2011, in Waco.He was born Aug. 20, 1937, in Abilene. Carter worked asan insurance agent for many years and served on theboards of various civic organizations, as well as ACU andHarding University. He is survived by his wife, Tanya; threedaughters, Kelly (Compton ’83) Livingston, Kathy(Compton ’84) Carroll and Christy (Compton ’86)Embry; two sons, Carter Compton II and ClayCompton (’91); and 10 grandchildren.

Mack Osborne, 73, died Jan. 20, 2011. He was bornOct. 20, 1937, in Mineral Wells and grew up in Lubbock.He served in the Marine Corps from 1957-63. Mackworked as a real estate agent and was involved in severalcivic organizations. He is survived by his wife, AlisanOsborne; his father; a brother, David Osborne (’64); a sister, Cindy (Osborne ’74) Darilek; a son; a daughter; and six grandchildren.

1960Marion “Janeil” Ward Shultz, 75, died March 16,

2011. She was born July 22, 1935, in Fort Worth and grewup in Shreveport. La. She married James P. Shultz in 1972.She is survived by her husband; a stepdaughter; a stepson;a brother; and other relatives.

1961Nancy Ellen (Telchick) Edwards, 72, died April 26,

2011. She was born Jan. 2, 1939, in Lamb County, Texas.She married Jarrell Edwards in 1960 and they did missionwork in Brazil for three years before returning to cottonfarming in Borden County in 1972. She was a member of Abilene’s Hillcrest Church of Christ, and a talentedartist, potter, seamstress and cook. Survivors include her husband, Jarrell; a daughter Jana Lyn (Edwards ’85)Emerson; and three grandchildren.

1962Halton Lee Overall Jr., 77, died Dec. 2, 2010. He

was born Dec. 20, 1932, in Bowling Green, Ky. He retiredfrom the Texas Education Agency. Hal was preceded indeath by his wife, Nelda Jane (Reynolds ’59) Overall,and is survived by two daughters, Mary (Overall ’81)Smith and Laura (Overall ’84) McNeill; a son, AltonOverall (’87); and three grandchildren.

Gertie Jane Snodgrass Greer, 91, died Nov. 22,2010. She was born July 22, 1919, in Abilene. She was anavid softball player and bowler, and enjoyed gardeningwith her husband, James Greer. He preceded her in death.Gertie is survived by a niece, Helen Adcock, and a nephew,Jimmy Garvin.

1963Bobbie Jean Swinson Moore died Oct. 10, 2010.

She was active in the DAR in the Needlepoint Guild and inmissions work with her husband, Don Moore Sr. (’63).He survives her, as do two sons and a daughter.

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Thayne Henry Cuevas, 69, died Jan. 2, 2011, in San Antonio. He was born Dec. 4, 1941, in Honolulu, Hawaii.He married Betty Ruth Brown (’65) soon after his gradu-ation in 1963 and began an Air Force career in 1964 thatwould span 23 years before he retired as a major. He begananother career with Randolph-Brooks Federal Credit Union,retiring in 2009 as senior vice president of human resources.Cuevas served as an elder at Randolph Church of Christ inUniversal City and at Boerne Church of Christ. Amongsurvivors are his wife of 46 years, Betty; a daughter, Cynda(Cuevas ’89) Gibbs; two sons, James ChristopherCuevas (’87) and Chuck Cuevas (’91); 11 grandchildren;his mother, Flora Cuevas; and two sisters, Cindy Riggs and Mavo Hutchins. He was preceded in death by his father, Henry.

1964William “Reuben” Slone, 97, died March 31, 2011.

He was born April 21, 1913, near Zephyr and served in theArmy from 1931-60, including time as a POW during WorldWar II. He retired from the Army in 1960 as a lieutenantcolonel after 26 years of service. He married Oneita OlgaEwing Nov. 20, 1945, and they had been married 61 yearswhen she died in 2007. He earned a master’s degree inhistory with a minor in Bible from ACU and became a Bible teacher and missionary. His wife, Oneita, preceded him in death. Reuben is survived by a son, Bill Slone; a daughter, Melinda (Slone ’71 Worley); four grandchildren; and nine great-grandchildren.

1965Anthony Toubassi, 73, died Jan. 1, 2011. He was

born Feb. 10, 1937, in Jaffa, Israel. He was a graduate of The University of Texas at Austin and held an M.S.E.E.from Northwestern University and an M.B.A. from Fairleigh Dickinson University. He worked for Bell Labs, MCI and Sony Ericsson during his 40-year career in telecommunications. He is survived by his wife, Sandra(Dill ’65) Toubassi; two daughters; a son; two brothers;and five grandchildren.

1969Darlene (Handy) Voss, 63, died Dec. 25, 2010.

She was born May 31, 1947, in Bakersfield, Calif., andearned her B.A. in education from ACU. She married JamesVoss (’68) in 1968. Darlene worked as an elementaryschool teacher and reading specialist. She is survived by her husband, James; two sons, Bradley Voss (’93) andAshley Voss (’96); a sister, Pam (Handy ’65) Money;and five grandchildren.

William “Bryan” Meneer, 63, died Dec. 18, 2010, in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. He was born June 2, 1947. He married Susan Estes (’73) July 16, 1971. He served as a minister for Church of Christ congregations in West Toronto, Bayview, Fennell and Omagh, and as anelementary school teacher. He earned his M.A. in ancientchurch history from ACU in 1976. Among survivors are his wife, Susan; a son, Nathanael Meneer; two daughters,Rachel Meneer and Hilary Meneer; and two sisters, Donna Duxbury and Brenda (Meneer ’62) Griffin.

1977Linda Kay Limbach Stoneman, 61, died May 5,

2011, in Silt, Colo. She earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Northern Colorado and a master’s degreefrom ACU. She is survived by her husband, James “Jimmy”Stoneman and a son, Jebediah Limbach. She was precededin death by a son, Zachary Limbach.

1995Clinton “Travis” Bass, 38, died May 19, 2011, of

complications from ALS. He was born Aug. 2, 1972, inSeattle and played football at Boise State University andthen at ACU. He earned a J.D. from the University of Idahoand later worked as an attorney, managed Bass FamilyBusinesses and owned a catering company. He is survivedby his wife, Kim (Longbine ’96) Bass; his parents, Randy and Sheila Bass; two daughters; and one son.

1998Richard “Paul” Fitzgibbons, 34, died Aug. 12, 2010.

He was a native of Albany, Texas, and worked as

a dive supervisor for offshore oil field service companies. He is survived by his parents, Donald Fitzgibbons (’74)and Vicki McCaleb Wade (’76); a brother, DavidFitzgibbons (’04); and other relatives.

OTHER FRIENDSMonda Kay Alexander, 65, died May 28, 2011. She

was born Oct. 22, 1945, near Bradford, Tenn. Her careerincluded teaching, career and school counseling, computersales and corporate IT support. She is survived by threebrothers; various nephews and nieces; and other relatives.

David Kenneth Cox, 76, died April 28, 2011. Heserved in the Coast Guard. He is survived by his wife, Jane; two daughters; and two grandchildren.

Col. James Dillard Morgan, 90, died March 1, 2011,in San Antonio. He was born Aug. 10, 1920, in Monterey,Tenn. He served in the Air Force for 31 years, during WorldWar II and the Korean and Vietnam Wars, then served at thePentagon for many years. He is survived by his wife, BettyJoy Morgan; a brother; a nephew; and a niece.

Hugh Rice Mingle, 83, died Dec. 20, 2010, in FortWorth. He served in the Army during World War II, thenlater met and married Joy Smith (’70). They worked inmissions and higher education in the U.S., Germany andAustria. Hugh taught at ACU from 1966-70. He is survivedby his wife, Joy; four children; 14 grandchildren; and ninegreat-grandchildren.

Stella Watson Cosper, 83, died July 16, 2011, in Tucson, Ariz. She was born Sept. 11, 1917, in Merkel,Texas. She earned a bachelor’s degree in home economicseducation from the University of Arizona in 1941. She began teaching in Clifton, Ariz., retiring in 1980 afer 35years of service. She married Harvel H. Cosper in 1943. Shewas preceded in death by her husband, her parents, twosisters, a grandson, and an aunt, Oralie (Sandusky ’22)Hines. Among survivors are a daughter, Mayre C. Meyers, and one grandchild.

James E. Fulbright (’47), 88, died May 21 2011, in Abilene. He was a World War II hero who managedACU’s campus bookstores and ACU Press for 42 years.

A native of Gray County, Texas,Fulbright attended ACU beforeleaving in 1943 to serve in the Pacifictheatre of World War II. He wasawarded a Presidential Unit Citationfor “extraordinary heroism in actionagainst an armed enemy,” earnedduring the battles of Saipan andTinian while driving an armored

amphibious craft for the Army. Fulbright returned to ACUafter the war ended and met Frances Janet Gibson(’47) in a business law class. They married in 1948, andshe died in 2007. Fulbright began work at ACU in 1950 asmanager of the bookstore, an enterprise he coordinateduntil his retirement in 1992. He was named director ofbookstores, including Abilene Educational Supply, in 1985.His work at ACU Press included the publishing of hundredsof titles, including Great Songs of the Church and theJames Burton Coffman series of commentaries. James also was a popular Bible class teacher and minister forChurches of Christ in Olden, Clyde and Ballinger, as well ascongregations in Jones County. He preached for the HopeChurch of Christ for 19 years. Among survivors are a son,Dr. Timothy Fulbright (’76), and three grandchildren.

Vickie Jan Smith, longtime English teacher at ACU,died Feb. 5, 2011, after a brief battle with cancer. She was

born May 3, 1948, to James T. Smithand Vila Rae Sargent Smith. Afterearning her bachelor’s degree, sheworked in various managementcapacities with the JC PenneyCompany for 16 years. At age 40,she chose to change careers byearning a master’s degree andbecoming an English professor.

Smith began teaching full time at ACU in 1995 after

earning a bachelor’s degree from Midwestern StateUniversity and a master’s degree from ACU. She served aspresident of the Friends of the ACU Library in 1999. She issurvived by her mother, Vi Porterfield; her aunt and uncle; a cousin; and many friends, especially at Minda StreetChurch of Christ.

Waunette (Fitzgerald ’60) Shaver, 80, died Jan. 3, 2011, after a long illness. She married Dr. TommyShaver in 1949, and they were married 56 years prior to his death in 2005. Waunette earned a master’s degree ineducation in 1969 and taught in the Abilene IndependentSchool District before joining the faculty at ACU. Sheretired in 1992 as associate professor emerita of education after 22 years of service and finished much of her worktoward a doctorate at the University of North Texas.Tommy was a professor of Bible at ACU from 1955-95 and a pulpit minister in Abilene, Richardson, Burleson andGarland. The Shavers served many summers as volunteermissionaries in Vienna, Austria. Among survivors are a son,Guy Marcus Shaver (’78); a daughter, Sharla Denise(Shaver ’75) Wessler; and three grandchildren.

Phillip Bennett, 52, died Jan. 27, 2011. Born Aug. 5, 1958, in Fort Worth, he was an irrigation technicianin ACU’s landscape and grounds department from

2000-11. He was a member of the Cottonwood (Texas) HistoricalAssociation Board. He married SheriBrown on Feb. 14, 1981. Amongsurvivors are four sons, MichaelBennett, Andrew Bennett, Cpl. EliasBennett and L.Cpl. Zachary Bennett;a daughter, Brittany Bennett; andfour brothers.

Dr. Leo Edwin “Doc” DuBose (’52), 80, died May 28, 2011, in Abilene. He taught animal sciences andmentored award-winning judging teams at ACU for 41years, and retired as professor emeritus of agriculture. Doc was born in 1931 in Gonzales, Texas, and earned hisbachelor’s degree in animal science from ACU, his master’s

degree in animal science andnutrition from South Dakota StateUniversity and his Ph.D. in animalbreeding and statistics from TexasA&M University. He also studiedcomputer programming at theUniversity of Louisiana at Lafayettein 1960 and mathematics at theUniversity of Arkansas in 1962,

both while a fellow of the National Science Foundation. He joined the ACU faculty in 1965 and officially retired in1993, but continued to teach classes until 2006. He wasnamed in 1988 to the National Collegiate LivestockCoaches’ Hall of Fame. DuBose married Florene Joy Adams in 1951, and she died in 1984. Survivors includeJean DuBose, his wife of 23 years; sons Dr. CliftonDuBose (’76) and Charles DuBose (’84); a daughter,Karen (DuBose) Buckles; eight grandchildren; and fivegreat-grandchildren.

Dr. Lee Roger Knight (’52), 80, died June 13, 2011,in Tyler. He was born July 19, 1930, in Malvern, Ark. Hegraduated from Baylor College of Medicine in 1955 andcompleted residencies in pathology and surgery at theUniversity of Arkansas. He was a major in the ArmyMedical Corps. Knight served on ACU’s Board of Trusteesfor 31 years, and was a deacon and elder for the WestErwin Church of Christ. Knight served as the teamphysician for John Tyler High School for 22 years, and forTyler College. He was preceded in death by his parents andtwo brothers, Felix Daniel Knight Jr. and his twin, JamesRonald Knight (’52). Among survivors are his wife,Janeal (Rutledge ’52); two sons, Paul RutledgeKnight (’79) and Grant Thompson Knight (’79); twodaughters, Amy (Knight ’89) Lowery and Lee Andrea(Knight ’81) North; 11 grandchildren (five of whom areACU alumni and one who is a current student); and twobrothers, Lewis Thompson Knight (’49) and WilliamDean Knight.

ACU Remembers: James Fulbright, Vickie Smith, Phillip Bennett, Waunette Shaver, Dr. Edwin DuBose, Dr. Roger Knight

A C U T O D A Y � S u m m e r 2 0 1 1 6 3

Dr. Cheryl Mann Bacon (’76) is professor and chair of the Department ofJournalism and Mass Communication.

In my mind, Prickly Pearwill never be a cactus or a jar of jelly. It’s the book. Always, “the book.” For the better part of 30 years, the book was part of my life, in the same way that aging football coaches with bad knees call“the game” a part of theirs. A move during high school fromColorado to Texas nixed my chance to edit the Arapahoe HighSchool Calumet, so I set my sights on the Prickly Pear even before enrolling as a freshman. I wore many hats, from annoyingfreshman flunky to copy writer, page designer, section editor,editor-in-chief, adviser and finally the department chair whoclosed the cover on ACU’s Prickly Pear, a role I never could have envisioned. I was, after all, a yearbook junkie. The reading room at Taylor Publishing Company in Dallas,lined floor to ceiling on all four walls with custom embossed andfoiled yearbooks from high schools and universities nationwide,was my favorite stop on the dozen or more annual factory tours I took with Pear staffs. Only the mechanized RubeGoldberg-esque binding machine rated a close second. In my youth I pored over my father’s Prickly Pears (1938-41)so many times I knew where to find old pictures of Dr. John C. Stevens (’38) and Garvin Beauchamp (’41) and whose motherhad been a class beauty. I could describe the covers of at least adecade’s worth of books before my own. I was a fountain of ACU student life trivia. In the 1970s, selling yearbooks was as simple as handing outthe requisite data punch cards as students registered for classes in Moody Coliseum. By the end of the day our budget was made.Everyone wanted a Pear. Everyone came to have a class picturetaken – and even dressed for the event. All the clubs anddepartments and teams stood in rows, or later in carefullychoreographed arrangements, for group pictures. Each fall,echoes of bindings cracking open for the first time filled the air as lines stretched 10-20 eager readers deep from the old ticket windows since replaced by the Hilton Food Court. Prickly Pear sales remained strong through the 1980s and early ’90s, even as other universities began to drop yearbooksbecause of lack of interest. The trend would not hold, however.Production realities increased the price of the book even asdemand declined, a sad phenomenon an economist colleaguecalls a death spiral. As budgets shrank, so did the size of the book. By the late ’90s, all-out marketing efforts were required to sell 500 smaller books to about 20 percent of theundergraduate student body. By percentage, our sales dwarfed those of the almightyCactus at The University of Texas at Austin, the perpetually burnt orange behemoth of a yearbook and its equally amazingbudget that was the envy of yearbook advisers and editorsnationwide. By 2008, the decline of the Cactuswas actuallymaking headlines as roughly 95 percent of the Longhorns were saying “no thanks” to what articles described as a huge,expensive book full of pictures of people they didn’t know. I don’t know how long the Cactus will persist, butin the summer of 2007, I decided the 2008 Prickly Pearwould be our last. If we couldn’t sell it, we couldn’t afford it.Rachel (Davis ’08) Swearingen would be the last nameon a list of editors that began in 1916 with Bellah Philpot. No one came pounding on our door in Fall 2008, demanding

to buy a yearbook. Still, when Fall 2009 arrived, we bracedfor phone calls – and we got one. Only one. My beloved andlost Prickly Pear hadn’t gone out with a bang or a whimper It expired in complete silence, and I held the pillow. Academically, the decision was sound, and in my velvet tam I don’t regret it; in my green eyeshade, it still causes me pain. For the last 30 years of its existence, the yearbook found its homein the Department of Journalism and Mass Communication as a valid professional laboratory for students whose journalisticinterests leaned toward book or magazine publishing and design.That role grew hard to defend as students increasingly neededexperience in online rather than hardbound media to prepare for their careers. Class reunion planners, fundraising officers, librarians, lovers of ACU history and pictures and people bemoaned theloss. But the students didn’t even notice. It would be easy to blame the fatality on social media:Facebook and the like. Social media fascinate me for some of the same reasons I loved yearbooks; there’s something to besaid for being able to peruse friends’ photos, news and philosophyof varying quality in real time rather than waiting 12 months for the bound version.

Ultimately, however, I don’t think Facebook killed the PricklyPear. Sales began to ebb more than a decade before the socialmedia whirlwind as the unfairly but much-maligned Gen-Xersreached college age. A generation known for their creativity andpragmatism, they were not much on sentiment. And a yearbook is the most sentimental of histories. If newspapers are the firstrough draft of history, yearbooks were the first sentimentalreflection of its impact. Facebook may replace yearbooks for this generation, but it didn’t plot the demise. Today's students still collect memories and photos and swappithy wisdom – on each others' walls. ACU is making the most of the phenomenon with a robust social media strategy to helpfuture students get acquainted long before they move into thedorms. At a recent Passport student-parent orientation, mydaughter and I were chatting – in person – with some otherparents waiting for their daughter. As soon as she arrived the girls immediately recognized one another. They began chattingweeks earlier – on Facebook. Part of Facebook's magic is allowing members to look ahead with new friends to a shared future. I like that. In Spring 1975 I penned my editor’s note for the only silver,Mylar-bound yearbook ever embossed with the words PricklyPear. I thought that was so cool. On page 330, reversed out of black in 12 pt. Helvetica, complete with two unfortunatethat/which errors that would cost my students today 5 pointseach, I wrote:

A yearbook is a strange entity. It is assigned the impossibletask of recording for thousands of students one year of theirlives, how they spent it, who they knew and what influencedthem. … If within these covers, you find just one page whichcauses you to pause and reflect on some moment worthremembering, some moment which might otherwise have been forgotten, then we have met our challenge successfully.

I think Facebook can handle the first part. It will be up to theclasses of ’09 and beyond to decide whether sentimental historiesare best captured in the ether instead of ink.�

S e c o n dGLANCEBy Dr. Cheryl Mann Bacon

6 4 S u m m e r 2 0 1 1 � A C U T O D A Y

Requiem for an old friend: the Prickly Pear

Louise “Dewby” (Adams ’50) RayThe daughter of dean emeritus Dr. Walter H. Adams, Dewby served as

alumni director, executive director of the Parents Association, sponsor ofGATA women’s social club, and founding president of Women for ACU.

ACU owes a tremendous debt of gratitude to its emeriti, the distinguished group of retiredfaculty and staff members who collectively have dedicated hundreds of years of service to students and alumni.

Such dedication and investment are inspirationalto each of us, and you probably have your own story of how a longtime faculty or staff member changed your life through his or her teaching, counsel or mentoring.

Though they are now retired – and some have evenstopped working! – their dedication continues. Manycontinue to support ACU’s students with annual gifts tothe Exceptional Fund, participation in capital campaignsand making plans to include ACU in their ultimate gifts.

If you would like to follow in their footsteps by setting up a charitable gift annuity or trust, or including Abilene Christian in your will, The ACU Foundationprovides information and assistance to friends of theuniversity without cost or obligation.

Now’s your chance to join our emeriti in helping future generations receive a life-changingChristian education!

GIFT ANNUITY RATES ARE UP!

Single-Life Rates Two-Life Rates

65 5.3% 65/65 4.7%

75 6.5% 75/75 5.7%

85 8.4% 85/85 7.4%Rates recommended by the American Council on Gift Annuities. Specific rates for interim and disparate ages are available on our website.

LegacyE M E R I T I C R E AT E A

facebook.com/abilenechristian facebook.com/ACUsports twitter.com/ACUedu twitter.com/ACUsportsGARY RHODES

Abilene Christian UniversityACU Box 29132Abilene, Texas 79699-9132

ADDRESS SERVICE REQUESTED

Nonprofit Org.U.S. Postage

PAIDAbilene Christian

University

2011Wildcat Preview Days .......... September 10, October 22, December 10 2011 National ACT Test Dates ...... September 10, October 22, December 10 Lone Star Football Festival at Cowboys Stadium .................... September 17106th Annual Summit ........................................................ September 18-21Family Weekend ................................................................ September 23-24

2011 National SAT Test Dates ............ October 1, November 5, December 3Homecoming ......................................................................... October 13-16December Commencement ..................................................... December 162012Wildcat Preview Days ............................. February 11, April 14, June 9 Sing Song ............................................................................. February 17-18

C O M I N G U P

Just DuckyAlpha Chi Omega’s director,Arielle Collier, led her women’ssocial club’s entry in the 55th annual Sing Song, performed Feb. 18-19, 2011. Because ofconstruction on the Royce andPam Money Student Recreationand Wellness Center, groupsstaged in a tent in the parkinglot north of Moody Coliseum,rather than Scruggs Gym, theirlongtime pre-show hangout.

Documents

ACU Today Summer 2011