ACU Today Summer-Fall 2016

A CU T ODAY

Summer-Fall 2016

A bilene Chr isti a n Uni v er sit y

Junior Achievement Talented quartet of student-athletes leads the Wildcats to new heights in NCAA Division I

Max Lucado Collection

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Alumni Awards

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Gravitational Waves

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Vision in Action

From the PRESIDENT

ACU Today is published twice a year by the Office of University Marketing at Abilene Christian University, Abilene, Texas.

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ne of the great joys in my role is seeing graduates in action in their chosen professions. I recently

J’LYN EMERSON

had the privilege to volunteer for a few days in the life-changing work at LiveBeyond in Haiti and was amazed at what I saw.

There, David M. Vanderpool Jr., M.D. (’82) and his wife, Laurie (Stallings ’81), coordinate an effective Schubert and a new friend in Haiti. ministry providing medical and maternal health care, clean water, education, and support for orphans and other at-risk Haitians still recovering from devastating earthquakes six years ago. They are joined there by Christians from around the world, many with ACU degrees or roots.

This issue of our magazine provides more proof of the ways our students, faculty, staff and alumni make a real difference in the world. Among them: • Outstanding Alumnus of the Year Dr. H. Jeff Kimble (’71) and other exemplary alumni award winners.

• Associate professor of physics and engineering Dr. Josh Willis (’97) and others involved in a history-making science discovery.

• Minister and best-selling author Max Lucado (’77), who donated to Brown Library the entire collection of papers and other artifacts from his career.

• Student-athletes on our women’s basketball team, led by head coach Julie Goodenough, who are helping lead ACU to new heights in NCAA Division I.

I especially encourage you to read “Is It Worth It?” on pages 36-39, a look at what we have been doing to make the cost of a quality college degree affordable for students and families, and worth their investment.

Abilene Christian has become known as one of the top innovators in higher education, and we’ve applied that expertise to our annual block tuition program, which allows students to graduate in less time, saving up to $17,500 on their overall cost and reducing debt after graduation. More than half of our students are now taking advantage of this opportunity to earn a degree in as little as three and a half years, entering the job market sooner and maximizing their time while living and learning at ACU. Our students deserve that kind of affordable access. Why? Our world needs to hear the Good News of Jesus more today than ever before. It needs to see the Gospel lived out in lives of purposeful leaders who serve in homes, businesses, churches and the many kinds of communities around us.

It needs highly educated Christian men and women to model teamwork and innovation through an unrelenting passion for excellence. It needs godly, prayerful people who exemplify integrity, speak truth and use God’s Word to guide their steps. Our world needs more Abilene Christian graduates.

I believe in ACU and in those who personify and carry out our mission each day. Thank you for believing in us and joining us in the greatest of endeavors. We succeed because of God’s favor and your generous support.

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

Editor: Ron Hadfield (’79) Assistant Editor: Robin (Ward ’82) Saylor Associate Editor: Katie (Noah ’06) Gibson Sports Editor: Lance Fleming (’92) Contributing Writers This Issue: Paul A. Anthony (’04), Grant Boone (’91), Sarah Carlson (’06), Judy Chambers, Katie (Noah ’06) Gibson, Chris Macaluso, Deana (Hamby ’93) Nall Contributing Photographers This Issue: Bill Albrecht, Terri Aldriedge, Shawn Best, Paul Bryan (’05), Steve Butman, Richard Carson, Dr. Neal Coates (’87), Joel Coleman, Lindsey (Hoskins ’03) Cotton, Ralph Duke, J’Lyn Emerson (’11), Jeremy Enlow, Genine Esposito, Gerald Ewing, Jason Flynn, Bre Heinrich (’16), Rachael Hubbard, David Gordon, Jason Jones, Rendi (Young ’83) Hahn, Bambi Kiser, Brady Lane (’05), David Leeson (’78), Kim Leeson, Guy “Mojo” Lewis (’80), Ty Maddox (’92), David Mayes, Clyde Morgan (’48), Tim Nelson, Clark Potts (’53), Leah Rama (’13), Dr. Sally (Johnston ’69) Reid, Gary Rhodes (’07), Garner Roberts (’70), Jeff Rogers (’02), Alicia Sankar, Stephanie Sariles (’16), Bryan Stewart, Ben Walnick, Adam Wesley, Cade White (’88), Paul White (’68), Rick Yeatts Contributing Graphic Designers This Issue: Greg Golden (’87), Ashlyne Lanza (’16), Todd Mullins, Amy Willis Proofreaders: Paul A. Anthony (’04), Vicki Britten, Amber (Gilbert ’99) Bunton, Rendi (Young ’83) Hahn, Scott Kilmer (’01), Bettye (McKinzie ’48) Shipp

ADVISORY COMMITTEE Administration: Suzanne Allmon (’79), Dr. Gary D. McCaleb (’64), Dr. Robert Rhodes Advancement: Jim Orr, J.D. (’86); Billie Currey, J.D. (’70), Sarah Carlson (’06) Alumni Relations: Craig Fisher (’92), Jama (Fry ’97) Cadle, Samantha (Bickett ’01) Adkins Marketing: Jason Groves (’00) Student Life: Chris Riley, J.D. (’00), Prentice Ashford (’13) Ex-officio: Dr. Phil Schubert (’91)

CORRESPONDENCE ACU Today: hadfieldr@acu.edu ACU Alumni Association: alumni@acu.edu Record Changes: ACU Box 29132, Abilene, Texas 79699-9132, 325-674-2620

ON THE WEB Abilene Christian University: acu.edu ACU Today Blog: acu.edu/acutoday Address changes and EXperiences: acu.edu/alumni/whatsnew/update.html ACU Advancement Office (Exceptional Fund, Gift Records): acu.edu/give ACU Alumni Website: acu.edu/alumni Find Us on Facebook: facebook.com/abilenechristian facebook.com/acusports Follow Us on Twitter: twitter.com/acuedu twitter.com/acusports Follow Us on Instagram: instagram.com/acuedu instagram.com/acualumni

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Horizons Junior Achievement Max Lucado Collection 2016 Alumni Awards Making Waves ACU Dallas Campus Opens Vision in Action Update Is It Worth It? Making ACU Affordable 2016 Homecoming 42 ACU 101

44 #ACU

46 The Bookcase 48 Hilltop View 52 Academic News

A Red Admiral butterfly rests on a purple coneflower in one of the butterfly gardens on campus in May 2016. (Photograph by Rendi Hahn)

ON THE COVER

Junior standouts Lizzy Dimba, Sydney Shelstead, Alexis Mason and Suzzy Dimba powered the women’s basketball team to a 26-4 record, a conference title and its first Postseason and Preseason WNIT bid. (Photograph by Jeremy Enlow)

56 Campus News 60 Wildcat Sports 65 Your Gifts at Work 66 EXperiences 80 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

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HORI Z ONS Sing Song founder Hunter celebrated during 60th show He’s been there for all of ’em.

Dr. Robert D. “Bob” Hunter (’52), founder of ACU’s annual Sing Song musical variety show, was front and center at the conclusion of the recent 2016 edition, the 60th staging of the show he created while serving as Abilene Christian’s first alumni director. Still spry at age 87, he’s now vice president emeritus. As the fount of creative thinking behind a long string of university traditions, Hunter will have a hard time claiming any as enduring as the singing competition each February involving more than 1,500 students and attracting audiences of more than 10,000 to Moody Coliseum.

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At a Feb. 20, 2016, reception for Sing Song hosts, hostesses and directors from the past 60 years, Dr. Robert D. “Bob” Hunter uses his ever-present camera to capture images of the event unfolding around him. He attended with his daughter, Carole (Hunter ’81) Phillips and other family members.

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See Bonus Coverage at acu.edu/acutoday

G. NEWMAN LOWRANCE

RIGHT Hunter sings The Lord Bless You and Keep You with students including (left) senior Alyssa Timmons at the conclusion of Sing Song’s Saturday night show in Moody Coliseum.

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The Hunter family: Les (’86), Kent (’79), Shirley, Bob (’52) and Carole (Hunter ’81) Phillips.

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Event founder Dr. Robert D. “Bob” Hunter (’52) shares memories of prior performances at the Sing Song 60th Anniversary Celebration Reception on Feb. 20, 2016.

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Gayla (Null ’86) McClain and her daughter, ACU junior Mollee McClain, enjoy looking through Sing Song historical items at the Sing Song 60th Anniversary Celebration Reception.

Guests take photos with camera phones of the Sing Song Historical Timeline mural at the reception.

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Guests at the Sing Song 60th Anniversary Celebration Reception sing together.

Reception guests included (from left) Tiffany (Touchstone ’97) Hawkins, Jason O’Quinn (’99); Chris Riley, J.D. (’00); and Sherri Scott (’96).

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Dr. Robert D. “Bob” Hunter (’52) greets former Sing Song hostess Lisa (Layne ’89) Herndon and her son, Holt Herndon, an ACU junior, at the reception on Feb. 20, 2016.

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Decorations at the reception included Delta Theta and Sigma Theta Chi headwear from Sing Song 2011, among other costumes and props.

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Hosts and hostesses (from left) Gabrielle Thompson, Jonathan Steffins, Sarah Yarbrough, Ryan Woods, Lauren Milam and Josh Alexander perform a Sing Song version of “At the Hop.”

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Sing Song dancers Lauren Maloy and Christian Zehr (with Christian Winter in the background) add some motion to the show’s opening number.

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Hostess Gabrielle Thompson performs her rendition of Alicia Keyes’ “Empire State of Mind.”

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Martian members of the freshman class relax before performing “Close Encounters of the Freshman Kind.” This year marked the second in which freshmen had two class acts in Sing Song, each filling the stage to capacity with 100 singers.

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The Women of Sigma Theta Chi warm up to perform as Dr. Seuss’ Cindy Lou Who in “The Who Girl in Town.”

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The women of Alpha Kai Omega reveal their patriotic spirit as Rosie the Riveter in “We Can Sing It!”

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(Inset) GATA members Mykaela Lara, Emily Sears and Traci Bricka hold the trophy as Women’s Division winner.

The women of GATA celebrate after hearing their club name called as overall winner in the 2016 Women’s Division. They portrayed pieces of coal becoming diamonds in New York’s finest jewelry stores in “Diamonds Are a GATA’s Best Friend.”

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Freshman Martians perform “Close Encounters of the Freshman Kind” as extra-terrestrials, complete with kitchen colanders on their heads to mimic space helmets.

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Freshmen from the “Saved by the Blue Bell” act celebrate after hearing their group announced as best in vocal competition.

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Freshmen sing of the joy their favorite ice cream brings in “Saved by the Blue Bell.”

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The men of Gamma Sigma Phi performed as mailmen walking the town in “Signed, Stamped, Delivered” in Sing Song 2016.

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Dr. Robert D. “Bob” Hunter leads Sing Song’s traditional closing song, “The Lord Bless You and Keep You,” to conclude the event’s Saturday night show in Moody Coliseum.

Joining him (from left) are freshman class director Trey Dennis, Sing Song co-chairs Alyssa Timmons and Amy Sloan, with Mikaela Waitman in the background. Hunter wears a medal as inaugural recipient of the Encore Award, which will be given each year at the discretion of the director to an entity or individual making significant contributions to the university through Sing Song.

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HORI Z ONS Lucille Ball and George Burns showed the Class of 1986: There’s no business like Sing Song show business

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The creativity of the ACU Class of 1986 in its four appearances in Sing Song knew few bounds. Neither did the chutzpah of its director, Les Hunter (’86). The class was known for its innovative costuming and performances, and made history with the first clean sweep of overall mixed-voices awards, winning all four years (1983-86), with no ties. Hunter thought he could inspire his classmates by inviting I Love Lucy namesake Lucille Ball to attend and watch their sophomore-year performance in 1984 as Lucy and her TV husband, Ricky Ricardo, in “We Love Lucy.” Ball could not attend, but the red-haired comedy icon sent a classic Western Union Mailgram that Hunter – who shares a birthdate with her – read to the group as it was about to go on stage for the Saturday night show.

In 1986, Hunter contacted the agent of another famous comedian, George Burns, who had played the lead in a series of three Oh, God! movies (1976-84) in which he portrayed The Man Upstairs.

As seniors, Hunter’s class portrayed Adam and Eve in “Couple No. 1,” and again the group was motivated to hear Burns’ letter read and good wishes shared before hitting the stage. “Les never talked about winning,” said Hunter’s assistant director, Dodd Roberts (’86).

“It was always about having fun.

And we never really thought about the competition until dress rehearsal.” By the time the class hit the stage in Moody Coliseum, it was ready to wow the judges.

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HORI Z ONS ChapelBat is alive and well, and flying high on Twitter Thanks to vampire movies, bats can get a bad rap. There are more than 30 species of them in the Lone Star State, and the truth is the appearance of a Mexican free-tailed bat is bad news only to mosquitoes and other night bugs otherwise enjoying life in West Texas. But when one shows up occasionally in Moody Coliseum, people tend to react with something between amusement and horror. Bats have appeared in Moody since it opened in 1968, creating a bit of a sideshow at times during Commencement, Chapel, Sing Song and various sporting events. The Feb. 13, 2016, women’s basketball game between ACU and McNeese State University was delayed briefly while one buzzed Dee Nutt Court.

Gameday staff wielded cardboard boxes, fishing nets, badminton rackets and other props in an effort to bring order to the chaos. After a few awkward, unresolved chase scenes, the mammal retreated to its roost in the rafters and the game played on.

Creative ACU students have initiated a Twitter handle for @ChapelBat, where you can follow the dialogue about Bruce and Stellaluna, two beloved bats they have named and whose appearance they cheer. Read more at #ACU on pages 44-45.

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A Moody Coliseum bat evades capture by McNeese women’s basketball team manager April Broussard during the ACU-McNeese women’s basketball game on Feb. 13.

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See Bonus Coverage at acu.edu/acutoday (From left) Lizzy Dimba, Sydney Shelstead, Alexis Mason and Suzzy Dimba

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S, T A C D WIL TO R A E D-Y VE R I O H M T S ’ R ACU FOU TO T R M A A T E S T IR MP E U H J T 6 O 1 D T E 5 D 1 R E 0 E T 2 I W RECRU VISION I, PO SEASON INR A N T B O O N E LA DI L

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he most important day in the brief history of ACU women’s basketball as an NCAA Division I program may have actually come more than seven months before the transition began.

On Nov. 15, 2012, head coach Julie Goodenough – in her first season with the Wildcats – announced on acusports.com her first recruiting class, which would also be the first group of freshmen in the D-I era.

The webpage reads like prophecy, Old Testament text presaging a promising inheritance those players would help reap: “I have enjoyed following the Dimbas the past couple of years and watching them grow as basketball players and leaders,” Goodenough said at the time.

“They are really strong rebounders and back-to-the-basket scorers, who have now developed 3-point range as well. Their athleticism, combined with their intensity, allow them to be lock-down defenders.”

McKinney North High School head coach Michael Oldham said he admired his top player as

she signed with ACU. “Alexis Mason makes everyone around her better, in the classroom, on the court and in the community.

She’s a true winner,” Oldham said.

Sydney Shelstead said she was excited about making ACU her new home. “I like the atmosphere at ACU, and I love the opportunity I have to create a stronger relationship with Christ,” Shelstead said. “I love the people and the campus, and it’s a bonus that they offer such a successful engineering program.

Most importantly the coaches and players at ACU make me feel part of a family.”

Impact players from day one, those four recruits – twins Suzzy and Lizzy Dimba,

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N O S A M PLAYER OF THE YEAR

524 143 73

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STEALS 55 BLOCKS 6 3-POINTERS 89 MINUTES (AVG.) 32.1

77 FT%

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Sydney Shelstead, and Alexis Mason – have been cornerstones of ACU’s three seasons in Division I, the most recent of which included a Cinderella run that ended with anticipation of an even brighter future.

This quartet’s confluence at ACU has its beginnings in South Carolina, where Goodenough was head coach at Charleston Southern University from 2008-12. As a West Texas native who grew up in Haskell, played collegiately for two years in Snyder and coached for nine years at Hardin-Simmons University in Abilene, Goodenough’s network of coaches and contacts kept her clued in on her home state’s most promising players. Even from 1,200 miles away, she had one eye on each of the Kenya-born, Lubbock-raised Dimba twins, who starred in basketball and volleyball at Coronado High School, and offered them a scholarship to CSU. “The Dimbas were advertised as a package deal from their TI sophomore year on,” M NE L SO N Goodenough said. “They were always so fun to talk to on the phone, but it was obvious South Carolina was too far away.”

When Goodenough came to ACU as head coach in 2012, she brought that offer to the Dimbas with her.

And with the postage on that package deal just two hours away instead of two days, the twins’ interest level spiked.

Mason was a bit of a sister act, as well. She had an older sibling, Amanda, playing Division I ball at the University of Tulsa. The scuttlebutt among college coaches was that little sis could be even better.

At Goodenough’s first ACU summer camp, she finally saw Mason up close.

“I didn’t need to see her for very long,” Goodenough recalls,

“Our sales pitch to this group, along with ‘ACU is awesome’ and ‘We’re going to win a lot of games,’ was, ‘You will be the class that will forever be the foundation of Division I basketball at ACU. You will basically create the Division I record book at ACU.’ ” – Julie Goodenough

“to realize she was a special, skilled player.

She was one of the best scorers (for her summer league team) at most tournaments. It was so fun overhearing comments (from other coaches) like, ‘Why would Mason already commit to a Division II school?’ ” Before they were teammates at ACU, Shelstead played with Mason on that summer league squad, the Texas Fire. Even on a roster that included the towering Klara Bradshaw, a 6-foot-6 center who would go on to start as a freshman at Texas Christian University, Shelstead stood out.

“Sydney was tough as nails that summer,” Goodenough said.

“Scorer, hard worker, physical rebounder. Sydney outplayed Klara every game that summer in front of coaches from all

SHAWN BEST

around the Big 12 Conference.”

Fittingly, the Dimbas, Mason and Shelstead all arrived on campus the same weekend for their official visits.

“Our sales pitch to this group,” Goodenough recounts, “along with, ‘ACU is awesome,’ and, ‘We’re going to win a lot of games,’ was, ‘You will be the class that will forever be the foundation of Division I basketball at ACU. You will basically create the Division I record book at ACU.’ ” Goodenough needed to be sales-pitch perfect because what she, unfortunately, couldn’t promise those players was an opportunity to compete in the Southland Conference or NCAA tournaments. Schools making the transition to a higher classification are required to wait four years before being eligible to win a national championship.

“They were not discouraged by not having a chance to play in the NCAA Tournament,” Goodenough says. “They knew they would have a chance to build something special and still win a regular-season title and go to other postseason tournaments.”

The four bought what Goodenough was selling. Mason had already decided to enroll after that ACU camp experience. Shelstead – for whom the prospect of helping build a program resonated as an engineering major – committed a few days later. The Dimbas said “yes” shortly before the beginning of the national signing period in November.

In the years since, Mason, Shelstead and the Dimbas have indeed been the foundation for one of the most successful transitions in NCAA history.

In 2013-14, the Wildcats’ first Division I season, the team posted an 18-12 record, highlighted by an early Christmas present the Dimba twins helped wrap on Dec. 22 in their hometown against the team for which they grew up rooting. Behind Suzzy’s

16 points and eight rebounds in the second half and Lizzy’s two free throws with three seconds left and subsequent steal, ACU shocked Big 12 Conference member Texas Tech University, 58-57.

The Wildcats went 8-6 in Southland games, good for a seventh-place showing that – had they been eligible – would have earned them one of eight spots in the league tournament. And they were first in the Southland in scoring.

Though the team leader was its only senior, Renata Marquez, this fabulous foursome of first-year players helped ACU finish second nationally in points scored by freshmen (1,228), behind only a University of North Carolina team that reached the Elite Eight. Suzzy was the team’s top rebounder (third in the conference) and shot blocker, and was named to the Southland’s All-Defensive Team. Mason started all 30 games, was second in scoring and led the league in 3-pointers made.

Lizzy and Shelstead were the top two in free throw attempts.

The second Division I season was nearly as successful as the first, and that fab four as sophomores led the way. A 17-12 record included wins over George Mason University and the University of Missouri-Kansas City in a Thanksgiving weekend tournament and a 36-point rout of the Air Force Academy just before Christmas. After a sluggish start to the conference season, the Wildcats wound up in eighth place in the league standings, which – as before – would have put them in the Southland tournament.

(Houston Baptist University, which finished ninth but received the last tournament spot because ACU was ineligible, made it all the way to the championship game.)

Shelstead, Suzzy, Mason and Lizzy were the team’s top four scorers, respectively. Suzzy and

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DIMBA ALL-CONFERENCE

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STEALS 75 BLOCKS 56 3-POINTERS 27 MINUTES (AVG.) 31.3

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Shelstead were named third team All-Conference. Suzzy led the league in steals and was again named to the All-Defensive Team. Shelstead was second in rebounding and was joined in the top 10 by the Dimbas. Mason had the highestscoring game of the season with 28 and led the team in scoring eight times.

By nearly any measure, 35 wins in a program’s first two seasons at college basketball’s highest level would constitute success.

But ACU’s Southland sisters were not impressed. In the 2015-16 preseason polls of both coaches and sports information directors, the Wildcats were picked to finish ninth among 13 teams.

That perceived slight added another drop of fuel to a fire smoldering since a season-ending loss that likely cost the Wildcats a bid to the Women’s Basketball Invitational tournament. With the entire roster back in addition to three freshmen, Goodenough challenged her team to prove the naysayers wrong and win the regular-season title.

Through the first six games, ACU was 4-2 with both losses coming to Big 12 schools on the road – Kansas State University and Texas Tech – a solid start but nothing to necessarily foretell the historic run that lay ahead. After the six-point loss in Lubbock on Dec. 2, the Wildcats wouldn’t lose again for two months.

That 14-game, 64-day winning streak featured road victories at Eastern Washington University, the University of Idaho and the University of Central Arkansas, each of which was the opponent’s first loss at home.

With that success came national recognition. In January, ACU reached No. 12 among the 349 Division I

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teams in the Ratings Percentage Index, a ranking system based on a team’s win-loss record and those of its opponents and opponents’ opponents. For a team like ACU in a conference of small universities, 12th is a preposterously high ranking and at the time had the Wildcats among women’s basketball powerhouses such as Baylor University and The University of Texas at Austin.

Later in that perfect month of January, ACU found itself for the first time in program history listed in the Women’s Mid-Major Top 25 Poll, a weekly ranking created by collegeinsider.com.

It wasn’t just that ACU was winning but how and by how much.

Boasting the best starting five in the league (the four juniors plus senior point guard Whitney Swinford), the Wildcats began the Southland season 9-0, winning every game by double digits and an average of more than 15 points. Among those were wins against the four teams they hadn’t beaten during their first two years in the league. And while contributions came from up and down the roster, Mason emerged as the primary

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scoring threat. She had at least 17 points in 15 straight games, set a new ACU record for 3-point field goals made in a season (89) and four times (three of them consecutively) earned the Southland’s Player of the Week award.

The Wildcats were nearly perfect in conference, losing only a Feb. 4 road game to preseason favorite Lamar University. And they needed to be. Central Arkansas kept winning, too, to remain on ACU’s heels just a game behind.

Then on Valentine’s Day the Wildcats were dealt a heartbreaking setback when Lizzy suffered a season-ending leg injury in a non-contact practice drill. They would play their final six games without their leading rebounder who had started 70 of the previous 71 games at power forward.

But like almost every other test ACU had faced, the team passed this one, too, finishing the season on an eight-game winning streak to clinch the Southland’s regular season title outright at 17-1. Goodenough was honored as conference Coach of the Year. Mason was Player of the Year. Suzzy earned second team All-Conference and a third straight appointment to the All-Defensive Team. Shelstead, who found time in

February to participate in Sing Song, made third team All-Conference.

Mason, Shelstead and Suzzy Dimba were named Southland All-Academic as well.

And, more important to a group whose rallying cry and season-long social media hashtag had been #TeamFirstWins, that first-place finish brought with it an automatic berth into the Women’s National Invitation Tournament, a 64-team postseason event for those who do not make the NCAA Tournament.

In a back-and-forth thriller on March 17, ACU fell to The University of Texas at El Paso, the team with the highest RPI among WNIT participants, 66-62. The best season in 20 years ended at 26-4, including an unblemished 14-0 mark at home.

The 2016-17 season will be the final one of ACU’s four-year transition period to Division I, and the senior year for this remarkable quartet. Despite the graduation of seniors Swinford and Paris Webb, opponents are not likely to ever take these Wildcats lightly again. ACU has experienced only success at the Division I level, largely because that 2012 prophecy was proven true.

“They are doing,” Goodenough says, “exactly what they came here to do.” 

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Bonus Coverage

GOODENOUGH FOR DIVISION I A relentless drive for excellence fuels ACU’s head coach and her talented student-athletes See Bonus Coverage at acu.edu/acutoday

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IVE R D S LES T N E L A RE ENCE FUELS ELL ER C H X E D N R FO CH A TES A O C E AD L E H H T A S ’ ENT A N T B O O N E ACU D U T S R ED

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ulie Goodenough and former ACU director of athletics Jared Mosley (‘00) share a March 25 birthday. When they blew out their candles in 2012, each granted the other’s wish.

On that day, the latter hired the former as head coach of the Wildcat women’s basketball team.

Goodenough’s gift was the opportunity to come home.

Born and raised 50 miles north of Abilene in Haskell, Goodenough

played two seasons at Western Texas College in Snyder before transferring to the University of Texas at Arlington for two more. In 1993, at the age of 24, she became head coach at Hardin-Simmons University in Abilene and led the Cowgirls to 188 wins and seven conference titles in nine seasons.

That success opened the door to the big-time world of collegiate athletics and three years as head coach at Oklahoma State University of the Big 12 Conference, where she matched wits with a pair of legends who are two of her heroes in the game, Texas Tech University’s Marsha Sharp and Jody Conradt at The University of Texas at Austin.

After OSU, Goodenough spent six years at a smaller NCAA Division I

program, Charleston Southern University in South Carolina, where she was when Mosley called.

In Goodenough, Mosley and ACU acquired a veteran leader, familiar with and eager to return to West Texas, who had witnessed nearly every stratum of basketball, from the junior college ranks as a player to Division III (HSU), to the upper echelon of the NCAA. In fact, Division II, ACU’s classification at the time she was hired, was about the only level with which Goodenough was unfamiliar.

“I was excited about the challenges of taking a Division II program into the Division I era,” Goodenough recalls. “The foundation of our program is in our mission statement: ‘Godly women striving for excellence.’ Our players have learned that often times that pursuit of excellence leads to success.”

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Julie Goodenough celebrates her team’s winning the 2015-16 Southland Conference regular-season title with team members (from left) Alyssa Echols (2), Sierra Allen (22), Whitney West Swinford and Lizzy Dimba.

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successful ACU women’s basketball would be under her guidance. Just four seconds into Goodenough’s first conference game as head coach (and third overall), Sadie Dickinson drilled a 3-pointer to put ACU ahead of West Texas A&M University. Dickinson would make another in that first minute and two more of the team’s total of 10 treys that night in an 81-76 road victory against the Wildcats’ then-archrival.

Those long-range bombs were worth more than just three points apiece in that game; they were effectively shots across the bow at the rest of the Lone Star Conference, signaling a new style of play that

would emphasize Goodenough’s offensive wish list.

“Every game,” Goodenough says, “we want 3-pointers, lay-ups and free throws.”

Her players obliged. After attempting just 287 3-point field goals the year before Goodenough arrived – only 16 of the 278 teams in Division II took fewer – ACU nearly made that many (236) during the 2012-13 season when it launched a whopping 712.

“As a player, the system is a blast!” says Katie Tull, who was the Big South Conference Player of the Year under Goodenough at Charleston Southern. “You get to go off of instincts and create plays for your

teammates and yourself. And let’s be honest, what player wouldn’t want to shoot a bunch of 3s?”

But it’s not all fun and games.

In fact, after the first season under Goodenough, six players who still had eligibility opted not to remain on the roster. The specific reasons varied, but for some, including Kynzie Newman, who left after her freshman year to focus on a growing interest in photography, the decision was based at least in part on the intensity of the commitment Goodenough demanded of them.

“She expects nothing less than excellence,” Newman asserts. “She pushes you to limits you didn’t think

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you were capable of reaching. She makes you do things that seem nearly impossible, but once you look back a week, a month, you realize how far you’ve come and what you are truly capable of accomplishing. She’s tough.

But that’s what makes her great.”

“She is hands-down the best coach I have ever played for,” adds Dickinson, who also left after Goodenough’s first season. “Her demands are high, but it is because her expectations are even higher.

She is confident in the potential of her players and gives them the tools to become their best. She demands this same expectation off the court.”

Like they did on the court, her players answered the call in the classroom. Three of the five starters – Alexis Mason (family studies major), Sydney Shelstead (engineering) and Suzzy Dimba (business management) – were named to the Southland Conference All-Academic Team.

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Overall, Goodenough’s players posted a collective grade point average during Fall 2015 of 3.44.

But the team member who may best exemplify Julie Goodenough’s program didn’t play a single minute this season. Hannah Snyder is a seventh grader at Albany Junior High School, about half an hour east of Abilene, who battles epilepsy and cerebral palsy and to whom the Wildcats were introduced through a non-profit organization called Team IMPACT. After meeting with the family, Goodenough added Snyder’s name to the roster and gave her the number 42.

“Hannah was looking for some role models,” Goodenough said at a press conference announcing the move, “and we were looking for a little sister to love on, so it’s been a lot of fun for us to get to know her.”

ACU women’s basketball is indeed a family affair. If you pop in

to Goodenough’s office, there is a good chance you’ll see her daughters, Bailey (an ACU junior this fall) and Macy (who will be a freshman), or those of associate head coach Erika Lambert. And rarely will Goodenough’s husband, Rob, or her parents, Conrad and Betty Roewe, miss a game at Moody Coliseum.

Goodenough will continue as head coach for at least four more birthdays.

Shortly after winning the Southland regular-season title in March, she signed a contract extension through the 2020 season, allowing her to continue to have her cake and eat it, too.

“I’m getting the chance to do what I’ve always wanted to do: coach basketball at the highest level at an intentionally Christian university in West Texas,” she says. “It’s a privilege and honor to be the head coach at ACU.” 

The Wildcats were 14-0 at home in Moody Coliseum in 2015-16. ACU’s 17 conference victories were a school record and the most by any Southland Conference team in league play since 2003.

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Goodenough’s 2015-16 team led the Southland Conference in seven statistical categories and was consistently ranked among the top 25 teams nationally in scoring, margin of victory, steals and 3-pointers made per game.

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A guard, Paris Webb was one of only two seniors on the 2015-16 Wildcat team.

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Swinford, one of only two ACU seniors on her team, shoots over Texas Tech University’s Ryann Bowser (4) and Zuri Sanders (30) in Lubbock.

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Whitney West Swinford’s defense helped set a pace for ACU in 2015-16. She blocked three shots each in November road wins over Eastern Washington University and the University of Idaho.

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Whitney West Swinford heads up court, pursued by Kansas State University’s Megan Deines in a Nov. 16, 2015, road game.

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Swinford guards Wayland Baptist University’s Shayla Monreal in a 96-71 season-opening win Nov. 14, 2015, in Moody Coliseum.

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Alexis Mason was the Wildcats’ leading scorer in 14 of their 30 games in 2015-16.

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Alexis Mason was voted women’s Player of the Year in the Southland Conference for 2015-16.

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Mason led the Wildcats in scoring with 17 points against Kansas State; her season average was 17.4 per game.

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Suzzy Dimba drives around McNeese State’s Jayln Johnson during ACU’s 79-62 win over the Cowgirls on Jan. 13, 2016, in Moody Coliseum.

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Dimba scored a season-high 25 points on Feb. 17, 2016, in a 71-65 win on the road over Texas A&M-Corpus Christi.

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Eighteen times during the 30-game 2015-16 season, Suzzy Dimba led her team in two or more of the following categories: points, rebounds, assists, steals and blocked shots.

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Suzzy Dimba (23) led the Wildcats in points, rebounds, assists, steals and blocked shots in their Dec. 2, 2015, game against Texas Tech University in her hometown of Lubbock.

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Suzzy Dimba’s twin sister, Lizzy (32), played 23 games before a knee injury ended her season in 2015-16.

Lizzy Dimba led the Wildcats in rebounding in 2015-16 with 7.8 per game, including 10 against Erica Young (2) and Kansas State on Nov. 16, 2015.

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Lizzy Dimba started all 23 games she played in 2015-16.

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Shelstead scored in double figures 21 times, including seven 20-point games.

Sydney Shelstead (33) ranked among the Southland Conference’s Top 10 leaders in rebounding, offensive rebounds, defensive rebounds, field-goal percentage and blocks.

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Sydney Shelstead (33) pulled down 11 rebounds and scored 11 points in an early-season loss to Big 12 Conference member Kansas State University in Manhattan, Kan.

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In 2015-16, Shelstead became the 21st women’s basketball player at ACU to score more than 400 points in a season.

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On March 17, 2016, the Wildcats made their first-ever appearance in the postseason Women’s National Invitation Tournament.

They drew the top-seeded Miners from The University of Texas at El Paso in a game in the raucous Don Haskins Center in El Paso. Forward Suzzy Dimba (23) goes up for a shot while guarded by UTEP’s Jenzel Nash. Dimba was the game’s leading scorer (17 points) and rebounder (15).

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Forward Sydney Shelstead drives for a shot in the game, played before 4,517 fans. UTEP pulled out a 66-62 win to end ACU’s season.

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UTEP’s Lulu McKinney (4) and ACU’s Paris Webb (10) reach for a loose ball in the postseason WNIT game.

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ACU coach Julie Goodenough gestures to her players waiting to enter the postseason WNIT game with UTEP. The Wildcats shot just 17 percent from the field in the first half, yet only trailed by seven points.

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Whitney West Swinford was ACU’s second-leading scorer against UTEP with 12 points.

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ACU forward Sierra Allen (22) reaches for a rebound against the Miners.

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Sydney Shelstead, guarded by Sparkle Taylor (12) and Lawna Kennedy (34), goes up for two of her 12 points against UTEP.

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Wildcat senior guard Whitney West Swinford (12) drives on UTEP’s Wiktoria Zapart during the season-ending loss to UTEP. ACU forged a one-point lead with 6:39 remaining and a three-point lead with 5:18 left in the game, but the Miners rallied to win.

UTEP lost in the postseason WNIT quarterfinals to the University of Oregon.

Other quarterfinalists were the University of South Dakota, Florida Gulf Coast University and the University of Michigan.

USD defeated FGCU in the title game, televised by CBS Sports Network.

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ACU’s team defense helped the Wildcats outscore opponents by an average of 14.3 points per game in 2015-16.

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All five of ACU’s starters averaged 10 or more points per game, with three players ranked among the Top 10 Southland Conference leaders in rebounding: Lizzy Dimba (7.8), Sydney Shelstead (7.4) and Suzzy Dimba (7.7).

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With a record of 26-4, Goodenough’s team produced the fourth highest win total in ACU women’s basketball history, trailing only a pair of 31-win seasons in 1980-81 and 1995-96, and a 27-win team in 1987-88.

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The collection represents Lucado’s career as one of the most successful authors in Christian publishing history. More than 30 of his books have combined to sell more than 97 million copies – and 125 million products overall – in 43 languages.

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The new Max Lucado Collection at ACU is far more than a look inside the life of a Christian publishing history icon

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reaching and writing go hand in hand.

That’s an important truth in the career of Max Lucado (’77), perhaps the mostread Christian writer on earth.

The new Max Lucado Collection at Brown Library – given last summer to his alma mater and PA UL the object of intensive WH ITE work to catalog, preserve and prepare for the public to see starting later this year – is a testament to the intentional relationship between the spoken and written words of the bestselling wordsmith and evangelist.

“All my books come out of sermons,” Lucado told a group of students while on campus in May to accept the 2016 Friend of the Year award from Friends of ACU Library. He explained that the way an audience reacts to his preaching helps him gauge the effectiveness of his message. He follows advice from the

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late Charles Spurgeon, a 19th-century minister in England, to preach like there’s a broken heart in every pew.

In an interview the day he turned his papers over to ACU, Lucado expressed gratitude for “the uniqueness of being a minister during this whole time at a church that allows me the freedom to write. I think it was visionary on the part of the elders of the Oak Hills Church when I came here in 1988 and I said, ‘Now, I want to write and that’s going to take time, some of the time that some of the other ministers might be going to hospitals or doing counseling. Would you bless this?

Would you give me the freedom to be a writer?’ ” The breadth of his life’s work as missionary, preacher and writer is seen in the nearly 100 boxes of journals, manuscripts, artwork, personal correspondence and mementos he has entrusted to ACU. Here’s a glimpse into that world.

Max at ACU Lucado’s career as a professional wordsmith began as a young minister writing bulletin articles for Central Church of Christ in Miami, Fla. But he practiced the writing craft while a staff member of The Optimist student newspaper before graduating with a bachelor’s degree in 1977 and a master’s in biblical studies in 1982. Readers may remember him co-authoring a column with Jonathan Hooper (’77) titled Joshua and Caleb with musings about spiritual and campus life at ACU. Lucado competed on the debate team and headed the Student Committee for Spiritual Reaffirmation, which launched the university’s first Spring Break Campaign.

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The collection includes many gifts to Max, most with some significant religious, historical or personal meaning to the sender.

The Lucados were part of a church-planting team in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, including (from left) Ron (’81) and Janine (Paden ’77) Morgan, Bryan (’77) and Becky (Upshaw ’79) Gibbs, Tony (’82) and D’Anna (’80) Roseberry, Keith (’80) and Bryn (Morrison ’80) Kreidel, Sue (’85) and Marc (’79) Curfman, Larry (’77) and Connie (Lemons ’76) Zinck, Max (’77) and Denalyn (Preston ’79) Lucado, and Marty (’76) and Angela (Kreidel ’79) West. 

Personal memorabilia from Max’s office include family photos (here with his second daughter, Andrea) and other glimpses into his personality and the craft of writing. 

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See Bonus Coverage at acu.edu/acutoday

Max at ACU Lucado’s busy speaking and writing schedule the past 30 years often precluded his availability for ACU events, making his three-day gospel meeting in October 1997 a rare treat. “A Heart Like His” featured a series of nightly messages in Moody Coliseum, designed to reach students during Spiritual Renewal Week on campus. They turned out in large numbers, and several were baptized afterward in a large tank on the coliseum stage.

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Lucado’s first book, On the Anvil, was rejected by 14 publishers before Tyndale House produced it in 1985. The collection includes his original handwritten notes and subsequent manuscript drafts on this and nearly three dozen other titles.

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Materials related to Lucado’s 2000 book, He Chose the Nails (Thomas Nelson), reflect dialogue with members of his trusted longtime editorial team, including executive editor Karen Hill, editor Liz Heaney and advisor Steve Green (’77). Green, an elder at Oak Hills Church in San Antonio where Lucado has preached since 1988, was one of his roommates at ACU.  BRADY LANE

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Lucado, seen here hugging a friend at the Alumni Day Luncheon on Feb. 22, 2004, was recognized that day as ACU’s 2003 Outstanding Alumnus of the Year.

The university also honored him in 1991 as Young Alumnus of the Year. In 1987, he received the Department of Journalism and Mass Communication’s Alumnus of the Year award, the forerunner of today’s Gutenberg award presented each October for outstanding professional achievement.

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Lucado’s writing career began while serving as associate minister at Central Church of Christ in Miami, Fla. His weekly reflections in the congregational bulletin inspired him to write newsletters while serving as a church-planter in Brazil. Newsletter content formed the grist of his first book, On the Anvil, in 1985.

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Max Lucado, pictured at left during the 1990s in the auditorium of Oak Hills Church, has served in a ministerial role for the San Antonio congregation since 1988. The wood lecturn from which he taught classes and preached sermons is part of the Max Lucado Collection in Brown Library.

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One of Lucado’s mentors was another ACU graduate, the late Stanley Shipp (’46), who for 25 years offered a year-, summer- or week-long Spiritual Internship in St. Louis, Mo., to many Abilene Christian alumni such as Max. “Love God, love people” was Shipp’s message to future missionaries, ministers, physicians, artists, writers, teachers and parents. “He modeled the power of Bible study. It wasn’t enough for him to read a scripture; he wanted to help people put it to use,” Lucado said of the man he considers his “father in the faith.”

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Max at ACU When ACU planned its Centennial Graduation Celebration in May 2006, Lucado was the featured speaker asked to inspire new alumni with a message at the special outdoor gathering on the campus mall. In the audience was his oldest daughter, Jenna, who earned a bachelor’s degree in integrated marketing with the historic Class of 2006.

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Every author and speaker needs a headshot photograph for publicity use. Max Lucado’s through the years – including a few of his wife, Denalyn – have ranged from homemade snapshots to professional images used in news releases and on dust jackets of his best-selling books.

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Max Lucado’s travels and influence have circled the globe, from speaking at the 1999 National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C., to friendships with admirers such as the Rev. Billy Graham and John Cornyn, a three-term U.S. senator from his home state of Texas. Like Lucado, Graham is a beloved evangelist known by millions, and a best-selling Christian author.

Cornyn is a former associate justice on the Texas Supreme Court (1991-97) and the state’s attorney general (1998-2002).

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Lucado’s career has generated many accolades.

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Each of Max Lucado’s sermons and books from the last three decades originated from his thoughts in a hand-written notebook or journal. Dozens of them are part of the Max Lucado Collection in ACU’s Brown Library.

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In April 2014, Lucado – seen here speaking at ACU’s Summit in 2011 – became the fourth Abilene Christian graduate inducted to the Texas Intercollegiate Press Association Hall of Fame. TIPA is the nation’s oldest student press association and its Hall of Fame recognizes career achievement including the fields of journalism, journalism education and student media.

“Basic journalism training in writing has been such a great benefit – creating strong leads, being concise,” Lucado said. “If I hadn’t been called to missions and ministry, I could have seen myself as a journalist.” Other TIPA inductees have included Walter Cronkite, Dan Rather, Bob Schieffer, Scott Pelley, Sam Donaldson, Jim Lehrer, Bill Moyers, and former President Lyndon B. Johnson and his wife, Claudia “Lady Bird” Johnson.

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The candid but courteous give-and-take between Max Lucado and his trusted editorial team is apparent in the numerous manuscript drafts and proofs that are part of the publishing process of each of his books. The Max Lucado Collection includes many examples of such dialogue. “It feels like you’re being criticized but you have to set your ego out of the way and become a co-editor with your editor,” Lucado recently advised ACU students in a Q&A held in the newsroom of the Department of Journalism and Mass Communication.

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Lucado toured ACU’s Milliken Special Collections in April 2016 to view curation efforts on his papers and other artifacts. He met student employees (from left) Emily Wright, Jeanniece Silas and Sarah Dillinger, who work on the collection with archivists Dr. Carisse Berryhill and Mac Ice. Special Collections is located on the lower floor of the library, which is the permanent home of materials from Max’s long career in ministry and publishing.

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Among thousands of pieces of correspondence from readers to Max Lucado are gifts sent to him, many accompanied by a story or recollection about an endearing moment in their lives or in his words.

“I write books for people who don’t read books,” he said. Lucado said he envisions a person sitting across the table from him: a truck driver, a single mom, a person in a convalescent center.

They typify the people with whom he hopes to connect with inspirational messages about God’s love and call upon their lives.

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The last time Lucado likely visited the Department of Journalism and Mass Communication’s news room at ACU, he was a shaggy-haired columnist for The Optimist newspaper in the mid-1970s. On April 26, 2016, he sat in a chair, sipping coffee and sharing wisdom with current students. Lucado discussed the nuts and bolts of of his craft – getting started, finding something worth the effort, capturing something of significance, motivation, editing, rewriting and other nuances of good writing. “The secret to good writing is re-writing,” he said. “It strengthens it.” He advised students to “Let your work sit for a while. Let your mind cool. Come at it with a fresh set of eyes later.

Allow yourself to be edited.”

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Max at ACU Lucado was honored April 25 as 2016 Friend of the Year by Friends of ACU Library at their annual dinner in the Hunter Welcome Center. His 10-minute acceptance speech turned into 40 minutes of reminiscing that delighted the audience with stories of his days as a student and of faculty mentors who changed his life. A painting from longtime friend Rolando Diaz (’79) was presented as a gift.

Pictured here (from left) are FACUL president Dr. Jonathan Camp (’07 D.Min.), Diaz, Denalyn and Max Lucado, and ACU president Dr. Phil Schubert (’91).

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2016 ALUMNI AWARDS

Outstanding Alumnus of the Year Provides 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 Year Recognizes professional achievement and/or distinguished service to Abilene Christian University. To be eligible, a recipient must not be over 40 years of age at the time of selection.

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

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DR. JEFF KIMBLE 2016 Outstanding Alumnus of the Year

o understand what Dr. H. Jeff Kimble (’71) does for a living, you can’t picture him working in a laboratory.

Well, he’s a world-renowned physicist specializing in quantum optics at California Institute of Technology, so there’s a good chance you’ll never really understand what he does.

Still: Start by picturing him as one of the planet’s tallest explorers, like the Napoleonic Wars-era Royal Navy officer Horatio Hornblower of C.S. Forester’s beloved novels. Kimble devoured those while growing up far from the high seas in Floydada, Texas.

Picture him, as he suggests, a 6-foot-7-inch former college basketball player dropped in the middle of a forest without food, a compass or any notion of how to get out.

Picture what it’s like to live for answering the question, “What’s possible?”

“It’s a great adventure,” he says. “My responsibility is at some level to fail. It’s to find out what’s really possible at the cusp of human technical and intellectual ability.

I want to know something nobody else knows. To do that, you have to be willing to be lost a lot.”

Kimble’s journey toward a life of being lost began with what he found by staying in West Texas after high school to attend Abilene Christian University. He arrived on a basketball scholarship and, two years later, still planned to transfer to a university with JASON FLYNN

an engineering program. That was in 1969.

“And then Charles Ivey came, and that changed my world,” Kimble says. “I wouldn’t be a physicist without him.”

In interviews and at a celebration lunch honoring Kimble as ACU’s 2016 Outstanding Alumnus of the Year, he and former professor and chair of physics Dr. Charles Ivey (’65) each insisted it is the other who is the greater talent in the world of physics. Ivey helped build what is now the Department of Engineering and Physics from the ground up; once he arrived, transferring for Kimble was no longer on the radar.

“What Charles did for physics has changed ACU,” Kimble says, describing his mentor as bringing a rigor and a challenge to the science.

Even with only two years of major-specific coursework, Kimble was accepted to the University of Rochester for graduate school and earned an M.A. and Ph.D. in physics.

Of course, as Ivey says, it helped that Kimble was a natural.

“I had hit the jackpot,” Ivey says. “Imagine being a new professor and having Jeff Kimble as a student. Everyone should be so lucky.

In the best of traditions, he turned out to exceed all of us and to be an internationally recognized contributor to the highest level of physics and to have surpassed the grandest dreams hoped for him. And he did it with an exemplary personal character. I was the lucky guy who just happened to be here when his far greater talent came along.”

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Kimble was a four-year letterman for ACU and team co-captain his junior and senior years.

of Texas at Austin from 1979-89, leaving Texas for California and Caltech, where he is the William L. Valentine Professor of Physics and founding director of the Institute for Quantum Information and Matter. He lives in La Canada Flintridge, Calif., with his wife, Margaret, and has two grown daughters, Dr. Katherine Grooms and Megan Kimble.

A considerable portion of his research is in the field of cavity quantum electrodynamics (QED).

Breaking that down for non-physicists isn’t easy –­ “That’s the best way to end the conversation,” he says with a laugh – but it begins with studying the way light interacts with matter.

Fundamentally, matter is made up of atoms and light is made up of photons. Using advances in laser science, Kimble investigates how atoms and photons interact to help determine what about that interaction can be controlled by humans.

Among many scientific advances for which Kimble and his colleagues are responsible is the invention of the atom-cavity microscope, which traps and tracks one atom with single photons. Being able to control photons and transport them one by one would be a boon to the way we communicate and compute.

Consider fiber-optic communication: optical fibers –­ tiny threads of glass with a diameter slightly thicker than a human hair – are used to transmit information from point to point over the internet via pulses of light. A pulse of light contains about 1,000 photons, and a piece of fiber can only handle so many photons at a time. Instead of trying to send more photons, one goal is to find a way to send more information 22

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per photon. This could form a basis for a quantum internet, which would use quantum mechanics to send and receive quantum bits of light (i.e., single photons) as opposed to the current internet with data encoded into classical binary digits of bright pulses of light.

The quantum world isn’t just smaller; it’s more powerful. So, if photons can be controlled where only one is needed to send a message, Kimble says, a person could use 1,000 photons to send 1,000 pieces of information as opposed to a single piece.

“Moreover, the quantum world offers some possibilities for new sets of rules that could lead to new quantum technologies to benefit society,” he says.

His work has garnered him numerous prestigious accolades, such as the Einstein Prize for Laser Science (1989), the Julius Edgar Lilienfeld Prize of the American Physical Society (2004) and the Herbert Walther Award from the German Physical Society and the Optical Society of America (2013).

Kimble also is the Distinguished Scholar for 2014-16 at the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics in Garching bei Munchen, Germany.

In 2014, Caltech held a symposium, “The Quantum Optics Frontier,” in Kimble’s honor (and to coincide with his 65th birthday). International participants traveled to Pasadena, Calif., to discuss advances in quantum optics which Kimble and his colleagues have pioneered, from the generation of squeezed light, to the realization of quantum measurement beyond the standard quantum limit, to the teleportation of a beam of light.

“I couldn’t have imagined while I was at ACU that one would actually be able to control, one by one, individual atoms and photons,” he says. “Nobody even thought to ask if

you could do that. It was just such an obvious ‘No, you can’t.’ But I’m of the personality where if you say I can’t do it, I will try to do it.”

He also couldn’t have imagined being named Outstanding Alumnus of the Year by his alma mater, he says.

“There are a lot of really amazing people who have come through ACU and gone on to do great things,” Kimble says. “That I was selected, it’s really quite humbling. It’s a great honor. What I’ve done in science, to me it’s not my accomplishment as much as it’s the integrated total of the efforts of the amazing people with whom I have worked.”

Ivey begs to differ: “Jeff’s inspirational scholarship helped cement the entire physics department,” he says.

On campus at the Feb. 21 Alumni Day ceremony honoring him, Kimble toured the new Engineering and Physics Laboratories at Bennett Gymnasium and saw construction of the new Onstead Science Center and Halbert-Walling Research Center. The multi-million-dollar buildings for ACU’s science departments represent just how far the university has come since his undergraduate days.

“I don’t think there are too many places where you can have both a solid foundation in religion on one hand and on the other hand, rigorous training in science and mathematics,” he says. “There are a lot of schools where those just don’t go together.

In our society, often those two sides won’t even sit at the table together.

What ACU has done is inspiring.”

Back in his own lab, Kimble is busy creating, finding the limits to his knowledge and moving past them.

His ignorance is exploding, he says, with every answer only raising more questions. He loves it.

“It’s a privileged position,” he says, “to be able to explore.” 

– SARAH CARLSON

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GILBERT TUHABONYE

2016 Young Alumnus of the Year

e had to see it. In 2011, Gilbert

Tuhabonye (’01) had to see his

native Burundi, Africa, again after being away for more than a decade.

He had to see his mother, and he had to see the results of the Gazelle Foundation, the nonprofit organization he co-founded to build water systems throughout the southern part of the country.

But above all, he had to see how far he’d come from October 1993 when he was almost burned to death.

“It was like a calling – I had to close a chapter,” Tuhabonye says. “I had to forgive the people who tried to kill me so I could find peace. Forgiveness has allowed me to move on with my life.”

Tuhabonye, a Tutsi, recounts much of his journey surviving a massacre at the hands of Hutus in his 2009 book This Voice in My Heart and in speeches he delivers across the U.S. As dozens of his Tutsi peers died around him in a Burundi school room, he heard a voice inside his head: “You will be all right; you will survive.” He used the charred bone of a classmate to break one of the room’s windows and run, on fire, to freedom.

Tuhabonye is still running, but he’s no longer fueled by fear and anger. He runs with joy – one of his favorite phrases – and he invites everyone he can to come along with him for the journey.

“I take every step to thank God,” he says. “Thank you, God, for me being alive.”

Running helped Tuhabonye gain notoriety in Burundi once he’d recovered from the attack. To him, it’s the best form of therapy.

“It’s my freedom,” he says. “It connects me to God and to people.

And it brought me to ACU.” Tuhabonye was already in the U.S. at an International Olympic Committee training camp when former ACU head track and field coach Jon Murray recruited him to be a Wildcat in the late 1990s. He’d never heard of ACU, much less Abilene, but a visit to campus and the notion of studying in a Christian environment sold him on the move.

As a member of the prestigious track and field team, Tuhabonye became an NCAA Division II AllAmerica runner; helped recruit six Burundian student-athletes to the team; was profiled by national media outlets; and in 1999 was presented the National Student-Athlete Day Giant Steps Award in the Courageous Student Athlete category by President Bill Clinton.

“When you learn his story and where he has been, you realize it is his attitude that has carried him farther than most of us will ever go,” Murray said at the Alumni Day luncheon honoring Tuhabonye on Feb. 21.

Tuhabonye was known as “The Ambassador,” Murray said – he had a friend everywhere he went. He always has focused on helping others improve their skills and reach their goals. He married fellow Burundian

Triphine (Sud ’04) after graduation and later moved to Austin, where he has built a popular training group for runners.

Gilbert’s Gazelles began with three runners looking for advice from Tuhabonye. Word of his expertise and infectious positive attitude helped build his following into the hundreds.

He’s also the head coach for cross country and track at St. Andrews High School and has led the team to five consecutive state championships (2008-12).

“You know if he ran for mayor of Austin, he would win,” Murray said.

Tuhabonye doesn’t plan on returning to Burundi; it’s too dangerous. So, he focuses part of his energy on improving the lives of those still there. Since 2009, the Gazelle Foundation has made water more accessible for an estimated 50,000 people. They started in the Songa province where Gilbert grew up.

“My mother was one of the first people to get water,” he says.

“The goal is to change one village at a time.”

“Growing up, I ran to fetch water for my parents and to go to school,” he says.

“Then, there was a moment where I ran for my life. Now, with AL I CI AS the power of God, I am AN K AR able to run with joy.”

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– SARAH CARLSON ACU TODAY

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t’s the phrase that stops any parent short, especially when spoken by their child’s elementary-school principal: “Do you have a minute?” Jennifer (England ’85) Allen did, so she followed the principal into a conference room to discuss Sam, a third-grader who was highly intelligent but unable to socialize with his classmates.

The principal slid across the table a paper with a list of autism symptoms on it. Sam met each one.

“The room was spinning,” Allen recalled of the fateful moment that would change her and her family’s lives. “As I read each bullet point, I was sobbing and sobbing. It wasn’t sorrow – it was that I finally knew what was challenging my son.”

Spurred by the relief and clarity provided by that moment, Allen has spent the past dozen years helping other parents receiving a diagnosis of an autism spectrum disorder, including producing a well-received documentary and founding a nonprofit called Aspergers101.

Through it, she has used in unexpected ways the skills she learned in ACU’s televisionproduction program.

“All that I learned at ACU I thought was for one thing,” she said, “but God has another plan.”

A radio/TV major, Jennifer England produced newsmagazine programs, including an interview show hosted by Dr. Gary D. McCaleb (’64), then dean and vice president of campus life and a member of the Abilene City Council.

After graduation, she was a producer, editor and anchor for the CBS affiliate in San Angelo for seven years, then spent eight years with San Antonio’s UPN affiliate, rising to become director of marketing.

Along the way, she met and married Herb Allen and had two children, Sam and Charlie.

EST

JENNIFER ALLEN

Then came the fateful 2003 conversation with Sam’s principal about the boy’s difficulty with socialization. Jennifer decided to quit her job and stay home to educate their children and provide the support Sam would need.

“I left cold turkey,” she said. “It was the best decision ever. It was the right thing to do, no doubt.”

Looking for ways to give the kids an active role in their education, in 2004 she created an animated civics-education series called Ameriquest Kids, distributed through Landmark Media, with Sam and Charlie as the main protagonists.

Shortly after, she produced the documentary Coping to Excelling, which featured a number of people on the autism spectrum, as well as doctors and other experts.

The 68-minute film has aired on San Antonio’s PBS channel and is available online for free; after its release, it was shown in theaters across Texas with Q&A sessions featuring Jennifer and Sam for parents and their autism-spectrum children after each showing.

Now 21 years old, Sam is preparing to attend Texas A&M University-San Antonio; among other things, he builds computers from scratch and once constructed an FM radio station in his room for fun, Allen said.

In 2014, Allen formed Aspergers101 to provide information and resources to parents who face a diagnosis like her family did 13 years ago. She runs the nonprofit organization from a closet-office in her home.

“I just feel so blessed,” she said.

“You just never know where your life is going to go.” 

– PAUL A. ANTHONY

BEN JEFFREY

en Jeffrey knows something

about show-stoppers. During

his one-man cabaret performance of “1,700 Miles to Broadway,” last November in ACU’s Fulks Theatre, he walked to the front row, took his former voice professor by the hand, and led her to the stage for a short waltz and to sing a duet of “You’re Just in Love” from Irving Berlin’s Call Me Madame.

The audience was wowed at the improvisation, and at the stage presence and voice of 87-year-old Jeannette (Scruggs ’50) Lipford.

The moment was well planned, and for Jeffrey, fulfilled a long-held wish to thank another of the mentors from his alma mater for making a difference in his life and career.

“Jeanette was my voice teacher for four years, and what makes her special is that she doesn’t just teach students. She invests in them, and not just as artists, as people,” Jeffrey said. “Her office was always a place to sing and make music, but it was also a place to be loved and celebrated for being exactly who you were. To return and share that moment with her is something I will treasure forever.”

Jeffrey has played Pumbaa, the lovable warthog in Broadway’s The Lion King since 2010, but Disney intellectual property rights would not allow him to include at ACU any of the tunes he sings or hears most nights back in New York’s Minskoff Theatre.

His performance that evening showed Jeffrey has far more musical and stage depth than the role of the animated pig – albeit a famous one – he has made his own. Among them: “The Song That Goes Like This” from Spamalot, “Corner of the Sky” from Pippin, Stephen Sondheim’s “Buddy’s Blues” and two madefor-cabaret icons, “The Impossible

SCOTTY AND JUNE WITT Dream” and “New York, New York.”

It was a treat to experience, something he is quick to admit about his time at ACU. “What I’ve found in my career – and life – is that people don’t need me to tell them about Jesus very often. They don’t need to hear about how they’re sinning, or why what they believe doesn’t make as much sense as what I do, or even about how Jesus loves them no matter what they do or who they are or where they come from. They don’t need me to talk about that stuff,” Jeffrey said.

“They probably need me to live it. They need me to be supportive when they’re hurting. They need to know I can be loyal and kind and trustworthy, regardless of what they do,” Jeffrey said. “That beautiful group of teachers at the ACU Department of Theatre almost never talked about that. They were too busy showing it to me by living it.” 

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– RON HADFIELD

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2016 DISTINGUISHED ALUMNI CITATIONS

amp Blue Haven, spread out across 1,100 acres in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains near Las Vegas, N.M., has been a bastion of spiritual growth for young people in the American Southwest since it opened with 160 campers in 1957.

Since that summer, Blue Haven has served close to 50,000 campers and provided the setting for more than 3,000 baptisms. And the history of the camp, which founder Scotty (’52) Witt describes as “a beautiful story,” is still being written. Scotty and his wife, June (Hobbs ’56), have played central roles in Blue Haven’s 60-year existence, beginning with Scotty’s initial vision for the camp in 1956.

The inspiration for Camp Blue Haven came almost 2,000 miles away from northern New Mexico.

After graduating from ACU with a business administration degree and serving in the Army, Witt worked for one summer at Camp Hunt, a Churches of Christ encampment near Hubbardsville, N.Y. Witt spent just six weeks there, but his life took a new course.

For one thing, he met June, a fellow counselor, whom he would marry a few years later. He also was deeply affected by the power a camp environment could have in the lives of young people.

“To see the change in kids’ lives was amazing,” he said. “If it hadn’t been for Camp Hunt, I wouldn’t have had that background, and I wouldn’t have had the vision for Blue Haven.”

Back in his hometown of Amarillo, Scotty learned that the Flying B Guest Ranch near Las Vegas, N.M., was for sale – complete with a lodge and a couple of rustic cabins. By then, Witt had formed a board of directors that included two of his former roommates from Abilene: O.G. Lanier (’52) and Guy Sullivan (’51). The five-member

board rounded up a $25,000 down payment through multiple bank loans, and would continue raising funds for the next eight years to repay the debt. By then, Camp Blue Haven was established and growing. Through God’s blessings and a lot of hard work, Witt’s vision had become reality. And the campers kept coming back.

“My camper years had a huge impact on my overall spiritual formation as a youth,” said Dr. Philip Camp (’89), professor of music and director of choral activities at Lubbock Christian University who also is vice president of Blue Haven’s Board of Directors.

Camp’s resume with Blue Haven is extensive: After seven years as a camper, he went on to work as a counselor throughout college, before serving as assistant director for 13 years. He traces much of his spiritual development back to those summers spent in the New Mexico mountains.

“It was at camp that I first experienced deep spiritual conviction, one built on a solid foundation laid by my parents,” he said.

Today, Blue Haven’s original rustic buildings have been replaced by newer pine log cabins, a ropes course and other more modern features, and fundraising remains an ongoing process.

“The Witts have impacted thousands upon thousands of people through Camp Blue Haven,” Camp said. “Scotty had a pretty amazing dream in 1956, and in spite of his youth, God used him to establish Camp Blue Haven – a place where campers have come to experience God, and who leave to share their faith with others.”

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Dr. Josh Willis, two alumni and an undergraduate student are part of an international team studying a ground-breaking physics discovery

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full-size bronze statue

of Albert Einstein is

perched on a bench at the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles. His right arm

is raised, his index finger covering a portion of the night sky projected on the walls opposite him.

He’s there to lend perspective about space – our universe has more to it than meets the human eye – as well as to serve as a great photo op for visitors. Touring the observatory in Fall 2015, associate professor of engineering and physics Dr. Josh Willis (’97) couldn’t resist a pose of his own.

With his wife, professor of chemistry Dr. Autumn Willis Sutherlin, ready to take the picture, he sat down next to Einstein, leaned in, cupped his hand to his fellow physicist’s ear and whispered a secret: Einstein had been right about the existence of gravitational waves, and 100 years later, Willis had helped prove it.

Much of the rest of the world was let in on the news in February 2016, when headlines declared that on Sept.

14, 2015, physicists with the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) had for the first time detected gravitational waves caused by two black holes colliding.

The discovery confirmed a major prediction of Einstein’s 1915 theory of general relativity, and among the names of the roughly 1,000 scientists who authored the Physical Review Letters article announcing it is “J.L. Willis, Abilene Christian University.”

The collision of two black holes – an event detected for the first time ever by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory, or LIGO – is seen in this still image from a computer simulation.

Hands-on experience ACU having a tie to a groundbreaking scientific discovery isn’t surprising: Willis joins a host of engineering and physics faculty

and students routinely involved in world-renowned research.

In fact, his isn’t the only ACUrelated name on the article: Marissa Walker (’11), a Ph.D. student at Louisiana State University, also is one of LIGO’s authors. Others involved include Andrew Miller (’14), who worked alongside Willis in his research for a summer in Hanover, Germany, at the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics, and senior Hannah Hamilton, who is spending Summer 2016 working with Willis at the German institute.

“This is really a great opportunity for me,” Hamilton said. “Being able to participate in research is just as valuable as what we learn in the classroom.

It gives me the opportunity to begin to understand what it’s really like to work in physics.”

Involving undergraduates in research sets ACU apart from most universities.

Hamilton previously worked with professor of engineering and physics Dr. Rusty Towell (’90) at the Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, N.Y., and the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico.

At Brookhaven, she worked on the Pioneering High Energy Nuclear Interaction eXperiment (PHENIX), which investigates high-energy collisions of heavy ions and protons, and in which ACU faculty and students have been involved for years.

“ACU’s Department of Physics and Engineering is unique because it is small and the professors care about you,” Hamilton said.

“I definitely feel a personal connection with my professors, and the research opportunities we have are very atypical, especially because of ACU’s size. I was able to work at

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SIMULATING EXTREME SPACETIMES (SXS) PROJECT

By Sarah Carlson

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The approximate location of the source of gravitational waves detected on Sept. 14, 2015, by the twin LIGO facilities shown on this sky map of the Southern Hemisphere.

Frame from a simulation of the merger of two black holes and the resulting emission of gravitational radiation (colored fields, which represent a component of the curvature of space-time).

The signals of gravitational waves detected by the LIGO observatory at Hanford, Wash.

They originated from two merging black holes some 1.3 billion light-years away.

LIGO / AXEL MELLINGER

NASA / C. HENZE

CALTECH / MIT / LIGO LAB

Brookhaven as a freshman. I don’t think many students at that age level get that opportunity.”

Listening for a ‘chirp’

In the early 20th century, Einstein revolutionized the way we think about space and time, determining that the two are interwoven into a single continuum, called space-time.

He predicted that matter distorts (or curves) the geometry of space-time, and this distortion is what we identify as gravity. When massive objects accelerate, they cause ripples in the fabric of space-time: gravitational waves.

As a gravitational wave passes through Earth, it compresses space in one direction and stretches it in another. That’s what LIGO set about to detect using 2.5 mile-long L-shaped interferometers in Livingston, La., and Hanford, Wash.

Laser light is split into two beams traveling back and forth down the arms (four-foot diameter tubes in a vacuum), which bounce off suspended mirrors at the end and return to the source. The beams monitor the distance between the mirrors, and per Einstein’s theory, the length of the arms would distort once a gravitational wave passed through.

Willis is one of the senior lead developers on the PyCBC dataanalysis pipeline used to search for such a distortion. Nothing was detected during an initial run of the LIGO detectors for most of the 2000s.

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Willis came on board in 2011 as the instruments were retooled and made more sensitive, an upgrade known as Advanced LIGO that began its observing run Sept. 18, 2015 – four days after the gravitational waves were discovered.

The team was in what is called engineering mode, Willis said, when the distortion was detected.

What was a massive Hamilton explosion when the black holes collided – about three times the mass of the sun was converted into gravitational waves, with a peak power output about 50 times that of the visible universe – came from the Southern Hemisphere and moved through the Earth 1.3 billion years later with the sound, when amplified, of a “chirp.”

“I just think that’s kind of cool,” he said.

“In the long run, it’s seeing or hearing something that we don’t know that we’ve seen or heard any other way. The reason you build a detector is not for the one time – it’s for going forward and making lots of observations with it and learning what kinds of things happen in the universe.”

What you don’t expect

In May, a Special Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics was announced, recognizing the scientists and engineers who contributed to the

LIGO discovery. The three leaders of the project were awarded $1 million, while the 1,012 contributors will share $2 million.

In June, LIGO made international headlines again after its detectors caught a second signal from black holes colliding some 1.4 billion light years away.

Willis again is named as an author on the discovery, and so is Hamilton.

Willis’ part in the story continues as he works to improve the efficiency of the software with assistance from Hamilton.

The discovery is just the beginning.

“LIGO has the ability to increase our understanding of one of the fundamental forces that govern our world,” Hamilton said, “and it’s great to be given the chance to contribute toward that understanding.”

Hearing something like a gravitational wave feels a bit like what Galileo must have felt centuries ago, Willis said.

“There was a lot you couldn’t know if all you had was the unaided human eye to see the night sky,” Willis said.

“So we built telescopes. Now, we’re at the beginning of something new.

That’s why it’s an exciting field: It’s just starting.

“We don’t really know yet what all we’ll be able to find,” he said.

“That’s almost always the case in science; it’s what you don’t expect that is the most interesting.” 

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Discover the daring faith you are called to live out. Randy Harris and Greg Taylor lead you through the pages of the Book of John to inspire daring faith in Jesus.

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Exploring the Theology of Prayer in the Old Testament Phillip G. Camp & Tremper Longman III ISBN 978-0-89112-379-8 | 192 pages | $19.99

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Along the Way

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John Mark Hicks, Bobby Valentine, & Mark Wilson

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Embracing Creation will remind you that human beings have been given an important role in the vast, created order of God. We are made to embrace creation.

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PHOTOGRAPHY BY JEREMY ENLOW

Branching Out

ACU Dallas campus creates new footprint in North Texas

W

ith its shiny new accreditation

as a branch campus of Abilene Christian University, ACU Dallas is quickly settling into its prime location in

the heart of one of the fastest-growing parts of the DFW Metroplex.

Enrollment has reached 500 students in chiefly online graduate programs, including the university’s third doctorate (see page 55), and enthusiasm is increasing among future student prospects who are looking for quality Christian higher education opportunities delivered in a more convenient format.

“It’s exciting to see this venture grow,” said Dr. Stephen Johnson (’90), vice president of academic affairs for ACU Dallas. “It’s opening amazing new doors for the university.”

Drivers on busy Dallas North Tollway, a major traffic artery in the region, can’t help but notice the signage on a building at 16633 Dallas Parkway. Inside, the top floor is 30

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The Addison location is convenient for Dallas-area university relations manager Toni (Hale ’84) Young to meet with alumni and other associates.

The ACU Dallas location is visible from the heavily traveled Dallas North Tollway in Addison.

D LaZandra Brown is the graduate records coordinator at ACU Dallas.

A Nicole Cochran (left) is an admissions advisor and Vanessa Brown (above) is an enrollment manager at ACU Dallas.

L

“It’s exciting to see this venture grow.

It’s opening amazing new doors for the university.”

– DR. STEPHEN JOHNSON (’90)

Lindsay Putnam is a receptionist at ACU Dallas and enrolled in the M.F.T. program.

L A William Kaing is one of the graduate admissions advisors at ACU Dallas.

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The bright, engaging workplace features images reflecting the Dallas and Fort Worth Metroplex and the main campus back in Abilene.

dedicated to ACU Dallas, and visitors are greeted with the sleek, modern look of a DFW business center and images at every corner reflecting the main campus back in Abilene.

“We’re delighted with this space and the amazing views in every direction,” said Jay Goin (’91), executive vice president for ACU Dallas. “But it also was important to remind ourselves – and students who gather here – of our roots back in Abilene, and to celebrate some of the distinctive things about that historic campus which makes this one possible.”

Students enrolled in ACU’s growing suite of chiefly online

“… Once our brand more fully enters the marketplace, we expect to see some dramatic growth in our enrollment.”

– JAY GOIN (’91)

graduate degree programs are scattered across the nation and in six countries.

“We are about to begin some pretty aggressive marketing efforts,“ Goin said, “and once our brand more fully enters the marketplace, we expect to see some dramatic growth in our enrollment.”

“We are being highly strategic about the new degrees we are offering,” Johnson said. “They are based on research showing us the junctions of high student interest and programs in which we have core strengths of expertise as a highly respected Christian university with access to the technology required to deliver a quality product. The future is very bright for ACU Dallas.” 

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Some programs have residency requirements and meet in Dallas for classes, but most are offered entirely online.

A Quiet Place and Scriptures (right) strategically placed in the flooring remind everyone of the distinctively Christian learning environment for which ACU is known.

Graduate students of all ages are enrolled in the doctoral and master’s degree programs offered through ACU Dallas.

The top floor of the building on Dallas Parkway offers vistas from every direction of Addison and the Metroplex.

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EXCEPTIONAL | ACU’s Vision to become the premier university for the education of Christ-centered global leaders means building upon areas of strength and distinctiveness, and delivering a unique, Christ-centered experience that draws students into community.

An update on the Halbert-Walling Research Center

BY SARAH CARLSON

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mathematics. Additional funds will be raised in coming months to purchase equipment for new spaces.

“I am awed and inspired by the new Halbert-Walling Research Center,” said Dr. Greg Straughn (’94), dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. “Its design welcomes you inside, providing unprecedented access to seeing research in progress.

The many different collaboration areas invite your participation in discovery, and the proximity of faculty offices, teaching and research labs, and classrooms will help grow connections and partnerships that will enhance the culture of research across campus.”

STEVE BUTMAN

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rive north on Judge Ely Boulevard or east on East North 16th Street and you’ll notice a change to the skyline of the Hill – a three-story change.

The Halbert-Walling Research Center on the south side of campus has steadily risen in 2016 between Phillips Education Building and Nelson Hall. The walls are up, the windows are installed and painting began on the first floor in April.

Construction is slated for completion in December, after which classes, offices and labs will transition to the 54,000-square-foot science structure, and the second phase of renovation for the 85,000-square-foot Robert R. and Kay Onstead Science Center (formerly the Foster Science Building) will begin.

With the already-open Engineering and Physics Laboratories at Bennett Gymnasium, the three science facilities compose $45 million of the $95 million Vision in Action initiative and provide innovative, modern facilities for ACU’s four science departments: biology, chemistry and biochemistry, engineering and physics, and

Head football coach Ken Collums, his coaching staff and many of his student-athletes took part in a ceremonial groundbreaking Feb. 19 for the new on-campus football stadium. See page 61 to learn more about the important difference the project is making.

An on-campus ACU football game hasn’t been played on the Hill in more than 50 years.

STEVE BUTMAN

STEVE BUTMAN

Before window panels were added in May, the infrastructure of the four-story Halbert-Walling Research Center could be seen easily. Visible from inside the lobby is a first-floor lecture hall with glass walls on two sides, and rows of offices on the second and third floors. Elsewhere in the building are labs, classrooms and collaboration spaces to better serve ACU’s programs in the sciences.

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IS IT WORTH IT?

ACU’s value and its generous financial aid packages bridge the affordability gap of a quality education college degree worth the investment.

In today’s world, it’s nearly impossible to get ahead without one, yet paying for the privilege requires extensive thought

and careful planning. Financial realities in challenging economic times can scare some students and families away from college or at least color their thinking about the cost benefit.

It’s understandable for alumni to think wistfully of what they value most about their own time at ACU – career preparation, spiritual maturation, mentoring relationships, lifelong friends – while wondering how their children or grandchildren will afford a similar experience in years to come.

National dialogue about higher education is loud and intense, and while the subjects of rising costs and debt load are necessary conversations with which to wrestle, not all pundits are armed with the facts nor solutions. At least one U.S. presidential candidate recently campaigned for free college tuition at public institutions, paid for by a tax on Wall Street investors. In Texas, some lawmakers are calling for the legislature to restore its power to control tuition and fees in public universities even though a 2016 Dallas Morning News study showed costs actually rose faster when the state oversaw them before deregulation in 2003.

On this there is no debate: One of the biggest investments a family can make in the life of their student is a quality higher education. It comes at considerable cost, but the difference it makes can be life-changing, especially at a private Christian university such as ACU where educating the whole person, not just a transfer of knowledge, is the focus.

The peril of not earning a degree “In a modern, knowledge-based economy, the only thing more expensive than going to college is not going to 36

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college,” said Paul Taylor, executive vice president of Pew Research Center.

“College in today’s economy is like sunscreen … You have to see the people who didn’t apply it to fully appreciate how important it is,” said a 2014 report in The Atlantic magazine. “This is what’s going on in the economy: Globalization, automation, debt hangovers ... it all adds up to a scorching hot sun toasting the wages of middle America. But bachelor’s-degree earners still make 75 percent more than high school grads. B.A. is the new SPF.” A 2014 study by the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco found the average U.S. college graduate can expect to earn at least $800,000 more than the average high school graduate over a lifetime. U.S. Department of Labor research in 2016 shows those without a degree are nearly four times more likely to be unemployed than those with a bachelor’s.

Measuring the true cost “College-bound students and their families are understandably scared about paying for college, but a lot of people never make it past the sticker price,” said Robert Franek, senior vice president of The Princeton Review who directs his company’s annual surveys of university administrators and of college, business school and law school students upon which the well-known TPR rankings and rating scores are based. “It’s such an avoidable mistake.”

Families rarely ever pay the sticker price, however, given the considerable amount of discounting that takes place through financial aid awards.

“Your net price is a college’s sticker price for tuition and fees minus the grants, scholarships and education tax benefits you receive,” according to The College Board.

“The net price you pay for a particular college is specific to you because it’s based on your personal circumstances and the college’s financial aid policies.”

The College a general net cost Board reports that to help them compare for private nonprofit and plan better. four-year colleges, the Understanding average published and controlling debt “sticker” price for tuition and fees is

Every university, family $32,410 per year, but and student is concerned the average family pays about the debt graduates just $14,890 annually. incur over the life of an At $32,020, ACU’s educational career. Using sticker price is below the college ranking services to national average for the compare one institution 2016-17 school year. against another via student – KEVIN CAMPBELL (’00) “When you look at the net debt loads (the total a student price instead of the published owes after graduation) is not price, colleges you thought an accurate measurement were out of your reach may because numerous colleges and turn out to be affordable,” said The College Board. “A college universities do not report such data, leading to incomplete with a high published price might offer its students a lot of studies. And media reports sometimes exaggerate the financial aid – so it might actually be cheaper than a college debt load situation. with a low published price.”

According to the College Board, which oversees the The average first-year ACU student’s financial aid national SAT test, 39 percent of borrowers with education package for 2015-16 is hefty at $18,280, which includes debt in 2014 owed less than $10,000 for undergraduate and a combination of scholarships and grants. With a graduate study combined, while 14 percent owed $50,000 tuition-and-fees sticker price of $32,020, that means the or more. Nationally, 75 percent of graduates at private average student’s out-of-pocket educational cost could colleges have student debt; ACU is below the national be in the $14,000 range, plus room and board. average at 66 percent.

ACU offers a free online Net Cost Calculator at So, how much debt is it realistic to take on? A good rule acu.edu/admissions for freshmen and for transfer students of thumb for graduates is to not borrow over the course of to help determine ahead of time what their net cost might their college years more than they expect to make in their be. It asks questions about a student’s family finances, first year of employment. Students who go on to health professions or law school take on considerably more debt, test scores, class rank, GPA, extracurricular activities but also have the extra earning potential to repay it and other factors that influence financial aid offers. more quickly.

Estimation results are quick and provide families

“Annual block tuition is doing exactly what we envisioned. It helps families plan better financially, save money, shorten the time it takes their student to earn a degree, and reduce their debt after graduation.”

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“Thirty percent of our students in any given year essentially pay cash for their education, which means they use a payment plan and incur no loans,” said Kevin Campbell (’00), ACU’s chief enrollment officer.

“Another 30 percent receive the PELL grant and 40 percent are in between.”

Overall, the university offered more than 4,400 scholarships and grants valued at more than $34 million to the Fall 2015 freshman class. ACU has increased its scholarships by an average amount of $5,200 per student since 2012, and students are taking on less debt.

However, admissions office and financial aid professionals agree that an alarming number of families don’t plan for college at all, or underestimate what it costs and when to begin saving. (See Takeaways on page 39 for some advice on planning for college.)

Life after college Determining affordability is not simply an exercise in economics. It requires reflection on several factors.

One of the most accurate measures yet of a meaningful college experience is found in the 2014 Gallup/Purdue Index, a survey of more than 30,000 graduates by research-based consulting giant Gallup, and Purdue University. Its “Great Jobs, Great Lives” report said six factors connect the best college experience to success at work and overall well-being in life: 1. At least one professor who made learning exciting 2. Professors who care about students personally 3. Finding a mentor who encourages goals and dreams 4. Working on a long-term project for at least one semester 5. Opportunities to put classroom learning into practice through internships or jobs 6. Active involvement in extracurricular activities

In the Gallup/Purdue report, only 3 percent of graduates nationwide who received their degrees in the past four years are thriving in all dimensions. ACU officials, however, believe those six factors are distinguishing characteristics of every student’s Abilene Christian education, and have been for years.

“Most of our graduates will tell you they had engaging professors who mentored and cared about them as a person, who made learning fun and rewarding,” said Chris Riley, J.D. (’00), vice president for student life.

“ACU’s learning culture thrives on team-based projects, especially undergraduate research with classmates and professors,” said provost Dr. Robert Rhodes. “Many departments feature or require internships or other experiential learning experiences that enrich an education.

We have quality short and semester-long Study Abroad programs that provide the best of these opportunities,

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and with more than 100 clubs and organizations, there is something in which everybody can be involved.”

Annual block tuition tackles affordability Abilene Christian launched an innovative annual block tuition program in Fall 2012 that is transforming the ways students and their families are paying for college, and reducing their debt. Most private and many state universities offer block or flat-rate tuition plans for 12-18 credit hours each long semester (spring or fall). ACU’s annual block model allows full-time undergraduate students to take up to 36 hours each school year (fall, spring and summer) for one price, with general fees included.

Because students can take more hours at no additional cost, they can finish their degree faster (in as little as three-and-a-half years) and at significant savings – as much as $17,000 overall. There’s also a tremendous advantage to entering the marketplace or beginning graduate studies earlier and getting a head start on one’s peers.

How much time a student takes to earn a degree can have a dramatic effect on total cost. Significant numbers of full-time undergraduates at colleges and universities across the nation are taking fewer courses each semester, either by choice or because demand for classes exceeds classroom space. It’s common for them to take six or more years to graduate, and every year beyond the traditional four means a loss of potential income on top of additional cost for tuition, room and board, and expenses increasing a student’s debt. The New York Federal Reserve estimates one extra year of college costs a student $65,319, including tuition, fees and loss of potential earnings.

In 2011, the number of ACU students who graduated in four years or less was 36 percent. Today it’s up to 55 percent, compared to the Texas average of 31 percent. Campbell said 80 percent of ACU students are taking 30 or more credit hours a year and 20 percent are taking 36 or more annually, essentially maximizing the advantage of annual block tuition.

It’s also common for today’s ACU students to enroll with as many as 24 or 30 hours of dual credit, Advanced Placement, International Baccalaureate or other credit already earned in high school.

These credits, in combination with utilizing ACU’s annual block tuition, enable some students to graduate in as little as three years.

“Annual block tuition is doing exactly what we envisioned,” Campbell said. “It helps families plan better financially, save money, shorten the time it takes their student to earn a degree, and reduce their debt after graduation.”

The university also has dramatically increased

the amount of scholarships it awards students, from $38 million in 2012 to $54 million for 2016-17. Students majoring in Bible, missions or ministry receive tuition discounts up to 50 percent.

The goal for ACU’s $50 million Partnering in the Journey campaign was recently met when a Denton couple committed $20 million to benefit scholarships in ACU’s College of Biblical Studies. The other $30 million is earmarked for students in other academic disciplines, but the campaign signifies growing interest by alumni and other donors in paying forward the opportunities they received to bless future generations.

Takeaways Own it

Each student’s college education is not only his or her responsibility but an amazing opportunity to help define one’s future as well. The more families learn about the process, the easier it is to navigate and succeed.

Measuring value Those who enroll choose ACU over many other options, for various reasons, notably:

Plan and prepare

• Size: Small classes (14:1 student-to-teacher ratio) ensure personal attention • •

• • • • •

and hands-on learning. With 100 student-led clubs and organizations, there are many ways to become involved and learn valuable leadership skills.

Christian living and learning: ACU combines a world-class academic education in a Christian-centered environment where students grow in their faith while better understanding who Jesus is and what He’s called them to do.

Outcomes: Ninety percent of students are employed or in graduate or professional school within six months of graduation; some programs have even higher success rates. ACU’s Career Center provides access to 75,000 internships, and employers compete to hire our students. All 2013 graduates who applied to medical, dental or veterinary schools were accepted, continuing a historical trend for ACU science graduates to achieve placement success at rates nearly double the national average.

Faculty: Ninety-one percent of tenured or tenure-track faculty have their terminal degree, and they’re all professing Christians. Ph.D.s teach undergrads, a rarity at state universities.

Undergraduate research: ACU has unprecedented research opportunities for all undergrads, who regularly present at national conferences and publish papers in professional journals with professors and peers.

Innovation: Abilene Christian is known around the world as a leader in academic innovation and the study/use of mobile technology in learning.

NCAA Division I athletics: The Wildcats’ 16 teams have a long tradition of winning and regularly play opponents from the Big 12, WAC, Big Ten and Southeastern conferences.

Name recognition: With 86,000 alumni living and working in more than 110 nations, the power of ACU’s network and extent of its influence never ends.

Is it worth it?

Generous giving to the $95 million Vision in Action initiative and record enrollment gains alone signify an increasing confidence among students and families in the value of an ACU education.

The university’s Fall 2015 class of 1,070 students was ACU’s largest since 1984 and the second-largest freshman class in its history. And 60 percent of students who visit campus decide to enroll, for years one of the highest such success rates in the nation.

They know they can graduate earlier – as much as 10 months ahead of peers at four-year public universities – with less debt and a valuable degree that gives them an edge in the marketplace and greater career and life satisfaction.

That price, they reason, is not only affordable but truly worth their investment. 

A college degree is an investment, and families can never begin too early to save for it. Work with a certified financial planner. Explore a 529 Plan that locks in tuition prices years ahead of expected enrollment.

Be brave

Don’t be shy of the sticker price; most people pay a greatly discounted rate. Go through the process. Complete the FAFSA and talk to an ACU admissions counselor and financial aid consultant. Ask questions and be ready to learn.

Have faith

There are various pathways to affordability, and they’re different for each student/family. ACU is ready to help each applicant find the additional resources to make a college degree accessible.

Visit

Take time to visit campus and compare everything: classroom and lab facilities, career planning and advising services, residence halls, campus safety and so on. Talk to faculty, staff and students. Explore the library. Attend Chapel. Eat in The Bean. See a ballgame. Get to know the university and its people before deciding.

Time is money

The average time to graduate from a college or university makes a huge difference in the overall cost. Changing majors and transferring adds to the timetable; earning extra hours of dual credit in high school shortens it. Students should aim to graduate in four years or less, hitting the job market sooner than their peers.

ACU is affordable

An exceptional Christian higher education is affordable and not as expensive as many perceive.

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GUTENBERG CELEBRATION Hunter Welcome Center, 6:30 p.m.

Friday, October 21 CHAPEL Moody Coliseum, 11 a.m.

CARNIVAL South lawn of Moody Coliseum and Money Student Recreation and Wellness Center, Gyms A and B, 5-8 p.m.

HOMECOM ING CANDLELIGHT DEVO Beauchamp Amphitheatre, 8:15-8:45 p.m.

ACU SPORTS HALL OF FAME CELEBRATION AND LETTERMEN’S REUNION Dinner and Induction: Hunter Welcome Center, 6:30 p.m.

Lettermen’s Reunion: Hunter Welcome Center, Atrium, 8 p.m.

MUSICAL: MAN OF LA MANCHA Abilene Civic Center, 1100 N. 6th St., 8 p.m.

Saturday, October 22

SOCIAL CLUB BREAKFASTS Various locations, 6 a.m.; please see Homecoming extended schedule of events at acu.edu/homecoming PARADE Beginning on East North 16th St., 9:30 a.m.

HOMECOM ING CHAPEL Moody Coliseum, 11 a.m.

ACU FOOTBALL LEGENDS LUNCHEON Teague Special Events Center, Noon DEPARTMENTAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL EVENTS Various locations and times; please see Homecoming extended schedule of events at acu.edu/homecoming WILDCAT FOOTBALL GAME ACU vs. University of the Incarnate Word Shotwell Stadium, 2:30 p.m.

REUNION CLASS CELEBRATIONS Various locations, 6 p.m.

MUSICAL: MAN OF LA MANCHA Abilene Civic Center, 1100 N. 6th St., 8 p.m.

POST-REUNION CONCERT AND DESSERT RECEPTION Hunter Welcome Center, 8-10:30 p.m.

FIREWORKS SHOW East Lawn of Hunter Welcome Center, 8:45 p.m.

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ACU101

The wildcat represents a genre of feisty North American felines including the bobcat and lynx. Regardless of its ancestry, it can be one ornery critter when cornered. Students chose the wildcat in a 1919 contest to select an athletics mascot (runner-up: antelopes), and enthusiastically raised $6,300 to build and name a playing field along South First Street for football, baseball and intramural sports. The venue just west of downtown Abilene was named Wildcat Park. Here’s what you need to know about ACU’s mascot.

This cartoon character for Willie was created in 1996 to accompany his new costume and was used in marketing to kids.

BELOW A mounted wildcat was paraded in a cart around Abilene’s Fair Park stadium during an event in the 1940s.

Bob Thomas A bobcat captured near the banks of the Devil’s River in Val Verde County became ACU’s first live Wildcat mascot.

Named Bob Thomas, he participated in the 1923 West Texas Fair Parade but died soon after and was buried on the North First Street campus near Daisy Hall. A funeral attended in late September by students and administrators included a poem read by senior Frank Kercheville (’24): We’re sad today, old fighting pal, To see you lie so low, You came to mean a lot to us That try to play the game.

But your fight and dauntless spirit Shall fire our every team And those fierce eyes will burn the path To many a victory.

Mrs. Bob Thomas A female bobcat trapped by student Raymond Howard (’33) and his father in Lampasas County arrived on campus in January 1926 to replace a stuffed one employed since 1924. Named Mrs. Bob Thomas, she lived in the back of the bookstore and growled fiercely when first presented to president Batsell Baxter. When asked what he was going to do with the college’s new gift, Baxter said, “I’m going to leave her alone.”

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Our friendly, furry friends Master Bob Thomas Jr.

Research is incomplete, but the following students have portrayed Willie or other wildcat-costumed mascots through the years.

Help us complete the roster by emailing robin.saylor@acu.edu:

In July 1926, an Abilene resident and ACC fan named Mr. Stedman presented the college with a weeks-old wildcat cub named Master Bob Thomas Jr. that lived in a cage in the backyard of coach A.B. Morris on Sayles Boulevard. “He is turned loose during the day, when he is pleased to annoy the neighbors by climbing around … their housetops,” reported The Optimist student newspaper. The Kitten Klub was organized in 1927 to develop student loyalty and aid Athletics. Members wore purple and white uniforms with a likeness of “Old Bob Thomas” on their sweater.

1964 Tal Solomon 1965 Dwight Sowle 1979-80 Ty Cross, David Lang, Rick Young 1980-81 Ty Cross, David Lang, Gary Hanna 1982-83 Jim McKissick, Charles Pullen, Bobby Griffith, Danny Dodds 1983-84 Wilma Janie Webb, Tamara Childers, Jobie Cabbell 1985-86 Brad Mitten 1986-87 Wendy Brashear Dickerson, Jim Bales 1989-90 Matt Robbins 1992-93 Daysha Sanford 1993-94 Laura Bolin Carroll, Carl Manuel 2002-03 Laura Zengerle Huddleston 2003-04 Laura Zengerle Huddleston, Lajours Taylor, Tori Watson 2004-05 Julianna DeBrine, Andrea Gorsline, Tori Watson 2005-06 Andrea Gorsline 2007-08 Julianna DeBrine 2008-09 Jason Creed 2009-10 Mary Swantek 2010-12 Collin Graves 2012-13 Collin Graves, DJ Acevedo 2013-14 DJ Acevedo, Julia Prior, Brantly Houston 2014-15 Julia Prior, Brantly Houston, Katie Gibson 2015-17 Katie Gibson

Acey Early in 1952, a trapper near Alice, Texas, gave a newborn wildcat to Willow Dean Ellis, sister of student Sonny Cleere (’54). Named Acey, the cat was bottle-fed until Cleere brought it to campus that spring to live in the athletics dorm.

Chris Willie and a friend in Moody Coliseum, circa 1980.

In 1953, ACC’s Student Council purchased a 5-month-old lynx from student Allan McDaniel (’58) and named it Chris. The Optimist reported Chris was on the field for Homecoming that fall.

Cleo

Talmadge “Tal” Solomon (’66) portrayed a costumed mascot during the 1965 football season, but Willy the Wildcat was born in 1979 when the Students’ Association purchased a fur-and-latex costume from a Cleveland-based company.

His name was later changed to Willie.

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ACC basketball player Wayne Shamblin (’62) and his wife, Barbara, found a baby bobcat in October 1960. With permission from dean Garvin Beauchamp (’41), Cleo lived with the Shamblins in their married-student apartment on campus, where he was given the run of the house.

So many women applied to be the mascot in 1982 that the selection committee decided to add Wilma. A wedding was planned for the two love-struck mascots following a pep rally.

A new costume for Willie was purchased in 1996 from a company in Canada, and worn for the first time by normally shy ACU Today editor Ron Hadfield (’79) during a campus operations division Town Hall meeting.

Willie enjoys posing with new graduates at May Commencement like (from left) Hannah Henderson (’14) and Megan Teel (’14).

Today, the Wildcats are represented by Willie at games, parades and special events on campus and around the community (see image above).

PAUL WHITE

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#ACU

We love our followers on social media. Here are just a few of the posts by and about Wildcats.

Brantly Houston

March 10 at 8:53 a.m.

Only @meghannsydney and I would sing Sing Song acts together while walking through the south Bronx.

Keith Sanders

January 17 at 2:55 p.m.

“Hey bro, who’s your favorite apostle?”

Only at ACU, oh it was Paul btw … #acu #theacudifference

real slim shelby

February 3 at 1:07 p.m.

Such a sad moment when I realized I couldn’t call my bro, who’s on deployment in the military, to share my excitement of acceptance. #ACU20

Melissa Jenkins March 9

#iloveacu because it is a part of my Addison neighborhood now!!

Madeline Dayton

November 13 at 10:27 a.m.

But does your school have the Texas Supreme Court Justices come visit and have actual sessions on campus? Didn’t think so. #theacudifference

Nil Santana June 17

Maker Academy: Camp 3 – give them a motor kit and they will build an electric vehicle. #acumakerlab

Adriana:D

November 2 at 5:48 p.m.

When my dorm hall has bible study they say BYOB. (bring your own bible) #TheACUDifference

Jake Rosser

October 11 at 11:22 a.m.

princess_carolyn 9 weeks ago

#iloveacu because of the wonderful friendships I made, praise day chapel, the phenomenal professors and advisors who poured into me daily and now as a graduate are only a text away, the extremely high quality education, and the community to love and grow. At ACU you are so much more than a face in the crowd. You are family. #gocats #livepurple

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Wrote a song instead of writing a paper for class and got credit. Now why couldn’t I have done this for math? #TheACUdifference #KnowWeekend

Great Big Yes January 26

Went on college visit with my daughter yesterday. I love the idea of her going to a place where she is surrounded by God’s Word every day. When I was 18 and heading off to college, let’s just say that was not the case for me. But we all want better for our kids, right? Honestly, we were prayed over several times yesterday and I’m so grateful.

I’m excited for Natalie to discover and grow into the beautiful future God has for her. #abilenechristianuniversity #ACU #college #decisions #God #wisdom #guidance #parenting #university #scripture #reminders #Jesus #worshipwithyourlife #service #calling #faithandeducation

Victoria

December 30 at 9:22 a.m.

Lauren Payne

January 11 at 8:01 a.m.

First day freshman year I showed up with a full backpack and a printed syllabus for every class. Today I didn’t even bring a pencil.

So it turns out that I actually learned how to make an omelette by watching Annie make them. #acudifference

Alexis Walter

December 23 at 6:35 p.m.

Wore my GSP sweatshirt to see my Moonie alum ENT. He refused to check out my throat until I changed my shirt. #TSCM #ACUdifference

Julia Teel

March 10 at 9:49 a.m. @ the random guy who followed me across the bean to give me his food after I dropped mine: bless you. it’s been a long day & it’s only 12pm.

Charlotte Moody Russell November 7

The cutest ACU fans in Natchitoches tonight.

Class of 2030 and 2032.

Creative ACU students have created a Twitter account for @ChapelBat, in honor of the harmless and speedy small Mexican free-tailed bats inhabiting the rafters of Moody Coliseum from time to time. A sample of the social media commentary: Rosealee Hoffman January 14

Last night at Abilene Christian University, a basketball game had to be paused due to a bat loose in Moody Coliseum. Fast forward to this morning, when I get a message from my child telling me the bat remains, and has been named Bruce. And now, apparently the bat has a Twitter account (@chapelbat). Say what you will about college kids, but their sense of humor is first rate.

Laura Lybrand

May 22 at 7:45 a.m.

Glad I wore an ACU jacket on the plane, great conversation starter and always fun to meet ACU alumni. #AbileneChristianUniversity #Alumni

Becca Schardt

January 13 at 5:28 p.m.

Stopping a basketball game because there’s a bat on the court. #theacudifference

Dear Wonderful, Precious, Marvelous Sierra, It was great to work with YOU at the basketball game on Saturday. YOU got to play a lot and obviously did a great job. I am SO THANKFUL for WHO YOU ARE and ALL YOU ARE DOING. After the season is over, Evelyn and I want to take YOU and YOUR friends and TEAM to breakfast, lunch, or dinner.

I am praying for YOU daily. Thank YOU SO MUCH for YOUR great godly example.

Much Love and Abundant Blessing, John Willis

Sierra Allen

February 28 at 12:51 p.m.

My 83 year old Bible professor got to be a guest coach this week! My heart is full #theACUdifference

u_liz_and_u_learn 24 weeks ago H O M E #ACU20

Phoebe Head

February 17 at 11:05 a.m.

RANDY HARRIS IS HERE WALKING AT THE REC AND I HAVE TO KNOW WHAT MUSIC HE IS LISTENING TO. #HolyFitness

Jeremy West • February 17 @phoebehead @overheardACU It’s a cover.

He is listening to silence.

ChapelBat emily

November 29 at 10:51 a.m. in a sea of Texas Tech cars on my route back to Abilene … it takes everything in me not to speed up and throw the wildcat sign at all of ’em.

February 20 at 6:52 a.m.

Who’s ready for today??? #SingSong

Katie Hall

March 11 at 9:22 a.m. there are two bats worshipping Jesus in Moody. #acudifference

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TheBOOKCASE Bringing Heaven to Earth

With This Ring?

YOU DON’T HAVE TO WAIT FOR ETERNITY TO LIVE THE GOOD NEWS

A NOVELLA COLLECTION OF PROPOSALS GONE WRONG

By Jonathan Storment (’12 M.A.) and Josh Ross (’03) ISBN 978-1601426703 • 224 pages waterbrookmultnomah.com

By Karen (Gaskin ’93) Witemeyer ISBN 978-0764217722 • 368 pages bethanyhouse.com

God’s kingdom specializes in the restorative work of redemption and renewal, bringing heaven to earth in the lives of His followers.

Four top historical romance novelists team up in this new collection to offer stories of love and romance with a twist of humor. In Karen Witemeyer’s “The Husband Maneuver,” Marietta Hawkins decides to grab the reins when the ranch foreman she loves seems to be leaving forever.

Reading Scripture as a Political Act ESSAYS ON THE THEOPOLITICAL INTERPRETATION OF THE BIBLE

By Dr. Matthew A. Tapie (’01) and Daniel Wade McClain ISBN 978-1451479638 • 334 pages fortresspress.com From the earliest Christian centuries to the present day, there is close coordination between Scripture, theology, and social and political concerns.

Enchiladas AZTEC TO TEX-MEX

By Chris Waters Dunn (’73) and Cappy Lawton ISBN 978-81595347510 • 264 pages tupress.org Enchiladas is an award-winning cookbook exploring Mexico’s cuisine and culture. It includes recipes for 60 delicious traditional and contemporary versions of one of the Southwest’s favorite foods, plus the side dishes to accompany it.

The Untold Story of the Lower Colorado River Authority

By John Williams (’74) ISBN 978-1-62349-341-7 • 320 pages tamupress.com Williams, who devoted nearly four decades to the Lower Colorado River Authority as a writer, editor and historian, tells how the LCRA brought hydroelectric power and a drought-busting reliable water supply to much of Texas.

THE PRINCIPAL’S GUIDE TO

TIME MANAGEMENT Instructional Leadership in the Digital Age

Richard D. Sorenson | Lloyd M. Goldsmith | David E. DeMatthews

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The Principal’s Guide to Time Management INSTRUCTIONAL LEADERSHIP IN THE DIGITAL AGE

By Dr. Lloyd Goldsmith, Dr. Richard D. Sorenson and David E. DeMatthews ISBN 978-1506323107 • 256 pages corwin.com Goldsmith, an ACU professor of education, helps school administrators use educational technology to maximize efficiency while improving teaching, student achievement, resource management and school culture.

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Receptions of Newman Edited by Dr. Frederick Aquino (’89) and Dr. Benjamin King ISBN 978-0199687589 • 264 pages global.oup.com Aquino, professor of theology in ACU’s Graduate School of Theology, offers a fresh perspective on John Henry Newman, one of the most influential and controversial churchmen of the 19th century.

Philippians and Philemon PAIDEIA COMMENTARIES ON THE NEW TESTAMENT

By Dr. James Thompson (’64) and Dr. Bruce Longenecker ISBN 978-0801033391 • 240 pages bakerpublishinggroup.com Esteemed Bible professors at ACU and Baylor (Thompson is ACU professor emeritus of New Testament and scholar-in-residence) offer a new volume in the Paideia series of commentaries.

Prepare to Defend Yourself HOW TO AGE GRACEFULLY AND ESCAPE WITH YOUR DIGNITY

By Matthew Minson, M.D. (’83) ISBN 978-1623491154 • 232 pages tamupress.com Minson, an occupational medicine physician, turns a critical and whimsical eye on the medical and social aspects of aging. Topics covered include health, finances, sex, diet, exercise, death and the law.

The DIY Musician’s Radio Handbook HOW TO GROWTH HACK YOUR FAN BASE AND BUILD STRONGER NETWORKS USING INDIE RADIO AIRPLAY

By D. Grant Smith (’04) ISBN 978-0997437003 • 384 pages clearforkpublishing.com As host of a syndicated radio show heard around the world, Smith offers practical but out-of-the-box advice to independent musicians who aspire to gain airplay to build their fan base.

Selections of books about Abilene Christian University or those written, edited, compiled or contributed to by ACU alumni, faculty, staff and students

Saul of Tarsus

Reviving Old Scratch

THE FIRST TERRORIST

DEMONS AND THE DEVIL FOR DOUBTERS AND THE DISENCHANTED

By Jack Minter (’81) ISBN 978-1612548555 • 336 pages brownbooks.com How did Saul, a murderous person committed to eliminating Christians, come to view Jesus as Savior rather than a blasphemous prophet? Minter examines the paths the two may have actually crossed in life.

Beliefs Can Be Murder A LUKE McWHORTER MYSTERY

By Dudley Lynch (’62) ASIN B01C3K6LS4 • 269 pages redseamysteries.com Who is killing the Bible professors in Flagler, Texas?

This mystery novel, set in a community called home by three church-related universities, traces the work of sheriff Luke McWorter to end six days of lawlessness, mayhem and dread in his West Texas city.

No Other Will Do

By Karen (Gaskin ’93) Witemeyer ISBN 978-0764212819 • 368 pages bethanyhouse.com When her beloved women’s colony is threatened by an outlaw bent on driving them off their land, suffragette Emma Chandler must bring in a man to help keep her ladies safe. There’s only one she trusts for the job, but can she trust him with her heart?​

Fight or Flight NEGOTIATING CRISIS ON THE FRONT LINE

By Dr. Andrew T. Young (’95 M.S.) ISBN 978-1680199635 • 248 pages egen.co/store/fight-or-flight A panorama of hostage situations from the vantage points of SWAT teams, police, victims, the bad guys and the specially trained mental health professionals who help save lives and bring relief to the extreme distress that comes with the trauma of crisis.

Theodore Thumbs

By Dr. Richard Beck (’89) ISBN 978-1506401355 • 200 pages fortresspress.com ACU psychology professor Beck reintroduces the devil to the modern world with a biblical, bold and urgent vision of spiritual warfare: We must resist the devil by joining the kingdom of God’s subversive campaign to interrupt the world with love.

The Son of God THREE VIEWS OF THE IDENTITY OF JESUS

By Danny Andre Dixon (’81), Charles Lee Irons and Dustin R. Smith ISBN 978-1498224260 • 230 pages wipfandstock.com Three authors share differing perspectives of Jesus and debate them. The Christology of Jesus is measured against Scripture and the literature of early Judaism.

Living Your Dash HOW TO FIND AND FULFILL YOUR LIFE PURPOSE

By Rick Hale (’76) ISBN 978-0991629152 • 162 pages amazon.com On most headstones is a dash – the space between one’s birth and death. What you do between those two dates defines your time on earth. Using the book of Nehemiah, Hale examines the journey of defining and fulfilling one’s purpose in life.

Accountable THE BAYLOR SCOTT & WHITE QUALITY ALLIANCE ACCOUNTABLE CARE JOURNEY

By Carl Couch, M.D. (’65) ISBN 978-1498743334 • 240 pages taylorandfrancis.com Stakeholders in today’s complex health care systems have a lot on the line in their various roles. Couch, a longtime respected family physician, looks at the role of personal and organizational accountability.

By Dr. Steven T. Moore ISBN 978-0989956857 • 40 pages clearforkpublishing.com

Hunting Hope

In this book for children, shy Theodore Thumbs faces bullies at school but learns to overcome the same challenges many kids face in today’s world. Moore is associate professor of language and literature, and director of the McNair Scholars Program at ACU.

By Nika Maples (’96) ISBN 978-1617956652 • 240 pages worthyinspired.com

DIG THROUGH THE DARKNESS TO FIND THE LIGHT

The author, who has overcome great personal health hardships, helps readers learn how to find encouragement and triumph, even in life’s most difficult circumstances.

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HilltopVIEW

For the latest visit acu.edu/news facebook.com/abilenechristian twitter.com/acuedu

BY ROBIN SAYLOR

instagram.com/acuedu

Campus carry: ACU opts out

Childers receives honorary doctorate from alma mater Former ACU trustee Terry L. Childers (’74) was presented an honorary Doctor of Laws degree for distinction in public and governmental service, and contributions to the university and society.

The honor was presented Dec. 11, 2015, at Commencement in Moody Coliseum.

At a celebratory dinner beforehand, Dr. Phil Schubert (’91) extolled Childers’ leadership, calling him a true trailblazer. “He has broken

barriers during his life’s work in Texas and Oklahoma, making a real difference in the lives of people and the communities in which they live,” Schubert said.

Childers’ career has largely been focused in city management.

In Oklahoma City, he became one of the nation’s youngest city managers for a major city at age 34. He currently is assistant agency director for the Texas A&M Transportation Institute as well as interim city manager for Amarillo. 

PAUL WHITE

Dr. Terry Childers (’74) was joined on the left by his wife, Essie (Charles ’75), and in the middle by Dorothy Wiseman, his first-grade teacher.

ACU is one of 34 private universities in Texas that have chosen to opt out of Senate Bill 11, also known as the campus carry law.

The new legislation changes how Texas Handgun License laws apply to college and university campuses. Effective Aug. 1, 2016, Texans with concealed gun licenses will be allowed to carry concealed handguns on public campuses, while private universities are given the option of remaining gun-free.

According to The Texas Tribune, all but four of the state’s private universities have announced a decision to ban handguns.

The other four remain undecided.

The law requires private universities to consult with students, faculty and staff before making a decision, said police chief Jimmy Ellison, who along with Chris Riley, J.D. (’00), vice president for student life, led the process for ACU. “The consultation process with the ACU community lasted two semesters and included numerous meetings and forums with students, the Students’ Association, Faculty Senate and Staff Senate,” said Ellison.

Campuswide emails also solicited input used to make the decision. 

BY T HE NUMBE RS

40,000 Ready-to-eat meals prepared by 300 Lynay students from ACU during the week of Jan. 25, 2016, while volunteering at Global Samaritan Resources in Abilene. GSR sent the dehydrated casserole mix portions to refugee camps in Iraq and Jordan.

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727 Number of ACU students who served in World War II. Ninety-three are still surviving, including Abilene dermatologist Clyde Morgan, M.D. (left), a 1948 graduate. Morgan piloted a C-47 during the war for King Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia.

18 Number of body-worn video cameras purchased by ACU Police Department to equip its officers with up-to-date law enforcement technology. The body-cams demonstrate the department’s intent to be transparent while increasing the level of accountability for police officers and the public, said ACU police chief Jimmy Ellison.

Dr. Jennifer (Wade ’91) Shewmaker, executive director of ACU’s Adams Center for Teaching and Learning, and associate professor of psychology

WC Magazine goes digital The WC Magazine for prospective students and parents is now a downloadable app.

The new format is designed to reach high school students and their families with useful information available anytime, anywhere on their mobile devices.

The WC, which stands for Wildcat, contains short articles, photo galleries and videos.

Originally a 16-page print magazine, The WC was launched in 2011 and mailed twice a year to 50,000 families. The new digital version has the potential to reach even more families at a significant cost savings to the university.

In addition to stories that personify the spirit of ACU, the magazine contains resources to help families begin their college preparation earlier with advice on such topics as applying for financial aid and taking college admissions tests.

Download the app by searching for “ACU’s The WC Magazine.”

Find videos of the 2016 TEDxACU talks at tedxacu.org

TEDxACU 2016

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ith topics ranging from Islam to fatherhood, the second annual TEDxACU conference brought together a diverse group of speakers to explore the theme “20 Questions.” Among them were “Is It What You Thought?” “Do You Know the Whole Story?” and “Does Society Define Your Reality?”

The 2017 conference is set for March 24 with the theme “Next,” said Dr. Lauren (Smith ’05) Lemley, assistant professor of communication and TEDxACU director. 

Omar El-Halwagi, a student at the University of Michigan Law School and the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University

GARY RHODES

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1,070

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Number of ministers and church leaders who attended the first ElderLink Midwest in Indianapolis, Ind., on April 23, 2016. ElderLink is an outreach of ACU’s Siburt Institute for Church Ministry. This year’s theme for ElderLink conferences in Dallas, Houston, Lubbock and Indianapolis is “Beyond the Status Quo: Discovering New Frontiers with God.”

Students in the Fall 2015-16 freshman class, the second-largest cohort in ACU history, and one of its most diverse.

The previous biggest group of freshmen was in 1984. The university’s overall headcount was 4,544.

Number of races won in women’s cross country and indoor/outdoor track and field by junior distance star Alexandria Hackett in 2015-16.

Among her championships were four Southland Conference titles (setting two meet and three ACU records) and races she won at six major meets around the nation. She also carries a 3.95 GPA in financial management.

See story on page 63.

Learn more about upcoming Elderlink dates at acu.edu/siburt-institute

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STEVE BUTMAN

“I felt like if I was going to play or sing all night with no pay, I might as well do it for the Lord, if there wasn’t going to be any money in it. I don’t enjoy that other stuff; I just love to sing gospel music.”

Christian

Q UO TA BL E S

“

This campus for us is a greenhouse of thousands of happy memories.”

“

There’s your plan and God’s plan, and your plan doesn’t matter.”

JASON MASTERS

– MAX LUCACO (’77), minister and best-selling Christian author, in comments April 26, 2016, when honored at the annual Friends of ACU Library dinner. Lucado was named 2016 Friend of the Year. See pages 12-17.

– Jan (Branscome ’88) Collier, vice president and general manager of AT&T Mobility for Texas and Arkansas, in an interview with the July 2015 issue of Little Rock Soiree magazine, which named her one of Arkansas’ 2015 Women to Watch.

“

Knowing your intrinsic value will help you navigate this world of ascribed value. It’ll help you weather seasons of inferiority, obscurity and failure without allowing those seasons to hijack your life. You’ll have them, but the difference is they won’t have you.”

PAUL WHITE

– Chris Seidman (’92), senior minister of The Branch Church in Dallas, delivering “A Charge to the Class” at Commencement May 4, 2016, in Moody Coliseum.

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PAUL WHITE

– The late Harold Christian, owner of Harold’s World Famous Bar-B-Q in Abilene, in an interview in The Optimist in 1991 about singing in rowdy West Texas honky tonks as a young man.

Christian, who died April 3, 2016, endeared himself to several generations of students and alumni with impromptu gospel singing while patrons enjoyed his equally tasty table fare.

CAMPUS VOICES PAUL WHITE

Feb. 1, 2016, at a Center for Building Community luncheon in the McCaleb Conference Center.

Dr. Gary Oliver, executive director of the Center for Healthy Relationships, presented Growing Emotionally Intelligent Relationships, a workshop for students, faculty and staff in the McCaleb Conference Center on April 17, 2016.

Farron Salley (’12) and Wendell Edwards (’92) presented a workshop March 5, 2016, on Race and Media for students in the Department of Journalism and Mass Communication. Salley is a multimedia journalist for FOX23 News in Tulsa, Okla., and Edwards, a former All-America hurdler for the Wildcats, is a news anchor for ABC 33/40 in Birmingham, Ala.

Nashville TV and stage lighting expert Mark Carver (’84) spoke to journalism and mass communication students Jan. 14, 2016, about advanced lighting techniques.

Kirk Sorenson, president and chief technologist of Flibe Energy, presented a seminar for students, faculty and professionals from the region Jan. 19, 2016, about the potential of liquid fluoride thorium reactors.

Longtime Abilenian Charles Coody, winner of the The Masters golf tournament in 1971, spoke

Alex Ketteman (’12) of AXA Advisors presented “Fuzzy Future Financial Stewardship,” a March 29, 2016, workshop to help new graduates manage their finances.

ACU trustee Lance Barrow (’77), Emmy award-winning coordinating producer of golf and NFL football for CBS Sports, spoke March 3, 2016, at a Center for Building Community Barrow luncheon in the McCaleb Conference Center. He again produced in April 2016 the CBS Sports telecast of The Masters PGA tournament.

New York Times’ best-selling author and popular blogger Melanie Shankle was featured speaker at an April 21, 2016, fundraising dinner for ACU women’s basketball in Williams Performing Arts Center. Proceeds benefit the team’s preseason trip to Canada in August.

Ben Hernandez (’06) and Sarah Reid (’10) of Dallas-based Dialexa advertising agency spent the afternoon April 1, 2016, reviewing student portfolios and providing feedback. Dialexa’s high-profile clients include Amazon, Lockheed Martin and Evernote.

Rev. Mitch Hescox, president and CEO of the Evangelical Environmental Network, was on campus April 20-21, 2016, to speak to biology and environmental science classes and in Chapel. His topics included clean energy, creation care, climate change, water pollution, energy and environment policy, and water conservation.

The COBA Distinguished Speaker Series luncheon in the McCaleb Conference Center on March 22, 2016, featured Dr. Pat Gelsinger, CEO of VMware, the world’s fourth-largest software company.

Jenn Suhr, 2012 Olympic gold medalist and 15-time U.S. national champion pole vaulter, conducted a clinic for youngsters on April 26, 2016, the day before competing in ACU’s annual twilight track and field meet at Elmer Gray Stadium. Suhr is the women’s indoor pole vault world record holder and a member of the 2016 U.S. Olympic team.

STEVE BUTMAN

Justice Week in Chapel, Feb. 29 - March 4, 2016, included programs by Dr. John Siburt (’96), president and CEO of CitySquare in Dallas; Kyle McAlister (’89), Abilene city councilman; Dr. Christopher Dowdy (’03), special assistant to the president and institutional research assistant at Paul Quinn College; and Dr. Cynthia Wenz, CEO of The Source for Women. Other Chapel speakers in Spring 2016 included Rev. Felicia Hopkins, senior pastor of Abilene’s St. Paul’s United Methodist Church, April 4; Wes McAdams, preaching minister of Abilene’s Baker Heights Church of Christ, April 18; James Gash, J.D. (’89), Pepperdine University law professor and author of Divine Collision, Jan. 14; and Dove Award-winning Christian recording artist Meredith Andrews, Feb. 25.

Dr. Michael Ward, senior research fellow at Blackfriars Hall at the University of Oxford, spoke April 1, 2016, in Hart Auditorium on “C.S Lewis on the Role of Imagination and Reason in Science and Religion.” He is the author of the award-winning Planet Narnia: The Seven Heavens in the Imagination of C.S. Lewis and co-editor of The Cambridge Companion to C.S. Lewis.

(Stallings ’82) Vanderpool, and her husband, David M. Vanderpool, M.D. (’82), to help raise funds for LiveBeyond, a humanitarian relief organization they founded in Haiti in 2010.

STEVE BUTMAN

Dewby (Adams ’50) Ray received the 2016 Dale and Rita Brown Outlive Your Life Award at Commencement on May 7, 2016, and spoke to family and friends at a McCaleb Conference Center luncheon in her honor between the two graduation services. Look for a profile of her in the Winter-Spring 2017 issue of ACU Today.

LINDSEY COTTON

PAUL WHITE

Mullins

Longtime Abilene educator Shirla (Minatra ’77) Mullins was the 2016 recipient of the Department of Teacher Education’s Morlan Award Medal at a dinner March 31, 2016, in the McCaleb Conference Center.

Grammy Award-winning hip hop artist Lecrae performed in Moody Coliseum on Feb. 11, 2016.

Legendary football coach and former ACU trustee Gene Stallings spoke at a dinner May 10, 2016, in Hunter Welcome Center.

He was on campus with his daughter, Laurie

Gelsinger

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AcademicNEWS

For the latest visit acu.edu/news facebook.com/abilenechristian twitter.com/acuedu

BY ROBIN SAYLOR

instagram.com/acuedu

HTI offers valuable medical missions experiences for ACU pre-health students The largest group ever of ACU pre-health students traveled to Guatemala for a 2016 Spring Break medical missions trip with Health Talents International. HTI is a 44-year-old nonprofit organization promoting medical evangelism in developing countries.

ACU science faculty, students and alumni have been participating in HTI trips to Guatemala and Nicaragua for more than 20 years, said ACU Body & Soul director Terri Aldriedge, R.N., who accompanied the 28 students.

Stephanie They opened my Sariles, senior biology major eyes to the true definition from Plano, of relying on the Lord.

“

ACU students have accompanied their professors for more than two decades on HTI-sponsored medical missions trips to Central America.

STEPANIE SARILES

described her experience They taught me what serving as a translator faith is in the midst for the group. of uncertainty.”

“The poverty – STEPHANIE SARILES the Guatemalans live in each day describes my parents’ childhood,” she said.

“I had visited my parents’ childhood homes in El Salvador and noticed the hardships people in Central America are faced with on a daily basis.”

As a native Spanish speaker, Sariles knew she would translate many heartbreaking stories. “By the end of the first night in Guatemala, I found myself on my knees weeping,” she said. “I had to tell the father of a 4-year-old that his son would most likely be blind for the rest of his life. I had to explain to many that they would never recover their Sariles examines a young sight because the damage patient at HTI’s Clinica Ezell surgical center in Guatemala. was irreversible.”

The reason she was on her knees,

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however, was not just because of the sadness of the stories but because of the unfaltering faith of the Guatemalans.

“They opened my eyes to the true definition of relying on the Lord,” she said. “They taught me what faith is in the midst of uncertainty.”

Despite hot nights, sticky scrubs and aching feet, Sariles said she would gladly do it all over again. She went to Guatemala with the mindset “that I would be the one pouring out to others,” she said. “But now that I have had the time to reflect on the trip, I realized I received more than what I gave.”

“This was one of the most extraordinary groups of students I have worked with,” Aldriedge said.

“They worked long hours in hot, humid conditions, and I never heard a complaint from any of them – not one. Watching them love on the Guatemalans was a precious sight to see. Our lives have forever been touched.” 

TERRI ALDRIEDGE

Learn more about ACU’s Body & Soul program for pre-health majors at acu.edu/bodyandsoul

UNDE RGR A DUAT E RE SE A RC H

Crisp named COBA dean

BRE HEINRICH

Dr. Brad Crisp (’93) has been named dean of the College of Business Administration.

“Brad is committed to supporting faculty and to preparing students well through his continued commitment to academic excellence and his sharp focus on intentional Christian spiritual formation,” said provost Dr. Robert Rhodes.

During his 10 years at ACU, Crisp Crisp has served as director of the School of Information Technology and Computing, which earned ABET accreditation under his leadership, and he launched the online MBA as its first director. Crisp earned his B.B.A. from ACU, and holds an MBA and Ph.D. from The University of Texas at Austin. He is married to Jennifer (Money ’93), and they have two sons, Jon and Caleb.

Crisp replaces Dr. Rick Lytle, who served as COBA dean for 16 years.

Lytle has been named director of COBA’s new Center for Leadership and Faith Development and CEO of CEO Forum Inc., an organization focused on spiritual development of business leaders around the world.

Heinrich and some of the youngsters she befriended in Haiti.

Student’s groundbreaking research about homeless youth to be presented to Haitian government

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JEREMY ENLOW

Crisp (below) has been director of ACU’s School of Information Technology since 2011.

hen Bre Heinrich came to ACU, she wasn’t sure about her major or her career plans. But a side project for a course and a lengthy stay in Haiti have helped her clarify her calling.

After Heinrich changed her major from psychology to social work, she began a project for a course that connected her with Tausha Pearson, a social worker who founded a nonprofit organization called Haiti Mama. Pearson’s organization works to reunify homeless youth in Haiti with their families instead of placing them in orphanages. Since the catastrophic 2010 earthquake in Port-au-Prince, the country’s number of homeless youth has dramatically increased.

Heinrich eventually lived in Haiti, researching and analyzing the attachment levels and self-care habits of homeless street children who have been reunified with their families, compared to those of children in orphanages. Her work eventually became a research project that was accepted for presentation at a national conference this spring.

She graduated in May 2016 and is enrolled in a master’s degree program in social work at ACU. “The best part was being able to apply the information I have been learning in

my classes in a practical way,” Heinrich said. “None of my classes could prepare me completely to conduct research, problem-solve and arrange transportation in this environment. I made so many mental connections through this hands-on approach to learning. It helped confirm that I want to become a social worker.”

Though living in Haiti for an extended time was a tough adjustment for Heinrich, it wasn’t all work and no play. After learning her way around, she found time to build relationships and explore the area. “I was thrilled to be able to live in native Haitian communities and be immersed in the culture for a substantial amount of time. It gave me a real look into international living,” she said.

Heinrich now collaborates with Dr. Stephen Baldridge, assistant professor of social work, to publish her work. She plans to have it presented to the Haitian government, hoping to gain financial support for Haiti Mama’s pioneering reunification model.

“Haiti chose me,” she says. “I can’t find any logical explanation to describe how a simple Skype interview led to research approval, winning two grants, and a trip to Haiti to live and work among Haitians.

God has opened every unlikely door.” – RACHEL FRITZ ACU TODAY

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ACADEMIC DIGEST Mass Communication are Alicia (Phillips ’02) Pierce, communications director of the Texas Office of the Secretary of State; Luke Hejl (’01), general manager and principal of Social Factor ad agency; and Jennifer (England ’85) Allen, author and producer of aspergers101.com and copingtoexcelling.com. The three will be honored at a dinner Oct. 20 during Homecoming. For tickets, visit acu.edu/jmc.

Rabinovitsj shares a post-Commencement hug with her father, Robert Campbell (’84).

PAUL WHITE

Caroline (Campbell ’14) Rabinovitsj became the first grandchild of the late Dr. Norris C. Campbell (’53), professor emeritus of psychology, to earn a master’s from ACU when she graduated in May 2016 with an M.A. in communication. Campbell was one of the first two students to earn a master’s from ACU in 1954, along with the late Ella Ruth (Yowell ’52) Brannon, when they each received a Master of Education degree. All six of the Campbell children – Liz (Campbell ’75) Rotenberry, Robert Campbell (’84), Paul Campbell (’80), Donald Campbell (’72), James Campbell (’70) and Bruce Campbell (’68) – attended ACU, as did their late mother, Mary (Bradley), who finished her elementary education degree in 1983 at age 62. Liz was assistant professor of kinesiology at ACU for 17 years (1995-2012), earning Teacher of the Year honors in 1985. Rabinovitsj will soon start a job as associate recruiter for Goldfish Medical Staffing in Addison, Texas.

ACU’s digital entertainment technology major, offered through its School of Information Technology, has been ranked the 27th best interactive game design program in the nation

by The Princeton Review.

Theology professor Dr. Frederick Aquino (’89) is co-directing a series of international Spiritual Perception Symposia with the final two scheduled for San Antonio in November 2016 and Aquino Boston in July 2017.

A related collection of essays, Sensing Things Divine: Toward a Constructive Account of Spiritual Perception, will be published by Oxford University Press in 2018.

Dr. Jaime Goff (’01 M.M.F.T.), dean of ACU’s College of Graduate and Professional Studies, has begun a three-year term as a commissioner for the Commission Goff on the Accreditation of Marriage and Family Therapy Education.

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A video with two seniors from ACU’s Department of Occupational Therapy, Kati Saylor and Molly (Bagley) Wright, won first place among 26 submissions in the national EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative video contest, which invited universities around the nation to tell stories of academic innovation.

Dr. Sara (Blakeslee ’06) Salkil, director of the online marriage and family therapy program, begins a term on the elections council for the Association for Marriage and Family Therapy, and has Salkil been appointed by Gov. John Kasich to the Ohio State Board for Marriage and Family Therapy.

Dr. Douglas A. Foster, professor of church history, was a featured speaker at an April 2016 workshop, “Exploring the Theological Basis for Lifting the Voices of the Marginalized,” at the annual Ecumenical Advocacy Days conference in Washington, D.C., sponsored by the National Council of Churches.

Recipients of the 2016 Gutenberg award for distinguished professional achievement from the Department of Journalism and

PAUL WHITE

Political science major Caleb Orr and biochemistry major Soo Hun Yoon (’16), both seniors, were named ACU Undergraduate Researchers of the Year. Research Mentors of the Year were Dr. Anita Broxson, assistant professor of nursing; Dr. Michael Daugherity (’01), associate professor of physics; and Dr. Christopher Hutson, associate dean of the College of Biblical Studies.

Dillman, Magner earn Fulbright awards

P

olitical science professor Dr. David Dillman (’70) and senior art major Jennie Magner have received awards from the Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program to teach abroad.

Dillman will serve a four-month assignment in Serbia, and Magner will teach English in the Czech Republic during the 2016-17 school year.

The Fulbright U.S. Scholar award is one of the highest honors the federal government gives with regard to scholarship and international exchange, said Neal Coates, J.D. (’87), professor and chair of the political science department.

ACU has a long tradition of Fulbright recipients, dating back to the 1950s with fields of study representing journalism, management, English, physics and education.

Ten scholars teaching or studying at ACU have been recipients of a total of 12 Fulbright fellowships during their academic careers, and twice there have been two honorees the same year, including this coming year.

DNP degree becomes third doctoral program offered by university, joining Ed.D. and D.Min.

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NEW PROGRAMS

• Doctor of Nursing Practice – Online (Fall 2016) • Master of Education in Instructional Leadership – Online (Fall 2016) • Master of Science in Information Technology Leadership – Online (Fall 2016)

CURRENT PROGRAMS

• Certificate in Conflict Resolution for Educators – Online • Certificate in Enrollment Management – Online • Certificate in Medical Family Therapy – Online • Certificate in Superintendency – Online • Dietetic Internship Program/Certificate – Dallas • Ed.D. in Organizational Leadership – Online • Graduate Certificate in Conflict Resolution – Online with residency • Master of Arts in Christian Ministry – Online with residencies • Master of Arts in Conflict Resolution and Reconciliation – Online with residency • Master of Arts in Global Service – Online with residencies • Master of Business Administration – Online • Master of Divinity – Online with residencies • Master of Education in Higher Education – Online with residency • Master of Marriage and Family Therapy – Online • Master of Science in Communication Sciences and Disorders – Online hybrid • Master of Science in Organizational Development – Online

FUTURE PROGRAMS

• Master of Healthcare Administration – Online

(Spring 2017) awaiting

SACSCOC approval

Learn more about ACU’s graduate programs at acu.edu/grad

STEVE BUTMAN

A new Doctor of Nursing Practice degree at ACU Dallas has received approval from the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACSCOC), allowing the program to begin classes in Fall 2016.

The DNP becomes the third doctorate offered at ACU, along with the Doctor of Education in Organizational Leadership and the Doctor of Ministry. Meanwhile, the online Ed.D. program has received full SACSCOC accreditation and has 250 students enrolled.

During its first year, ACU Dallas has enrolled more than 400 students in online programs in business, education, health care and theology.

Other new programs scheduled to start in the fall include the Master of Education in Instructional Leadership and Master of Science in Information Technology Leadership.

Onstead Science Center entrance completed

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ith renovation and landscaping now complete on the north-facing entrance to the Robert R. and Kay Onstead Science Center (seen at left), major construction work now focuses on the adjacent Halbert-Walling Research Center.

When Halbert-Walling construction finishes later this fall, focus will return to renovating the balance of Onstead Science Center. Both facilities have four floors of classrooms, laboratories and offices for the sciences at ACU. See pages 34-35 and 61 for more on the univerity’s $95 million Vision in Action initiative projects.

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CampusNEWS

For the latest visit acu.edu/news facebook.com/abilenechristian twitter.com/acuedu

BY ROBIN SAYLOR

instagram.com/acuedu

$20 million gift commitment tops PITJ campaign goal

Dillard Hall becomes a new home for sophomore women A growing enrollment and the generosity of a donor couple from Dallas have combined to create a new on-campus home for sophomore women at ACU, starting this fall.

Gayle (’57) and Max Dillard are the namesakes of 85,000-square-foot Dillard Hall, a renovated residence hall once owned and operated by Christian Village of Abilene.

The three-story building at 633 E.N. 19th St. will house about 170 students, serving as ACU’s 11th residence hall and providing much-needed living space. The university’s 2015-16 freshman class was its largest in three decades.

“Max and Gayle believe strongly in honoring women for the role they play in the development of the faith of children,” said president Dr. Phil Schubert (’91). “Their gift is a tremendous blessing as it helps provide an important living space for women on this campus.”

Established by University Church of Christ, Christian Village opened in 1986 as a nonprofit independent living facility for seniors. Land for the project was donated by ACU. Residents often were alumni and retired faculty and staff, as were 56

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many of Christian Village’s trustees.

Seeing the facility’s future in jeopardy in recent years because of shrinking occupancy, Christian Village board members approached ACU in 2015 about the possibility of purchasing the property and restoring its initial connection to the university. The Dillards’ gift made the residence hall a reality.

“We’re very grateful to ACU for purchasing Christian Village’s building,” said David Swearingen, president of Christian Village’s Board of Trustees. “We can’t think of a better way for Christian Village to be used in the future – as a place for students to live as they prepare for life as young Christian adults.”

Gayle Dillard attended ACU in the late 1950s, and together the Dillards have seen three children and three grandchildren attend the university.

Max Dillard is managing director of The Dillard Group of Texas, LTD. Apartments at Dillard Hall contain a living space, bedroom and kitchen for two to four students.

The first two floors have an indoor commons area, and the third floor has an outside deck. 

DR. SALLY REID

Dillard Hall is adjacent to Barret Hall on the west side of campus.

Thanks to a $20 million commitment, ACUs’ Partnering in the Journey campaign has exceeded its $50 million goal for endowed scholarships to assist in making college more affordable for students.

The gift by Lacy (’61) and Dorothy Harber of Denison, Texas, is the second largest to scholarship endowments in ACU history.

“It’s hard to put into words how meaningful and significant this gift is, but know this: Scholarships change our students’ lives. And our students change the world,” said Dr. Phil Schubert (’91).

Including gifts made since June 1, 2010, 105 new endowed scholarships have been created and 67 existing endowments received $10,000 or more in new funding.

More than 700 households made first-time gifts to ACU’s endowment

during the campaign, which has raised nearly $51 million since its public launch in 2012.

The Harber Bible Endowed Scholarship Fund will be used to provide scholarships for students in the College of Biblical Studies.

When funded through their estate, the endowed scholarship will be one of more than 700 directly benefiting ACU students. All freshmen receive financial aid, which makes endowed scholarships an important tool for attracting the best students and providing them valuable assistance toward earning a degree. 

INNOVAT I V E A C U

Two added to ACU board



The hot salt heats a second fluid that causes a turbine to produce electricity.

Fission heats the salt in the reactor core.

Turbine Extra heat from the secondary fluid can desalinate water.

Heat Exchangers

Cancer fighting medical isotopes are produced in the core and can be removed from the salt.

Emergency "freeze plug" makes the reactor walk-away-safe.

ASHLYNE LANZA

April (Bullock ’89) Anthony of Dallas and Stan Stephens (’90) of Keller have been added to ACU’s Board of Trustees.

An award-winning innovator, Anthony is president and CEO of Encompass Home Health & Hospice, and Homecare Homebase. Encompass is the fourth-largest provider of Medicare-certified home health care services in the nation.

Encompass has consistently been saluted as one of the top places to work in the Metroplex by the Dallas Morning News, Anthony and in 2013 Anthony was named top CEO for large companies in the Metroplex by the Dallas Business Journal. She was re-elected to ACU’s board after previously serving from 1997-2015.

Stephens is president of Stephens Pneumatics, which manufactures aluminum semi-tank trailers for the transportation of dry and liquid products, and Tankheads, a manufacturer of metal tank ends and baffles for static and Stephens pressurized tanks. He earned an MBA in 1991.

A standout quarterback for the Wildcats in late 1990s, Stephens still ranks in the university’s Top 10 in career passing yards, completions, attempts and touchdown passes.

Stephens serves on the board of First Financial Bank Southlake Advisory Board and Loan Committee, and Fort Worth Christian School, and is a previous trustee for Christ Haven.

LIQUID-FUELED MOLTEN SALT REACTOR

Passively cooled salt dump tank.

Physics and engineering team dedicated to exploring potential of molten salt reactors

T

he next big thing in global energy is … salt?

It seems unlikely. But it’s true.

A new type of nuclear reactor fueled by thorium, a naturally radioactive element occurring in most soils, uses molten salt mixtures to create safe energy with a minimum of waste. The energy produced can provide reliable electricity and clean water for drinking and sanitation, and make medical isotopes available for doctors to use in treatment. ACU physicists have formed a team to explore this technology and have dubbed it the NEXT (Nuclear Energy eXperimental Testing) Lab. Molten salt reactors have existed since the 1960s: Dr. Charles Ivey (’65), retired professor of physics, recalls hearing about them from Dr. Eugene Wigner, a theoretical physicist at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee. But as uranium-fueled pressurized water reactors (PWRs) became the standard vehicles for producing nuclear energy, the molten salt technology fell by the wayside. ACU faculty, including Dr. Rusty Towell (’90), professor of physics and engineering, have been investigating the possibilities of soil and salt for several years. But a recent upswing of interest in this technology has paved the way for more federal

funding and research opportunities.

Towell presented his research, and detailed the potential humanitarian benefits of molten salt reactors, in a 2015 talk at the TEDxACU conference. Several audience members, some of whom were already familiar with the technology, expressed a desire to provide funding for Towell’s work, and the NEXT project was born. Its team now includes Towell; Ivey; Richard Jinkerson, associate professor of engineering and physics at ACU; and Dr. Tony Hill (’90), Starr Dover senior physics researcher at Idaho State University.

Towell said the NEXT group plans to build a molten salt test loop of pipes and pumps to investigate the best materials, pumps and operating conditions for a future test reactor. The team is in the process of applying for grants and seeking corporate and private investors.

ACU undergraduates will participate in the work. “Our students have a real opportunity to be part of this research and design work,” Towell said. “It not only has great potential for their learning, but real, practical applications for humanitarian work. The kind of energy produced by these reactors can improve the standard of living for people around the world.” 

ACU TODAY

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Landon Saunders will teach a class Monday about faith formation and participate in a Conversation Corner on Tuesday about human suffering.

Annual Summit features special tracks on medical missions, faith formation

concert” from 6:30-7 p.m. leading into the worship at 7 p.m. in Cullen Auditorium and the opening talk

by Dr. Jerry Taylor, ACU associate professor of Bible, missions and ministry. Other theme speakers are Sara Barton, Dr. Josh Graves (’11), Ali (Goncalves ’04) Kaiser, Derran Reese (’00), Dr. Monte Cox, Jonathan Storment (’12 M.A) and David McQueen (’88). (Read their biographies at acu.edu/summit)

Taylor

Barton

Randy Brown, M.D., is one of the speakers during the medical missions track on Tuesday.

•

A new “Conversation Corner” will take place at 8:30 p.m. Sunday, Monday and Tuesday with Landon Saunders, Dr. Darryl Tippens and others. These conversations will address contemporary cultural issues: Sunday, “Creative Arts + Faith = Worship”; Monday, “The Church’s Response in Times of Change, Fear and Uncertainty”; and Tuesday, “The Silence of God and Human Suffering.”

• Instead of multiple classes at 3:30 p.m., all Summit participants will gather in Cullen Auditorium

C A MP U S DIGE S T BSA production presented at Paramount Testify, a Black History production produced by Black Students’ Association president Khamisie Green, was performed March 4, 2016, in the Paramount Theatre. Green, a senior vocal education major, set the play in an impoverished community in North Carolina.

BSA productions during Black History Month are designed to shed light on important moments in history.

Ruff named to national PGMS board Corey Ruff, executive director of facilities and campus management, has been elected

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to the board of directors for the Professional Grounds Management Society.

Ruff will serve as the south central regional director, which includes Arkansas, Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Ruff Nebraska, New Mexico and Texas. ACU has been an institutional member of the national organization for eight years and received a PGMS Green Star Award for the Jacob’s Dream sculpture site in 2010.

Ministers’ salary survey results available The 2016 Ministers’ Salary Survey, compiled

by ACU’s Siburt Institute for Church Ministry, is now available. The survey provides comparative pay information for staff in Churches of Christ nationwide. The results provide a useful tool for church leaders seeking to build competitive compensation packages for their ministry leaders.

Download the survey results at acu.edu/siburt-institute

JEREMY ENLOW

• On Sunday evening, the A Cappella Chorus will perform a “theme

GERALD EWING

Several changes are in store for ACU’s 110th annual Summit, set for Sept. 18-21. This year’s theme is “Love God, Love Your Neighbor: Living the Greatest Commandments.”

Along with eight featured speakers, Summit will offer more than 100 classes and a variety of special events, including the screening of two movies and a talk by art and design professor Jack Maxwell (’78), creator of Jacob’s Dream, on the 10th anniversary of the sculpture site’s unveiling.

Instead of ending Wednesday evening, this year’s Summit will conclude at noon, a shift designed to make the entire event accessible to more guests, said Dr. David Wray (’67), director of Summit. “For the past several years, a significant number of participants returned home after lunch on Wednesday,” he said, some because of congregational responsibilities on Wednesday nights and others because they use the afternoon to travel.

Here are highlights:

Learn more about Summit at acu.edu/summit

to hear authors Jim Gash (’89) on Monday and Eric Wilson on Tuesday. Both have inspirational stories to tell, Wray said.

•

Two daylong tracks have been added this year, focusing on faith formation Monday and medical missions Tuesday.

Tuesday’s track will feature health care professionals involved in mission work, along with three executive directors of nonprofit, faith-based medical missions agencies.

ACU pre-health and nursing students will attend.

•

Numerous events will be filmed and videos posted on the web to share the information with a larger audience, Wray said.

Also, for the first time ACU is sponsoring a mobile app, which will provide complete information about Summit. Program booklets will be available at Summit, but the mobile app will contain more information and will be interactive. 

BY RON HADFIELD

BILL ALBRECHT

BY R O B I N S AY L O R

HOW ACU PREPARED DR. KENT AND AMBER BRANTLY FOR A LIFE OF SERVICE TO OTHERS

University Marketing wins CASE awards

t was mid-October 2014 and Homecoming at his alma mater in Abilene, and Kent Brantly, M.D., never felt more at home in his life. Given his headline-making circumstances, the 33-year-old family physician appeared remarkably well for someone who had recently stared down one of the most sure death sentences known to man, and survived.

The relief on his face was as easy to catch as the 24/7 news coverage of the young doctor who in recent weeks had become one of the planet’s most recognizable people, thanks to the Ebola virus disease he contracted while serving

University Marketing won five regional awards in April 2016 from the Council for Advancement and Support of Education in its annual Accolades competition among professionals in marketing, alumni relations, advancement and communications at colleges and universities in the Southwest. Gold awards went to Todd Mullins in two magazine design categories for “The Education of a Medical Missionary”; Silver awards went to 8

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a Samaritan’s Purse assignment in West Africa.

“It’s the bogeyman virus,” to echo the words Dallas emergency room nurse Richard Townsend chose to describe Ebola to CBS News in an interview in late October. The hemorrhagic disease causes patients to lose copious amounts of body fluids, which become hazardous waste; makes temperatures soar and organs fail; and, left untreated, generally results in a gruesome death within 10 days. There is no cure, but at least two experimental drugs are gaining ground as potential tools to help immune systems fight the fast-moving virus.

It was never Brantly’s intention to become Abilene Christian University’s most high-profile graduate. But here he was, a certifiable Miracle Man, the unfortunate face of a disease threatening to change the course of humanity in an African nation or two or three. He also was the fortunate recipient of a providential, groundbreaking and extraordinarily expensive rescue, treatment and recovery that took him from a makeshift clinic in a developing country to The White House in a matter of weeks.

Brantly is tall and lean but looked especially CONTINUED ON PAGE 13

Kent and Amber Brantly and their children, Ruby and Steven

hursday. Just another day of the week for most of us.

Not so for Amber (Carroll ’06) Brantly, wife of medical missionary and Ebola survivor Kent Brantly, M.D. (’03).

Thursdays came to symbolize the course of her husband’s battle with the deadly virus and her family’s journey of faith throughout the ordeal.

“On Thursday, July 24, Kent called to tell me he was home sick with a fever,” Amber recalled. “On Thursday, July 31, he very nearly died in our bed in Liberia. And on Thursday morning, Aug. 7, his eyes cleared, and I knew he would make it.”

It also was a Thursday – Aug. 21 – when Kent was discharged from Emory University Hospital, declared free from the highly contagious and often fatal disease.

In between those pivotal time markers were hours of waiting and praying and caring for their two young children, Stephen, 3, and Ruby, 5 – and mentally bracing herself for the first phone call of each day, the one that would let her know whether her husband was still alive.

The Brantlys had moved to Liberia in October 2014 as part of the World Medical Mission Post-Residency Program, an arm of Samaritan’s Purse, which aims to match a newly graduated doctor to a seasoned missionary physician on the field for two years of mentoring.

They moved into a small house in the capital, Monrovia, a coastal city with nearly a million residents. They soon settled into a pleasant routine.

Later, Amber would reflect on her trepidation about moving her family to a third-world country. “I had some bad dreams when we were preparing to move to Africa,” she said. But Ebola wasn’t on her radar.

“My biggest fear was shark attacks because we were moving to the beach. I was so afraid that my kids would get hurt in the ocean. I asked Kent one morning, ‘If our kids were attacked by a shark would you be able to do the amputation on our kids?’ ” She now jokes about those fears being irrational. “So sure, there were fears we faced, but we never knew Ebola was something to fear. And so I didn’t.

I guess being naïve is a good thing.”

Prior to the Ebola outbreak, “life in Liberia was really great,” Amber said. Though she had a CONTINUED ON PAGE 10 ACU TODAY

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Paul A. Anthony (’04) in magazine feature writing for “Mentors Were Key for Brantlys” and Holly Harrell in cover design for the 2015 Summit booklet; and Bronze awards went to Robin (Ward ’82) Saylor, Alisa Hail (’06), Amber (Gilbert ’99) Bunton, Amy Willis and Anthony for an “ACU Love Story” social media campaign.

JEREMY ENLOW

ACU sculptor

Jack Maxwell will speak about the creative process behind Jacob’s Dream.

• ACU chancellor Dr. Royce Money (’64) will facilitate conversations with Dr. Billy Curl (’66), one of the first African-Americans to graduate from ACU, and minister Lawrence Rogers.

“Today’s world calls all believers to embrace diversity at many levels – geographical, ethnic, social, economic, theological, etc.,” Wray said. “Ministering in such a world is a tremendous challenge. Rogers lives and ministers in such a context in Baltimore. Curl ministers in the heart of Los Angeles. Their insights for serious followers of Jesus will be invaluable.”

Women’s social club Alpha Kai Omega

Change allows freshmen to pledge social clubs Freshmen were allowed to pledge a social club this spring for the first time in the university’s recent history. For years, joining one of ACU’s 13 social clubs has been open only to students starting in their sophomore year.

“This change came about to give high-achieving freshmen more opportunities to experience ACU student life and, at the same time, strengthen the numbers of smaller social clubs,” said Tom Craig (’89), director of student organizations and productions.

Like sophomores, freshmen who want to pledge must meet certain criteria. They must have completed at least 12 hours of coursework at ACU, be enrolled full time, be in good standing with the university and have a 3.0 GPA – as opposed to the 2.5 required of sophomores.

In addition, only clubs with active rosters of fewer than 50 members may accept freshman pledges, Craig said. During the Spring 2016 semester, 10 freshmen pledged four clubs that met the criteria: women’s club Zeta Rho and men’s clubs Frater Sodalis, Pi Kappa and Trojans. 

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Wildcat SPORTS

For the latest visit acusports.com facebook.com/acusports twitter.com/acusports

BY L ANCE FLEMING AND CHRIS MACALUSO

instagram.com/acusports

Undersized sharpshooter Wentz set ACU career records while helping team transition to Division I men’s basketball

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Wentz was regularly guarded by taller opponents such as Jarrod Uthoff (20) of the University of Iowa in a 2012 game in Iowa City with the Big Ten Conference powerhouse.

“

Going through the transition and having some tough seasons was sometimes hard, but it taught me a lot about God and people, and the importance of continuing to work hard every day.”

ADAM WESLEY

During pregame warmups, Parker Wentz (’16) seldom stood out on the basketball court in any of the record 119 games he played for ACU. In fact, other players he guarded in games often towered over the Wildcats’ 5-foot-9-inch playmaker.

Other teams knew him to be a pesky, energetic defender with quick hands who slipped through screens easily.

But the sharpshooter was most feared with the ball in his hands and his eye on a faraway basket.

Wentz finished his career as ACU’s all-time men’s basketball leader in games played and 3-point field goal percentage, third in career 3-pointers and fourth in attempts.

After a career of “firsts” and big shots in helping ACU begin a transition to NCAA Division I, he admits to having a bit of trouble pinpointing the best moment.

It could have been the cold night in November 2013 when the Wildcats took on their first big-time opponent, facing the University of Maryland in College Park, Md. Or it might have been in January 2015 when Wentz lit up Northwestern State University, burying seven of nine 3-point shots on his way to 29 points in a stunning 95-81 road win over the Demons.

Perhaps it was last November when the Wildcats took Colorado State University to double overtime before falling 108-100 in perhaps the finest game the Wildcats have played since moving to Division I. Or it might have been the February 2016 home game when freshman teammate Jaren Lewis hit a near-halfcourt 3-pointer at the buzzer to beat the University of New Orleans.

For those who know him and who followed his four-year career at ACU, it should come as no surprise that Wentz didn’t mention his

end-to-end dash and layup to beat the University of Central Arkansas, 73-72, on Jan. 18, 2014, for ACU’s first win over a Division I opponent as a Division I program. Perhaps that’s because the other games were “team” accomplishments, while the win over UCA was mostly about Wentz, who graduated from ACU in May with a degree in biology and has already enrolled in dental school at The University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio.

“Those other games were great because our team performed well and because we were representing ACU at a new level,” Wentz said.

More important to him, however, is the fact that he left the men’s program in better shape than when he arrived in Fall 2012 as a first-team all-state player from Lubbock Trinity Christian.

– PARKER WENTZ

The 2015-16 Wildcat team finished 13-18 but featured the Southland Conference Freshman of the Year (Jaylen Franklin and three other freshmen – Lewis, Hayden Howell and Hayden Farquhar) – who are the building blocks of what should be a top-half team in the Southland in 2016-17.

“I want this program to be great, and I want (head coach) Joe Golding and (associate head coach) Brett Tanner to excel,” Wentz said. “Going through the transition and having some tough seasons was sometimes hard, but it taught me a lot about God and people, and the importance of continuing to work hard every day.” 

Groundbreaking participants included (from left) Sam Denmark and Quentin Bryant, head coach Ken Collums, board chair Dr. Barry Packer (’78), president Dr. Phil Schubert (’91), April (Bullock ’89) and Mark (’86) Anthony, and athletics director Lee De Leon.

Director of athletics Lee De Leon announced earlier this year the launch of the Wildcats’ most comprehensive fundraising strategy in years, designed to benefit donors while providing financial support for all 16 sports teams as ACU nears the end of its transition to NCAA Division I. The Wildcat Club – a re-branding of former booster clubs at ACU with the same name – launched Jan. 27 as the official fundraising organization of ACU Athletics. Donors can find details about how to participate in the Wildcat Annual Fund, Excellence Funds (which support specific teams and departments), capital projects, scholarship endowments and planned giving on a new website, ACUWildcatClub.com.

Anyone who contributes at least $100 annually to any area within ACU Athletics automatically becomes a member of the Wildcat Club and receives exclusive member benefits.

Membership can be renewed on an annual basis, and all gifts are tax deductible to the extent allowed

by IRS regulations.

Dollars raised by the Wildcat Club will help more than 300 student-athletes by providing scholarships, enhancing facilities and promoting academic and athletics success. Wildcat Club membership reached 400 as of June 1. 

ACUWildcatClub.com

STEVE BUTMAN

Wildcat Club relaunch gives donors new opportunities to team with ACU Athletics

Football stadium a boost to Wildcat spirits, recruiting As heavy machinery begins to move soil and excavate for what will eventually become Wildcat Stadium – ACU’s first on-campus football venue in decades – the eventual presence of such a facility is already being felt in other areas.

During the 2015-16 fiscal year, gifts and pledges made to the stadium project totaled more than $17 million. The venue’s promise helped ACU head football coach Ken Collums and his coaching staff lure to campus one of the most promising freshman classes in recent history. And the opportunity to create a new Gameday environment has brought together staff and faculty to reimagine the atmosphere and experience of a Wildcat football game played on the Hill once more.

Some of the gifts made are related to the purchase of suites in the west side tower, which was recently designated to honor the memory of ACU all-America defensive back Chuck Sitton (’78).

The five-story tower includes press box, club and suite levels.

Fundraising for the stadium and south end zone complex – which will not be built in the first phase of construction – is still ongoing. Despite heavy springtime rains in the Big Country that delayed the site’s dirt work, the stadium is still on

schedule to host its first game Sept. 16, 2017, against Houston Baptist University.

There has been no delay, however, in recruiting future student-athletes.

“We just signed the highest quality high school class since I’ve been at ACU,” Collums said in February. “When we finally got to the point where we could show recruits what their home will look like, it has made a huge difference.

We are simply showing renderings and seeing dirt moved around, but it’s already having an impact on our recruiting. When we get the stadium in place, it will only get better, and then our guys will get to experience what other players in the Southland Conference experience every week: a true home-field advantage for the first time in more than four decades.”

In addition to home contests in an on-campus stadium, ACU director of athletics Lee De Leon has helped line up an attractive set of non-conference guarantee games in the coming years with other high-profile universities.

In 2017, ACU will play at New Mexico and Colorado State, and at Baylor in 2018. In 2019, the Wildcats will play at North Texas and at Mississippi State, and will make a trip to Texas A&M in 2020.

Other road games include Southern Methodist University in 2021 and Kansas State University in 2022. 

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Null’s will to compete and win powers Wildcats to third place in Southland

JEREMY ENLOW

and keep my spirits high.”

Since March 2015, Null has endured repairs to a hernia and a hip labrum injury, and received several cortisone injections before and during this past season.

The surgeries, however, weren’t a cure-all, and there were scary moments halfway through her 2016 comeback campaign.

“I thought we might have lost her again,” said ACU head coach Bobby Reeves, who led the Wildcats in 2016 to a third-place Southland Conference record of 19-8. “In our first game at Stephen F. Austin, her hip kept coming out of socket so we pulled her, thinking she may be done for the year, but she came back on

SP OR T S DIGE S T Bingham named new head coach Longtime Liberty University associate head coach Lance Bingham became head coach of ACU’s track and field and cross country programs June 1, replacing Keith Barnier, whose contract was not renewed after three seasons.

Bingham – who recently completed his 18th season at Liberty – is 19th head coach of the Wildcats, who have won more team national championships (54 at the NCAA level) than any other track and field program in intercollegiate history. He also is no stranger to West Texas, having grown up in Meadow (southwest of

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Lubbock) and competed at South Plains College, where he was a junior college all-America decathlete.

“I am very excited to be able to be part of a track and field program that has such a rich tradition and history,” Bingham said. “I am humbled that the Lord directed our path back to West Texas to serve with men and women of integrity, vision and purpose. I am thankful for this tremendous opportunity.”

In the last five seasons, he has helped guide Liberty men’s and women’s track and field teams to a combined 14 Big South conference titles. He was head coach at South Plains College from 2001-04.



– CHRIS MACALUSO

JOEL COLEMAN

Hannah Null was among the most talked-about Wildcats when ACU started its NCAA transition, considering the resume the Flower Mound (Texas) Marcus High School graduate brought to Abilene as a legitimate Division I softball recruit.

She was the MVP of one of the nation’s best high school teams, and her impact at ACU was immediate.

Null struck out five in her 2014 freshman debut, tossed a no-hitter against the University of Rhode Island and struck out 17 batters in a win over Hardin-Simmons University.

Null completed that first spring with 152 strikeouts but missed the final weekend with one of a series of injuries that shelved her for all of 2015.

“The pain I endured before surgery was scary,” said Null, “and sometimes I rolled out of bed because I couldn’t lift my leg. There was a chance I wouldn’t be able to pitch again and an even higher chance that I wouldn’t be able to reach my potential. I had doubts, but my family and friends did everything they could to help with my post-op recovery

the weekend and pitched us to a series win.”

ACU won seven of nine Southland series in 2016, thanks to Null’s gutsy efforts that netted her 15 wins, three saves and a 2.87 ERA. She also glowed during two primetime performances in Austin, a 3-2 walk-off loss to the nationally ranked Texas Longhorns and a complete-game victory over the University of Tulsa.

“We played Texas and Tulsa in very close games and that was the first tournament I finally felt like ‘the old Hannah,’ ” said Null.

“Beating Tulsa was a huge accomplishment, and it gave me hope for conference season.”

Null totaled 173.1 innings of work this spring, and while she improved as the season progressed, she still recognizes there’s a need to regain her speed and control.

Reeves is confident his ace will get to where she most wants to be: pitching the Wildcats into the postseason.

“I have no doubts she’ll come back this fall stronger than ever,” he said, “and hopefully give us an opportunity to win a conference championship.”

Bingham was 2004 National Junior College Outdoor Coach of the Year.

Oct. 22 luncheon to honor Montgomery, Johansson on 40th anniversary of their 1976 Homecoming game heroics Arguably two of ACU’s most celebrated college football heroes will be celebrated this fall on the 40th anniversary of their dramatic career and single-game accomplishments in 1976.

A crisp, sunny Homecoming Saturday game against East Texas State University (now Texas A&M-Commerce) at Shotwell Stadium was the scene of both anticipated and unexpected drama when Wilbert Montgomery (’77) set the college football career touchdown record and Ove Johansson (’77) booted what is still a world record 69-yard field Montgomery goal in a 17-0 win over the Lions.

With a 1-yard run in the second quarter, Montgomery broke running back Walter Payton’s record of 66 TDs scored for Jackson State University.

Montomery set national collegiate records for TDs in one season (37) and career (76). The two Johansson Mississippians were inducted together in 1996 to the College Football Hall of Fame.

Just before halftime of the same game, Swedish native Johansson kicked his 69-yarder in the sixth game of his only season of collegiate football.

The two will be honored at a noon ACU Football Legends Luncheon in the Teague Special Events Center prior to ACU’s 2:30 p.m. game Oct. 22, 2016, with the University of Incarnate Word.

Tickets to the lunch and game are $40 each and $25 each for the luncheon only, and can be purchased at acu.edu/legends. 

SP OR T S ROUNDUP • Bolstered by championships in women’s basketball and cross country, Abilene Christian finished third among 13 universities in the year-long chase for the Southland Conference Commissioner’s Cup, totaling 147.5 points. Stephen F. Austin State University scored 167 to finish first and Sam Houston State University was second with 151.5.

No single ACU women’s team finished lower than fourth in league standings in 2015-16.

Football • The Wildcats’ 2016 season kicks off Sept. 3 against the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colo. This year’s home schedule features the University of Northern Colorado on Sept. 10 and Southland Conference rivals from the University of Central Arkansas (Oct. 1), Lamar University (Oct. 8), University of the Incarnate Word (Oct. 22 at Homecoming) and Northwestern State University (Nov. 5).

Among top players will be junior linebacker Sam Denmark, who led the league in tackles in 2015 en route to earning first-team All-Southland honors.

• ACU and head coach Ken Collums signed 18 high school players and added two junior college transfers on National Signing Day in February. Collums called his 2016 class “the best we’ve signed in my time at ACU.”

Cross Country • The women’s cross country team enters Fall 2016 as the Southland’s defending champion. Last October the Wildcats became the first team to win a league title since ACU began its transition into NCAA Division I, scoring 43 points.

• Junior Alexandria Hackett was the Southland individual champion with a 6K time of 20:26.6. She was voted Southland Conference Athlete of the Year and Student-Athlete of the Year.

Soccer • The Wildcats’ 2016 season begins Aug. 19 at home vs. The University of Texas-San Antonio. Their non-conference schedule features road matches at Texas Tech University (Sept. 4), Oklahoma State University (Sept. 9) and Southern Methodist University (Sept. 11).

• Defender Kelsie Roberts was voted third team Academic All-America by the College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA) and named Southland All-Academic

along with Chantal Kinsey.

• The team of head coach

Casey Wilson (’99) posted a team GPA of 3.50 in Fall 2015 and had 25 of its 28 student-athletes make the Southland Commissioner’s Honor Roll.

Franklin, Hackett win Paul Goad Awards for 2015-16

Alexandria Hackett

Jaylen Franklin

PHOTO CREDIT

Rising basketball star Jaylen Franklin and record-breaking distance runner Alexandria Hackett have been named Abilene Christian’s top male and female student-athlete for the 2015-16 academic year.

Franklin and Hackett are first-time Paul Goad Award winners, and the first in their respective sports for the better part of a decade. Franklin is only the sixth men’s basketball player to receive ACU Athletics’ highest honor and the program’s first since Jared Mosley (’00) in 1999.

Hackett is only the second women’s distance runner to be voted MVP in the award’s 38-year history; Laurie Taylor (’83) won it in 1983.

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(C-USA), and Omaha (Summit). Notre Dame is expected by many to be the nation’s preseason No. 1-ranked team for 2016-17.

Volleyball

Golf

JEREMY ENLOW

• ACU’s season starts Aug. 26-27 in Albuquerque, N.M., where the Wildcats will face 2015 NCAA Championship qualifiers Fairfield University and Arizona State University in addition to the University of Idaho and the host Lobos.

• Senior Jennie Loerch was named first team All-Southland Conference and senior Madison Hoover received second team honors.

• The team received ACU’s Most Improved GPA award in Spring 2016. Fourteen of its 15 student-athletes posted term GPAs of 3.0 or better in Fall 2015.

Kimone Green

Tennis • The men’s tennis team completed its 2016 spring season at 19-9 overall and 3-2 in the Southland Conference. The Wildcats’ 4-3 victory Jan. 30 over 58th-ranked University of California, Davis, was the program’s first over a nationally ranked Division I team and earned it a No. 66 ranking from the Intercollegiate Tennis Association.

• Joshua Sheehy (16-10 in singles) was voted Southland Conference Freshman of the Year and sophomore Hunter Holman was named Newcomer of the Year. Holman led all Wildcats with 21 wins in singles (21-10 record).

• The women’s tennis team placed second in the conference at 9-2 (20-6 overall). First team All-Southland honors went to senior Kaysie Hermsdorf and sophomores Lucile Pothier and Whitney Williams.

Baseball • Junior infielder Russell Crippen and senior left-handed pitcher Aaron Mason received All-Southland recognition. Coaches and sports information directors selected Crippen as Utility Player of the Year, while Mason made the honorable mention team. ACU was 16-37 overall and 8-21 in league play.

Softball

Women’s Basketball

• Julie Goodenough received 2015-16 Coach of the Year honors from the Southland Conference and the Texas Association of Basketball Coaches.

• ACU is one of 16 NCAA Division I universities invited to play in the 23rd annual Preseason Women’s National Invitational Tournament.

The Wildcats, who lost a first-round game in March 2016 to The University of Texas at El Paso in the Postseason WNIT, are guaranteed three games this fall. ACU’s first-round game will be on the road against the University of Missouri (Southeastern Conference) on Nov. 11 at 7 p.m. CT. The winner will play in the second round against either the University of Nebraska (Big Ten) or Texas-Rio Grande Valley (WAC). Other teams in the tourney are Notre Dame (Atlantic Coast Conference), Washington (Pac 12), Central Michigan (MAC), Colorado State (MWC), Eastern Washington (Big Sky), Elon (Colonial), Fordham (Atlantic 10), Furman (Southern), Green Bay (Horizon), Little Rock (Sun Belt), North Texas

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Men’s Basketball • The Wildcats placed seventh among 13 teams Rosen Daniel in the Southland at 8-10 and were 13-18 overall during the fifth season for head coach Joe Golding (’99).

• Jaylen Franklin was voted Southland Conference Freshman of the Year and was a finalist for national Mid-Major Freshman of the Year in an online vote conducted by College Court Report. The guard led the Wildcats in scoring in 16 of 30 games in 2015-16 and scored 20 points or more in eight games. He scored a season-high 29 points in a Jan. 19 home win over McNeese State University. .

• Senior Dillon Vaughn was named honorable mention All-Southland by league coaches.

He finished tied for 15th at the conference tournament, firing a three-round total of 224 after rounds of 72-76-76.

• The Wildcats capped their 2016 spring season with a sixth-place finish at the Southland championship golf tournament at Stonebridge Ranch Country Club in McKinney, Texas.

The Wildcats were led by freshman Garrett Glanton, who wrapped up his first season by tying for eighth at the conference tourney with 5-over-par 221 (68-80-73).

• The Wildcats won seven of nine conference series in recording their best finish against the league in three seasons. ACU was 19-8 against Southland rivals and 26-21 overall.

• Junior outfielder Taylor Brown and sophomore infielder Peyton Hedrick were named second team All-Southland. Pitcher Hannah Null was third team, and sophomore infielder Holly Neese was honorable mention.

Track and Field • The Wildcat women’s team scored 112.5 points over two days at the Southland Conference Indoor Track and Field Championships to finish runner-up behind Sam Houston State University.

• Junior Alexandria Hackett, senior Kimone Green and sophomore Kenzie Walker Mascorro claimed individual indoor conference championships. Hackett won the 5000-meter run and placed second in the mile and 3000. Green defended her title in the 400-meter dash, and Mascorro earned first team All-Southland honors after clearing a height of 13 feet 1.5 inches in the pole vault.

• The women’s team slipped to fourth in the league’s outdoor championships, scoring 101 points. Hackett, however, set meet records in the 5000 and 10,000 to win her second Southland Athlete of the Year honor of the 2015-16 school year. Green won the 400 hurdles with the second-fastest time (57.78 seconds) in ACU history.

• The Wildcat men finished sixth at the Southland indoor championships with 59 points and improved to fourth outdoors with 79.

• Senior Rosen Daniel took first place in the outdoor 400 and with the 4x400 relay, and was runner-up in the 200. He was one of seven Wildcats named to an All-Southland team.

YOUR GIFTS AT WORK

Largest single cash gift from beyond Abilene collected by Childers Classical Institute founder and president A.B. Barett in 1906 before the school opened that fall. Total cash gifts from outside of Abilene amounted to $3,500, which is roughly $88,200 in 2016 buying power.

People and entities who have given to ACU for at least 45 years.

Average size of a recurring gift to the Exceptional Fund.

Donors (living) who have given to ACU for 51 years.

The university’s computerized records only date back to 1966, so some have given even longer.

What would become Childers Classical Institute more than a century ago was still a dream to founder and first president A.B. Barret as he pounded the dirt roads of West Texas Willa B Patterson via horse and buggy in the winter and spring of 1906 in search of funding.

He did well, securing gifts from 195 individuals outside of Abilene for a total of $3,500. That’s a good amount of money (roughly $88,200 in 2016 buying power), but considering the largest cash gift was $250, it truly took almost 200 people to raise it.

Every gift, and every donor, made a difference and made Barret’s little Christian school in Abilene a reality.

Thousands of donors have carried on that legacy in the university’s 110 years, and one still leading the way is Willa B Patterson (’37), age 104. Patterson has been giving to ACU since 1937, when she started with $1 a month out of her first post-graduation paycheck.

“Willa B has blessed countless students for generations,” said Craig Fisher (’92), director of alumni relations and annual projects. “Her passionate commitment to ACU is inspiring.”

She joins 22 living donors who are in their 51st year of giving to the university. (ACU’s computerized records only date back to 1966, so some donors actually have been giving longer.) A new giving society, The Purple Line Society, is being created to honor them and other donors who reach certain milestones of years giving. No minimum gift amount is required to be honored.

People may assume small gifts don’t have an effect on the university, Fisher said, but that couldn’t be further from reality. Just look at gifts of $10 or less made since Jan. 1, 1966: More than 22,000 unique donors gave a total of 140,976 gifts totaling $1,031,491.92.

Small amounts add up to do big things.

“We love and appreciate every one of our donors,” says Jim Orr (’86), vice president for advancement. “Every dollar is important and is an expression of encouragement and confidence in ACU. Each gift impacts our students and the difference they make in the world.”

PAUL BRYAN

Amount donated to ACU since Jan. 1, 1966, in amounts of $10 or less. This total comes from 22,184 unique donors and 140,976 gifts.

Before there was a university, there were donors

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– SARAH CARLSON

Recent scholarship endowments created The smallest recurring gift to the Exceptional Fund. Hundreds of donors have ​anywhere from ​ $1 to $10​drafted from their bank accounts biweekly or monthly for the fund​.

• • • • • • •

Jerry Anderson, CPA, and Shirley Anderson Memorial Endowed Scholarship Anthony and Barbara Ash Endowed Scholarship Mellisse and George Ewing Endowed Vocal Scholarship LeFan Family Endowed Scholarship Monty L. Lynn Endowed Scholarship Colby McDaniel - Jan Jones Memorial Endowed Scholarship Earline Perry Endowed Scholarship for Global Studies

To create your own endowed scholarship or contribute to an existing one, see acu.edu/giveonline or call 800-588-1514.

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EXPERIENCES Submit your news online at blogs.acu.edu/acutoday/experiences or use the EXperiences card in each issue of the magazine.

Deadlines: ACU Today is published two times a year. Because of printing deadlines, your news could be delayed by one issue.

In Memoriam: It’s best for a member of the deceased’s immediate family to submit notification, preferably with a copy of the official published obituary.

Contact information: To help ensure the privacy of our alumni, ACU Today no longer shares email and postal addresses of those whose self-reported news appears in EXperiences. If you would like contact information for someone listed here, call 800-373-4220 or email alumni@acu.edu for assistance.

1955

Gerald “Pat” Phelps has retired after 45 years as a teacher, counselor and principal in the Wichita Falls (Texas) ISD. He also was an elder at the Faith Valley Church of Christ for 35 years. He and his wife, Lucy (Boothe), live in Wichita Falls.

1957

James Ronald Walcher, M.D., retired from his pediatric practice in 2000 and now does part-time work for the Social Security Administration. He also is an elder for Grace Fellowship Church. He and his wife, Barbara, live in Towson, Md.

1961

Jack W. Horvath lives in Baytown, Texas, with his second wife, Merry (Hollon). He married Sue Bernard (’61) in 1960. She died in 1999.

1963

Clay and Carolyn (Kruzick) Rawding celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary Aug. 7, 2015. They have three children and three grandchildren. They live in Napa, Calif.

1968

Joe Holley’s new book, Hometown Texas, a collection of his Native Texan columns from the Houston Chronicle, will be published later this year by Trinity University Press. He and his wife, Laura, live in Houston, Texas.

1971

Darrell and Lana (Arrington ’73) Frazier live in Frisco, Texas. Darrell is employed by Gatesville ISD.

1975

Dr. Michael Cooke recently retired after 35 years as a physician for the U.S. Army at Fox Army Health Center in Redstone Arsenal,

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Ala. He and his wife, Cynthia (Clovis), live in Brownsboro, Ala.

1977

Gene and Kitty (Hall) Wasemiller have retired and moved to Granbury, Texas.

Kitty completed a 31-year career in ACU’s Department of Art and Design in May 2015.

She led ACU’s interior design program to national accreditation and was a board member and former president of the Texas Chapter of the American Society of Interior Designers.

Mark Flippin recently celebrated his 30th year with American National Insurance, where he is corporate secretary. His wife, Laura (Marsh), is a speech therapist for the Alvin ISD. They live in League City, Texas.

1979

Jan (Morgan) Fujinari and her husband, Richard, have a new address in Apple Valley, Calif.

1981

Danny Andre Dixon has co-authored a book, The Son of God: Three Views of the Identity of Jesus (Wipf & Stock). He lives in Fort Stockton, Texas, where he also teaches high school English.

Allyson Orum has joined Becton Dickinson & Company as health systems vice president for the company’s U.S. region strategic customer group. She lives in Brentwood, Tenn.

1983

Mary (Wynn) Craig is a master Children’s Court attorney for the New Mexico Public Defender’s Office. She and her husband, Mervan, live in Carlsbad, N.M.

1985

Raeann (Young) Litalien is the owner of Zerorez, a franchise company. She and her husband, Benjamin, have four grandsons,

including two born in Fall 2015. They live in Stafford, Va.

1986

Kevin and Denell (Witt) Dennis have a new grandson, born Jan. 26, 2016. They live in Garland, Texas.

1988

Gregory McGinty has a new address in Broomfield, Colo.

1991

Rhonda (Masten) Reines is the vice chair of the board of directors of the National Family Preservation Network. She lives in Parker, Texas.

1993

BORN To Danny and Angela (Bearden) Neal

(M.S. ’06), a boy, Archie, Sept. 11, 2015.

They also have a daughter, Diane “Annie,” born March 6, 2014. The family lives in Abilene.

1996

MARRIED Clifford Bell and Jill Schaefer (’97),

Nov. 15, 2015. They live in Keller, Texas.

1998

Jeffrey and Sarah Fay (Doss) Henderson have a new address in Boerne, Texas. They have two children, Amelia and Theodore.

Jeb and Stacie Jill (Garner) Pruitt, and their children, Jayce and Blake, live in Odessa, Texas.

BORN To Murray and Jaime (Bond) Sanderson,

a girl, Noelle Reynolds, Dec. 8, 2015. The family lives in Watertown, Tenn.

1999

BORN To Kevin and Jessica (Rickard) Mullins,

a girl, Kiyana Willow, Dec. 4, 2013. The couple has four other children. The family lives in Castle Rock, Colo.

2000

Daniel and Sarah (Carrigan) Fears live in Murchison, Texas, with their two children, Carrigan and Caleb.

Melissa Hobbs has a new address in Del Valle, Texas.

BORN

To Mike and Jennifer (Jones) Maxwell, a girl, Jaylee Cate, Sept. 2, 2015. The family lives in Pleasanton, Texas.

To Stuart and Melissa (Murdaugh) Herzog, a boy, Everett Charles, March 6, 2015. The family lives in Allen, Texas.

ALUMNI CONNECTIONS 2001

John Maples is the director of the counseling center at Lubbock Christian University. His wife, Jessica (Brackeen ’02), is the nurse manager of the palliative medicine unit of Covenant Health. They live in Lubbock with their three children.

BORN To Daniel and Sara (Bills) Dries, a boy,

Davis Bradley, Dec. 22, 2015. The family lives in San Jose, Calif.

To Robert (’99) and Jaime (Stone) Reed, a boy, Lawson, June 2014. The family lives in San Antonio, Texas.

To Josh (’04) and Taya (Owens) Gibbs, a girl, Lilly Joline, Jan. 23, 2015.

To John and Bethany (Hughes) Powell, a boy, Matthew Titus, April 12, 2015.

The family lives in Clyde, Texas.

ADOPTED

By John Mark and Laura (Sadler)

Tittsworth, a girl, Evelyn Marian, Oct. 27, 2015. She was born Sept. 2, 2015. The family lives in Burleson, Texas.

By David and Amy (Knox ’97) Morris, a boy, Joshua Guang Sheng Morris from China, Oct. 12, 2015. He was born Feb. 26, 2009. They also have a daughter, Mia, and live in San Antonio, Texas.

2002

BORN To Dan and Cara (Cowan) Hamlin, a girl,

Elizabeth Avery, Sept. 23, 2015. The family lives in Round Rock, Texas.

2003

BORN To David and Rachel (Henderson)

Emerson, a girl, Madison Leigh, Nov. 2, 2015.

Rachel has founded an architecture and design firm, Elevate Design LLC. The family lives in Franklin, Tenn.

To Ted and Alexandra Missildine, twins, a girl, Audrina, and a boy, Ethan, June 30, 2015. The family lives in The Colony, Texas.

To Cliff and Allison (Sevier ’05) Blessing, a boy, Hudson Andrew, April 2, 2015. The family lives in Dallas, Texas.

To David Hill and Jennifer Brown-Hill, a boy, Jonathan Mitchell, Nov. 2, 2015.

The family lives in Houston, Texas.

To Andy and Lisa (Clark) Adkins, triplets: a girl, Rynn, and two boys, Will and Jack, Nov. 12, 2015. Andy is Region 5 training director for the Board of Directors of the Texas Tactical Police Officers Association. He is a patrol sergeant with the Abilene Police Department. The family lives in Abilene.

To Jason and Julie Renee (McHargue) Bates, a girl, Dec. 3, 2012. The family moved in March 2016 to North Richland Hills, Texas, where Jason works for the Irving Fire Department.

To Kalum and Ashley (Ham) Tuggle, a girl, Georgia Lucille, Feb. 15, 2015. The family has a new address in North Richland Hills, Texas.

ADOPTED

By Donny and Carissa (Spatz) Ott, a girl,

Sienna Catherine, Nov. 20, 2015. She was born June 29, 2013. The family lives in Crowley, Texas.

2004

Craig and Lacy (Johnson ’03) Hay have a new address in Nacogdoches, Texas.

2005

MARRIED Benjamin Hester and Paige Weed,

Nov. 7, 2015, in Round Rock Texas. They live in Austin, Texas.

BORN To Luis and Amanda (Scott) Martinez,

a girl, Clara Faye, Dec. 16, 2015. The family lives in Austin, Texas.

To Dustin and Misty (Willcox) Lackey, a girl, Quinn Eva, May 15, 2015. The family lives in Colleyville, Texas.

To Larry and Amanda (Harris) Adams, a girl, Ensley, April 18, 2014. The family lives in Longview, Texas.

2006

BORN To Aaron and Courtney Echols, a girl,

Millie, Aug. 7, 2014. The family lives in Plano, Texas.

To Shane and Janelle Mayfield, a girl, Hensley Anne, Feb. 19, 2015. The family lives in Nashville, Tenn.

To Brian and Naomi (Thurlow ’04) Mandel, a boy, Josiah William, March 15, 2016. The family lives in Franklin, Tenn.

To Marion and Fabiola (Leon ’08) Harris, a boy, Grey, Sept. 16, 2015. The family recently moved from Nashville to Kansas City, Mo., where Marion is completing his dental residency at the University of MissouriKansas City and Fabiola will teach in the Park Hill School District starting in Fall 2016.

ADOPTED

By Rachael Schoen, a boy, Koen, born

May 4, 2015. They live in Alvin, Texas.

2007

MARRIED John Morris Jr. and Heather Graham,

Jan. 1, 2016. They live in Nocona, Texas.

BORN To Stephen and Anna (Carroll) Ratzlaff,

a boy, Peter Gregory, Sept. 17, 2015.

The family lives in St. Charles, Mo. To Joshua and Carolyn (Carr) Gray, a boy, Caleb Lowell, Oct. 27, 2015.

The family lives in Kansas City, Mo. To Patrick and Shannon (Alcedo) Halbert, a girl, Lily Kai, July 11, 2015.

The family lives in Dallas, Texas.

To Josh and Abbie (Howell) Harrison, two boys: Levi, March 5, 2014, and Mackie, Dec. 14, 2014. The family lives in Richardson, Texas.

2008

BORN To Heath and Rachel (Dorazio) Gholson,

a boy, Tanner Mark, March 30, 2015.

The family has moved to Wichita Falls, Texas.

C

onnecting with other alumni and connecting with the university is vital to our mission and our impact in the Kingdom. I love to hear the stories and see the influence ACU relationships can have on each other and our alma mater.

I was blessed to experience this firsthand recently and was reminded of how the relationships I formed Fisher more than 25 years ago at ACU are still so important to me today.

I was a part of group of alumni who traveled together in January to Thomazeau, Haiti, for a week at LiveBeyond (see pages 72-73). Most of us served together in 1990 as students on a Spring Break Campaign to Philadelphia. The opportunity to do so again strengthened our bonds and created space for us to remain in each other’s lives.

The work several of our alumni are doing at LiveBeyond is amazing: bringing Jesus to the poorest nation in the western hemisphere and forever changing the lives of Haitians. But they and other alumni serving in mission fields around the globe need us to work alongside them.

Our group hopes to return to Haiti, not only to serve together but to remain connected, further building relationships we began years ago.

It was amazing to see how God has been working in our lives, to learn about our families and children, and to relive the journey we began together on the Hill.

If you have interest in volunteering in this way and want more information or help concerning a similar alumni campaign, we can put you in touch with ACU’s Halbert Institute for Missions, which can provide guidance for serving alongside fellow alumni or current Wildcats.

We look forward to hearing from you and serving together. 

– CRAIG FISHER (’92)

Director of Alumni Relations and Annual Projects Director of University Relations ACU TODAY

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BORN TO BE A WILDCAT The Alumni Association will send a FREE Wildcat BabyWear T-shirt to the alumni parents of each newborn or adopted infant in your family!

Complete the EXperiences news card and mail it to us, or complete the info online at blogs.acu.edu/acutoday/experiences.

In-focus, high-resolution digital images (minimum file size of 500kb; use your camera’s highest quality setting) of alumni children wearing their Wildcat BabyWear should be emailed to babywear@acu.edu. Call 800-373-4220 for more information.

Macy Lynn Luedke, daughter of Luke and Tiffany (Polnisch ’08) Luedke of Baytown, Texas.

Evie King, daughter of Seth and Jenna (Henderson ’10) King of Memphis, Tenn.

Benjamin Walter Rodriguez, son of Bryan (’13) and Kara (Buckel ’06) Rodriguez of Fort Worth, Texas.

Timothy and James Hughes, twin sons of Scott (’05) and Ashley (Decker ’10) Hughes of Fort Worth, Texas.

Cousins (from left) Samuel David Duran, son of Samuel and Crystal (Hughes ’06) Duran of Dallas, Texas, and Ren Michael Hughes, son of Darren (’96) and Marla Hughes of Murphy, Texas.

Hudson Andrew Blessing, son of Cliff (’03) and Allison (Sevier ’05) Blessing of Dallas, Texas.

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Rhett Rutledge Wessel, son of Jared (’09) and Erin (Knight ’09) Wessel of Trophy Club, Texas.

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Zoe Claire Massingill, daughter of Josh (’07) and Allie (Rogers ’08) Massingill of Cedar Park, Texas.

Lincoln Harper Sloan, son of Connor and Kelly (Harper ’04) Sloan of North Richland Hills, Texas.

John David Jeremiah McBride, son of Donnie McBride (’02 M.A.) and April (Ewing ’97) McBride of Norman, Okla.

Ezekiel Lee Almas, son of Andrew (’12) and Molly (McDaniel ’12) Almas of Fort Worth, Texas.

Henley Louise Benham, daughter of Brad (’05) and Janelle Benham of Abilene.

Austin Jameson Pierce, son of Jordan and Laura (Maloney ’05) Pierce of Fort Worth, Texas, and Andrew Christopher Maloney, son of Chris and Christina (Anderson ’03) Maloney of Mineola, Texas.

Houston and Lincoln Mack, twin sons of Ryan (’08) and Sylvia (Tucker ’10) Mack of Temple, Texas.

Abigail Nembu, daughter of Kenneth and Sarah (Wilson ’03) Nembu of Fort Worth, Texas.

Cousins Mateo Arizpe (left) and Elliott Fike were born three weeks apart. Mateo is the son of Jaime (’08) and Elizabeth (Fike ’10) Arizpe of San Antonio, Texas. Elliott is the son of Jeremy (’05) and Adrienne (Forsythe ’05) Fike of Richmond, Va.

Carter Wayne Matthews, son of Adam (’11 M.A.C.M.) and Anna (Isenhower ’08) Matthews of Brighton, Mich.

Darby Anne Wilson, daughter of Brandon and Madison (Hirt ’12 M.Ed.) Wilson of Katy, Texas.

William Poarch, son of Phillip (’09) and Leah (Walter ’09) Poarch of Abilene.

ACU TODAY

Lucas Viertel, son of Tanner (’98) and Blair (DeLaughter ’98) Viertel of Haslet, Texas.

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ACU NEWSMAKERS

JEFF ROGERS

Exaggerator, the 3-year-old thoroughbred that won the 141st Preakness Stakes on May 21, 2016, is owned by a partnership that includes the family of Cody Ortowski (’99).

Exaggerator’s bloodlines include Native Dancer, Bold Reasoning and 1977 Triple Crown winner Seattle Slew. The dark bay horse finished second in the 142nd Kentucky Derby on May 7.

Dr. Kim Alexander (’85 M.Ed.), superintendent of Roscoe ISD, was appointed by Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick to serve on a newly formed commission designed to take Alexander student assessment and school accountability into the 21st century.

Gov. Greg Abbott and Patrick created the Texas Commission on Next Generation Assessments and Accountability to “review the latest research and practices of the most effective school systems and make recommendations for assessments that contribute to daily learning.” Alexander received the 2015 Morlan Medal award from ACU’s Department of Teacher Education.

LEAH RAMA

PAUL WHITE

Former pop and Christian music recording star/producer Chris Christian (’73) is vice chair and managing partner of the Dallas Wings, the newest WNBA franchise.

League play (including a 34-game regular season) began in May 2016.

The Wings play in 7,000-seat College Park Center on the campus of The University of Texas at Arlington.

Work by New York City artist Jeff Rogers (’02) for a national retweet campaign for Diet Coke appeared on products and was featured in signage on Times Square.

Even though she considered her work “sort of outside the lines of fine art,” Leah Rama (’15 M.F.A.) decided to enter her fashion designs in The World’s Biggest Art Show Ever, an Adobe xColossal competition. She was interviewed a few weeks later and then chosen as one of the 10 finalists to be featured. Artwork by the 10 international finalists was hand-painted by Colossal as giant murals on buildings in a Brooklyn neighborhood. The show aims to highlight and empower female creatives by giving them a platform for expression.

BAMBI KISER

Jody (Davis) Addy (’92 M.A.) was named 2015 Teacher of the Year for the Windham School District, the school system for offenders in the Texas prison system. She teaches at Abilene’s Robertson Unit facility.

70

Kim Blann (’01), director of fine arts in the Keller (Texas) ISD, received the Texas Educational Addy Theatre Association Founders Award at the TETA conference in February 2016.

The honor recognizes significant contributions to arts education.

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MSU COLLEGE OF MUSIC

Leticia Ann (Guzman ’89) Ingram has been named Colorado Teacher of the Year for 2016.

She is an English language development coordinator, history and math teacher at Basalt High School in Aspen, Colo., who specializes in teaching English as a Second Language. Ingram earned a bachelor’s in education and a master’s in religious education from ACU.

John L. Whitwell (’65), director of bands emeritus at Michigan State University, received the 2016 Meritorious Achievement award from the Texas Bandmasters Whitwell Association at its 69th annual convention and clinic July 21 in San Antonio. Whitwell directed bands at ACU and Stephen F. Austin State University prior to his roles at MSU, which included director of bands, Wind Symphony conductor, professor of music and chair of conducting. Now retired, Whitwell lives in Flower Mound, Texas.

Kelly Moore (’79), former president of Fort Worth Christian Schools, has been named president of the National Christian School Association. Founded in 1988 by the late

Dr. Don Gardner (’48), the NCSA was originally a fraternal association of schools associated with the Churches of Christ. Today, 98 NCSA schools serve more than 40,000 children in 28 states.

Erica (Jarvis ’04) Crowder was named Texas Excellence in Education winner for Elementary Leadership, earning $10,000 for herself and $10,000 for her school in Fort Worth, Texas. She is a volunteer with Zambia Medical Missions.

Former ACU football player and U.S. Army special forces veteran Rusty Whitt (’94) is the new strength and conditioning coach at Texas Tech University. He previously held the same position at the University of Louisiana-Lafayette.

Former ACU all-America women’s basketball player Bonnie (Buchanan ’81) Gray and former all-America high jumper Kim (Bartee ’95) Neece were inducted May 2, 2016, to the Big Country Athletic Hall of Fame. They join 19 other Wildcats in the hall: James Blackwood

Amber (Tate ’99) Branson, head girls basketball coach at Lipan (Texas) High School, led her hometown team to the Texas Class 1A state championship March 5, 2016. Branson starred for the Indians as a senior guard on the 1995 state semifinalists, then had a standout career at ACU.

JEREMY ENLOW

for Adolescent Studies and helped build the university’s youth and family ministry program.

Greg Easterly (’83) is the president and general manager of WGN-TV in Chicago, Ill. For the previous seven years he held the same roles at WJW-TV in Cleveland, Ohio. The former ACU journalism and mass communication major also oversees CLTV, Tribune Broadcasting’s Chicago-based regional cable news channel.

Dr. James E. Womack (’64 ), a distinguished professor at the Texas A&M University College of Veterinary Medicine, was selected for the 2016 Association of American Veterinary Medical Colleges Excellence in Research Award.

In January 2016, the National Conference on Youth Ministries honored the late Dr. David K. Lewis (’73) with its Wally Wilkerson Legacy Award, given annually to recognize a notable professional in the field. Lewis, who died in July 2015, was founding director of ACU’s Center BRYAN STEWART

BEN WALNICK

Taylor Hemness (’04) and Farron Salley (’12) earned regional Emmy Awards for outstanding journalism at their respective stations. Hemness is an evening anchor at KLTV7, the ABC affiliate in Tyler, Texas. Farron is a multimedia journalist for FOX23 News in Tulsa, Okla.

region. Smith is a member of ACU’s Board of Trustees and judge for the 361st District Court in Bryan, Texas.

DR. NEAL COATES

(’64), Wally Bullington (’53), Arthur “Tonto” Coleman (’28), Eck Curtis (’25), Bill Gilbreth (’69), John Ray Godfrey (’68), Bill Hart (’52), Kelly Kent (’80), Wes Kittley (’81), William D. “Shorty” Lawson (’45), Bill McClure (’48), Bob McLeod (’62), Billy Olson (’78), Brad Pursley (’84), James Segrest (’59), Ted Sitton (’54), and Richard “Moose” Stovall (’47).

Other notables include PGA golfers Bob Estes and Charles Coody, NFL players Sammy Baugh and Bob Lilly, and coaching legends Grant Teaff, Gordon Wood and Emory Ballard.

Nonprofit Haven for Hope has named Kenny Wilson (’74), the longtime market president for Bank of America in San Antonio, as its next president and CEO. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott reappointed Coleman Locke (’65) of Hungerford to the Texas Animal Health Commission and named him chair of the organization, which represents the beef cattle industry. Locke is director and executive committee member of the Texas Southwest Cattle Raisers Association, lifetime committee member of the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, past director of the Federation of State Beef Councils, and past president of the American Brahman Breeders Association and Texas Brahman Association, among other honors. He is president of J.D. Hudgins Inc., which manages the historic Hudgins cattle ranch near Houston.

Judge Steve Smith (’74) of College Station, Texas, received the Champion for Children award March 5, 2016, from Voice for Children - CASA of the Brazos Valley, an organization helping provide court-appointed special advocates for cases involving children in the

The entryway to Nicodemus Naimadu’s home in Lubbock has a new welcome mat: Lane 4 of the old Elmer Gray Stadium track surface where the Kenyan runner once made history. As a senior, Naimadu (’08) became the first athlete to win four consecutive individual NCAA national titles in cross country. He led the Wildcats to national team championships in 2006 and 2007.

He is pictured here with his sons, Edmond and Desmon.

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SERVING YOU ADVANCING ACU

WEST TEXAS AREA Greg Oglesby • AC • 325-674-2899, greg.oglesby@acu.edu Mark Rogers • AO • 325-674-2669, mark.rogers@acu.edu

AUSTIN AREA Tunisia Singleton • URM (Austin / Central Texas) 512-450-4329 • tunisia.singleton@acu.edu Don Garrett • AO • 325-674-2213, don.garrett@acu.edu Allison Self • AC (Austin / Central Texas) 325-674-2650 / 800-460-6228, aself@acu.edu

FORT WORTH AREA Brent Barrow • URM • 817-946-5917, brent.barrow@acu.edu Jacob Groves • AC (Erath, Hood, Johnson, Somervell, Tarrant counties) 325-674-2650 / 800-460-6228, jacob.groves@acu.edu Meredith Morgan • AC (Collin, Denton, Palo Pinto, Parker, Wise) 325-674-2650 / 800-460-6228, meredith.morgan@acu.edu Lance Rieder • AO • 325-674-6080, lance.rieder@acu.edu

DALLAS AREA Toni Young • URM • 214-402-5183, toni.young@acu.edu Savannah Andrews • AC (Dallas, Rockwall, Ellis, Kaufman) 325-674-2650 / 800-460-6228, savannah.smith@acu.edu Meredith Morgan • AC (Collin) • 325-674-2650 / 800-460-6228 meredith.morgan@acu.edu

HOUSTON AREA Carri Hill • URM • 713-582-2123, carri.hill@acu.edu John Martin • AC • 325-674-2650 / 800-460-6228, john.martin@acu.edu Eric Fridge • AO • 713-483-4004, eric.fridge@acu.edu

SAN ANTONIO AREA Kerry Stemen • URM • 830-388-0615, kerry.stemen@acu.edu John Mark Moudy • AC (San Antonio / South Texas) 325-674-2650 / 800-460-6228, johnmark.moudy@acu.edu Don Garrett • AO • 325-674-2213, don.garrett@acu.edu

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Class of 1992 inspired by its Spring Break Campaign days to reunite, volunteer in Haiti Pressed between pages of the Bible Ty Maddox (’92) has had since college is an artifact from those days: A ticket stub for a tour of the Empire State Building.

He’d visited the iconic site on an excursion to New York City during a 1990 Spring Break Campaign in Philadelphia, tucking away the ticket in his Bible as a souvenir. There it has stayed, through graduation, medical school, marriage, starting a family, building a practice. And there it came to his attention one night in January 2015, sparking an idea that would change many lives.

Ty was in Thomazeau, Haiti, working for a week with LiveBeyond, a faith-based humanitarian organization started and operated by David Vanderpool, M.D. (’82) and his wife, Laurie (Stallings ’81), that brings medical and maternal health care, clean water, education, orphan care, community development and the Gospel to the oppressed.

His college friend – and fellow Philadelphia Spring Break Campaigner – Holly (McLeod ’92) Brown had invited him to join her on a medical mission trip to the site once she learned her husband, Alan (’92), wasn’t able to attend.

Looking at his Empire State Building ticket that night, he and Holly began to reminisce about the trip, marveling at how 25 years had passed. But soon, the talk changed from examining the past to looking toward the future.

“As Ty and I sat there, talking about what a great week it was, we realized how special it would be to share this experience with our ACU friends,” Holly says. “You share something so unique in your time Kindra (Boatwright ’92) together at ACU, and then Needham and a new friend when you’re put in a setting in Haiti. to serve others, the bonds become even stronger.”

Returning to the U.S., Ty and Holly set about recruiting college friends, especially those from their Philadelphia campaign, to join a medical mission to LiveBeyond in January 2016. They ended up with a team of 15 adults, seven of whom are Philadelphia veterans, and three children, joining the ranks of about 170 ACU graduates who have volunteered at LiveBeyond. They came with backgrounds in the medical field as well as education, ministry and business.

“Your college friends are some of your closest friends,

TY MADDOX

Do you want to recommend a future student, volunteer, host an event or just learn more about how you can be involved with ACU where you live?

To help foster relationships with alumni and future students, ACU has assigned personnel from its Advancement and Admissions offices to major markets in Texas.

A university relations manager (URM) focuses on establishing relationships with churches, schools, alumni and other friends; an admissions counselor (AC) reaches out to future students and their parents; and an advancement officer (AO) assists prospective donors seeking an opportunity to contribute funds to ACU. Through this territory team approach, these dedicated professionals can provide exceptional service to those who contribute so graciously to ACU’s mission and 21st-Century Vision.

FRONT Anna Kate Gunn, Tiffany Maddox, Maddie Sue Conway, Amy (Covington ’93) Rogers, Annie Brown and Holly (McLeod ’92) Brown MIDDLE Craig Fisher (’92), Beth Ann (Souder ’93) Fisher, Susan (Beustring ’93) Conway, Martha Kate (Stallings ’92) Gunn, Laurie (Stallings ’81) Vanderpool, Kindra (Boatwright ’92) Needham, Dawn (Hatter ’93) Sladek, and Alan Brown (’92)

even if you don’t see each other very often,” Ty says.

“We all have different skills and gifts, and there’s some greater good that we can can achieve by coming together and utilizing them to serve others.”

Craig Fisher (’92), ACU director of alumni relations and university relations, was part of the original Philadelphia crew and made the Haiti trip with his wife, Beth Ann (Souder ’93). A highlight for him was seeing his longtime friends in action as professionals.

“That week, I got to watch my friends who are doctors and nurses be at their offices and see how gentle and caring they were with their patients, and how they went the extra mile for someone,” he says. “To go and see ACU alumni – my community – serving and using the gifts God has given them was powerful.”

The Vanderpools and LiveBeyond welcome two mission trips a month, and volunteers’ days are highly structured.

Mornings begin with a Bible study, followed by breakfast and a time of worship with the Haitians. Everyone then divides into their appointed roles in the site’s clinic and school; for example, Craig helped register patients for the clinic (they saw almost 900 that week) while Ty helped with intake, determining each patient’s medical needs and how much food could be allotted to them based on their level of malnutrition. Some are starving to death.

From where Craig was stationed, he could see Beth Ann praying with patients before they left the clinic, tears streaming down her face as she was overwhelmed with the task. Patients couldn’t understand her words, but they understood her intent.

After the clinic closes, volunteers travel to meet with those unable to make it to the LiveBeyond site, often because of physical limitations. They live in what Americans would describe, at best, as shacks.

“What David and Laurie are doing down there is powerful,” Craig says. “It’s the poorest of the poor.

COURTESY OF TY MADDOX

BACK David Burleson, M.D. (’81); Ty Maddox, M.D. (’92); Barry Perkins, M.D. (’92); and David M. Vanderpool Jr., M.D. (’82)

Every day, they are bringing Jesus to the people and doing it in a hard, barren land with not much support from that country.”

Ty doesn’t mince words when he talks with friends, family and his own patients about his LiveBeyond experiences.

“You’re going to a place where it’s very dark,” he says.

“There is very little government infrastructure to help people there. And these people are actually starving and they need help. I don’t really candy coat it.

“I think it puts everything in perspective,” Ty says.

“The terminology we throw around so loosely in our culture – the phrase ‘I’m starving’ is not allowed in our household anymore. I tell people it’s terrible, but good things are happening there. This group is doing good work, and you can help.”

At night, everyone gathered for a time of fellowship, discussing what they did and saw that day and praying for the patients and countless others who’ll never be treated.

Ty, Holly, Craig, Beth Ann and the rest talked about each other’s families and careers and how they all want to return to Haiti and LiveBeyond. (Holly and Beth Ann went back in June.)

And of course, they talked about their time as students at ACU, a place that provided a foundation to become servant leaders throughout the world. Craig says he hopes more graduates will gather groups of friends for mission trips, not just to places like Haiti but in their own communities.

“We share a common bond from our time together at school,” Ty says. “One of the things we were taught at ACU is to go out into the world and be light, and this was a way we could help fulfill that great need – to try to be light in the darkness.” 

– SARAH CARLSON

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PURPLE PEOPLE Whether flashing the W-C, handing out hugs or simply enjoying time together, Wildcats gather on campus and around the world to share their stories and celebrate their common love for each other and for ACU. Here are just a few images we’ve saved since our last issue. Share others with us at acutoday@acu.edu.

1) Former Wildcat standout Seth Spivey (’15) played in the Texas Rangers’ minor league camp during spring training in Surprise, Ariz., and signed autographs for Kash and Reese Roberts, the children of Koy (’93) and Bobbie (Conner ’96) Roberts, and the grandkids of Garner Roberts (’70). Spivey plays for the High Desert Mavericks, the Rangers’ Class A Advanced affiliate in the California League.

2) Nearly 60 former Wildcat players returned for the annual Alumni Baseball Games on Feb. 6, 2016, at Crutcher Scott Field. Among participants in two slow-pitch softball games were Kevin Nelson (’94), Bryan McCaleb (’94), Kyle Conway (’91), Mike Morgan (’95), Todd Self (’93), Steve Montfort (’92), Jason West (’93), Jared Hyde (’96), Steve Bierra (’95) and Brandon Sisco (’95).

The games were the first on Scott Field’s new AstroTurf surface.

Jim Armstrong (’59) and Dr. Nedom Muns (’61) were the most veteran Wildcats to play.

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GUY “MOJO” LEWIS, D.D.S.

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3) Houston Astros all-star second baseman Jose Altuve (left) and former ACU trustee Guy “Mojo’ Lewis, D.D.S. (’80) met up in March during spring training in Kissimmee, Fla. For several years, Lewis has overseen oral cancer screenings for all Astros’ major and minor league players, and created UnderArmour performance mouthpieces for them to wear during competition. Lewis is an avid Astros fan and founder of the Texas Center for Cosmetic and Implant Dentistry in The Woodlands.

5) A 10th-place finish by ACU graduate student Blake Harruff (left) and sophomore Tanner Sanderson (right) on April 30, 2016, qualified them to fish in the 2017 national collegiate championship. The duo competes in ACU’s Fishing Club and was participating in a FLW Southern Conference tournament at Oklahoma’s Fort Gibson Lake.

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9) Among alumni attendees at the reception in New York City included (from left): Jace (’14) and Amanda (Jarufe ’13) Reinhard, Ean Cochran (’14), and Ally (Bonneau ’14) and Owen Beans (’14).

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DAVID GORDON

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7) Attending the same admissions event were alumna Julie (Moore ’90) and her son, McLane, of Brownwood, Texas.

8) The Manhattan, N.Y., residence of PBS’ Antiques Roadshow expert Lark E. Mason Jr. and his wife, Erica, was the site for a reception April 4, 2016, of alumni who live in the Big Apple and other cities on the East Coast. The couple has two children who are ACU graduates: Lark Mason III (’12) and Victoria “Melissa” (Mason ’12) Gibson.

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6) Carmen and Pat Adams (’94) of Fort Worth, Texas, brought their daughter, Caleigh, to campus April 8, 2016, for an Office of Admissions event.

They were joined by their son, Canon.

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To Matt and Allison (Kuskie) Otte, a boy, Reed Michael, Jan. 11, 2016. The family lives in Edmond, Okla.

To Lane and Katie (Eichelberger) Mandel, a boy, Holden John, Nov. 3, 2015. The family lives in Lewisville, Texas.

To Kenny and Angie (De La Garza) Morris, a girl, Mila Kate, Feb. 11, 2016. The family lives in Odessa, Texas.

2009

Austin and Shannon (Morgan) Robel have moved. They spend part of the year in Greeley, Colo., where Shannon is a hospital speech-language pathologist and Austin is a flight instructor. They spend summers in Alaska, where Shannon manages a souvenir and coffee shop and Austin is a bush pilot tour guide.

MARRIED Jason Fry and Haley Dilling, Jan. 16,

2016, in Charleston, S.C. The couple lives in Gainesville, Fla., where Jason runs Laser Lawn Care and Haley works as vice president of marketing and operations for Sportody.

BORN To Grant and Shealynn (Davis) Abston,

a girl, Maebry Blake, Oct. 17, 2015. The family lives in Midland, Texas.

To Bryan and Sarah (Holway) Kelly, a boy, Caleb Kevin, June 16, 2015. The family lives in Benbrook, Texas.

To Jordan and Sara (Beckett ’11) Bunch, a girl, Hattie Lou Elise, May 7, 2016. The family lives in Pflugerville, Texas.

To Chase and Andra (Anglin ’12) Pennington, a boy, Christopher Liam, July 2,

2015. The family lives in Willow Park, Texas.

2010

MARRIED Joel Ashby and Erin Young, March 29, 2014.

The family lives in Abilene.

BORN To Jay and Laurel (Williams) Swinney,

twin girls, Evelyn “Annelise” and Jeanette “Avonlea,” Nov. 23, 2015. The family lives in Leander, Texas.

To Collin and Jessica Alexander, a girl, Emilee Grace, April 7, 2015. The family lives in Brashear, Texas.

To Chris and Erin (Bell ’05) Garner, a boy, Ryan Joseph, May 14, 2015. The family lives in Abilene.

To Seth and Jenna (Henderson) King, a girl, Evelyn Rose, Aug. 28, 2015. The family lives in Memphis, Tenn.

To Drew (’09) and Kimberlee (Shelton) Lowry, a girl, Harper, Nov. 26, 2015.

The family lives in Fort Worth, Texas.

2011

BORN To Jim and Chelsea (Pierce ’12) Guinn,

a girl, Blair Elizabeth, Feb. 1, 2016. The family lives in College Station, Texas.

To Clifton McClain and Christin Etter-McClain, a boy, Clifton Carter, Oct. 26, 2015. The family lives in Abilene.

To John and Madison (Sims) Bishop, a boy, Aaron Carl, Feb. 23, 2016. The family lives in Clovis, N.M.

To Cody and Christina (Peterson ’12) Duncum, a girl, Reagan Lee, Feb. 8, 2016.

The family lives in Abilene.

2012

BORN To Joshua and Bradye (Waddell) McQueen,

a girl, Esther Elodie, Sept. 21, 2015. The family lives in Abilene.

To Brandon and Madison (Hirt) Wilson, a girl, Danica, Feb. 10, 2016. The family lives in Katy, Texas.

To Andrew and Andrea (Wilkinson) Hester, a girl, Brooklyn Faith, Sept. 24, 2015. The family lives in Addison, Texas.

2013

BORN To Cameron Smith and Erika Jazayeri, a

boy, Maxwell Thomas, July 27, 2015. Cameron works as an IT manager for Hersh Family Investments. The family lives in Dallas, Texas.

To Jeremy and Elizabeth (Saller) Magers, a girl, Clara Lynn, Dec. 3, 2015. The family lives in Dallas, Texas.

2014

Jesse Casement and her daughter, Mackenzie, were recently baptized. They live in San Diego, Calif.

MARRIED Aubree Michelle Selinger and Adam

Browning (’10), April 9, 2016. The couple lives in Abilene.

IN MEMORIAM 1941

Mary Louise (Iley) Brown, 94, died June 17, 2015, in Mansfield, Texas. She was born Aug. 20, 1920, in Gorman, Texas, and was an elementary school teacher for more than 30 years in the Midland ISD. She was preceded in death by her parents, Noble and Elsie Iley, and Charles, her husband of 59 years. Survivors include a son, Steve Brown (’69); a daughter, Carole (Brown ’69) Thomas; and four grandchildren.

1942

Jack Margaret (Dunn) Owens, 95, died March 30, 2016, in San Antonio, Texas. She majored in home economics with a minor in art, and was a member of Ko Jo Kai women’s social club. Owens was a member of Sunset Ridge Church of Christ. She was preceded in death by her husband, John Lee Owens (’42). Among survivors are her daughter, Sue (Owens) Scott; sons John Owens (’69) and Tom Owens; eight grandchildren; and 15 great-grandchildren.

1945

John Randolph Jordan III, 91, died Jan. 16, 2016, in Abilene. He was born June 10,

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1924, in Dallas and grew up in Mineola, Texas.

He served in the U.S. Navy during World War II. He married Marilee Faver Jordan in 1943; she preceded him in death in 2009. John worked as an independent landman in the oil industry and also served in the U.S. Naval Reserves until his honorable discharge in 1965. He was an avid golfer and deeply involved in his church and community. John is survived by two daughters, Jan (Jordan ’70) Hailey and Vicki (Jordan ’73) Shepard; three grandchildren, Jennifer (Hailey ’94) Nichols, Rob Hailey (’97) and Michelle Shepard (’03); and six great-grandchildren.

1948

THIS IS A CORRECTION OF A PREVIOUS LISTING. William E. Vaught, J.D., 86, died Dec. 9, 2014, in Dallas. He was born March 21, 1928, in Dallas, graduated in 1945 from Texarkana (Texas) High School, and married Virginia Lee Paul (’49) on Aug. 12, 1950. Vaught was active at ACU in cheerleading, A Cappella Chorus, Big Purple Band, and the Business Administration Club. He served as a first lieutenant in the U.S. Air Force from 1952-54. He earned a master’s degree in public accountancy and a law degree from The University of Texas

at Austin. He had a nearly 50-year career as a CPA in Dallas, and was named CPA of the Year in 1973 by the Dallas chapter of the Texas Society of Certified Public Accountants. ACU awarded Vaught a Distinguished Alumni Citation in 1980.

He served on the boards of Dallas Christian Schools and Amberton University, and was an elder of the Waterview Church of Christ for 27 years. Among survivors are Virginia, his wife of 64 years; five daughters, Paula (Vaught ’74) Chance, Vanette (Vaught ’75) Hutcheson, Susan (Vaught ’76) Clark, Tamara (Vaught ’80) Weaver and Kimberly (Vaught ’84) Hancock; 13 grandchildren; and 10 great-grandchildren.

1954

Vivian Avyce Watson Taylor, 83, died Feb. 11, 2016, in McKinleyville, Calif. She was born May 26, 1932, in Clarendon, Texas, and grew up in Amarillo. She majored in art and English literature at ACU – where she was active in A Cappella Chorus, The Optimist, Ko Jo Kai women’s social club and W Club – and later earned a secondary school teaching certificate in English from UCLA. She was married to Dr. James R. Wilburn (’53) from 1952-73

Sitton perfected the quarterback role as a student and coach of other record setters Charles Ted Sitton (’54), an ACU football hero as a student-athlete and, later, innovative architect of some of the Wildcats’ top offensive performances as a coach, died April 15, 2016, in Abilene at age 84 following a long illness.

Sitton was born Jan. 20, 1932, in Stamford, Texas, graduating from high school there in 1949.

He met Gloria Pace (’62) in the third grade and they married July 15, 1951. She died Nov. 24, 2013.

Wildcat quarterbacks As a sophomore at led the league in passing Abilene Christian in 1950, he 10 of the 16 years Sitton’s teams played in the quarterbacked the Wildcats to Lone Star Conference. their only undefeated, untied season (11-0 record) and a victorious trip to the Refrigerator Bowl in Evansville, Ind. He also competed in track and field as a student-athlete.

After graduation, he coached at Graham (Texas) High School and Abilene High School before joining the ACU staff in 1967. At AHS, his Eagle team won the state track and field title in 1961.

Sitton was Wildcat offensive coordinator from 1968-78, 1985-86 and 1993-94, leading his teams to NAIA Division I national championships in 1973 and 1977. He developed high-powered passing offenses, with six of his quarterbacks throwing for at least 2,000 yards in 15 different seasons. He coached ACU’s first 3,000-yard passer, record-setting QBs who received all-conference honors – including Clint Longley (’74), John Mayes (’81), Loyal Profitt (’85) and Rex Lamberti (’88) – and Jim Lindsey (’71), who was named first-team all-America.

Sitton was ACU’s head coach from 1979-84, winning Lone Star Conference Coach of the Year honors in 1981.

Lamberti said Sitton believed in him and made him want to live up to his expectations. “He was such a godly example to anyone who knew him,” Lamberti said. “He taught me so much about being a good person first, and a lot about being a quarterback. I am proud to have known him. The world, and especially the ACU community, has lost a very good man.”

Sitton worked as the university’s director of quality control and safety from 1987-93, was inducted to the ACU Sports Hall of Fame in 1995 and the Big Country Sports Hall of Fame in 2009.

Preceding him in death were his parents, Pat and

Lillian Sitton; a sister, Peggy (Sitton) Hickey; Gloria, his wife of 62 years; and a son, Chuck Sitton (’78). Among survivors are a son, Gary Sitton (’76); two daughters, Jani Freeman and Cara Sue Sitton (’81); a brother, Phil Sitton; sisters Patsy Bohannon, Carolyn Coggin and Jeanie Williams; six grandchildren; and six great-grandchildren.

Former trustee and board chair Cornutt was distinguished Dallas business leader Former ACU trustee and board chair Clarence Edward “Doc” Cornutt (’71) died in Dallas on May 28, 2016, at age 67 following a long illness.

Cornutt was born April 18, 1949, in Pampa, Texas, where he graduated high school and starred in football and track and field. He turned down a football scholarship to Oklahoma University to enroll at ACU, where he was mentored by the late Dr. Overton Faubus in business and marketing.

Cornutt He married Linda Core (’70) in 1971.

He became a CPA while working as a senior accountant at Arthur Anderson and Company, before serving as executive vice president of Woodbine Development Corporation. He was chair of Hunt Oil Company (1983-93) and Hunt Refining Company (1984-97), and president of Hunt Realty Corporation and Hunt Financial Corporation (1993-97). From 1997 until an illness forced his retirement, he served as chair and CEO of Argent Property Company.

Cornutt was an ACU trustee from 1989-2010, including three years as board chair (2007-10). He co-chaired the university’s $100 million “To Lead and To Serve” and its $150 million Centennial campaigns, and received a Distinguished Alumni Citation in 2005. Cornutt also was a trustee and board chair at Dallas Christian School.

His civic involvement included United Way, Leadership Dallas, the Strategic Issues Committee of the Dallas Chamber of Commerce, the Dallas Economic Development Advisory Board, Goodwill Industries of Dallas (board chair), and Dallas Summer Musicals (executive board) and the National Association of Office Parks (trustee). Cornutt also was a deacon, elder and teacher at Skillman Church of Christ, and active in youth scouting organizations.

He was preceded in death by his parents, Jim and Dona Cornutt. Among survivors are Linda, his wife of 45 years; daughters Sara (Cornutt ’99) Boucher and Shelly (Cornutt) Goguen; a son, Chris Cornutt (’01); five grandchildren; a sister, Molly (Cornutt ’71) Goodwin; and a brother, Dr. James Cornutt (’72).

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ACU Remembers: Sinclair, Evans, Harvey, Dietz, Perry Kenneth Leroy Sinclair (’65) died unexpectedly Dec. 2, 2015, while traveling in Singapore at age 73. The former missionaryin-residence in ACU’s Halbert Institute for Missions was there to visit alumni and friends, encourage churches and officiate at a wedding, but fell ill and died a few days later of complications caused Sinclair by the Dengue virus.

He was born Sept.

6, 1942, in Plainview, Texas. Sinclair earned a B.A. in Bible and a Master of Missiology (1978) degree, both from ACU. He served as a missionary and church planter to various Church of Christ congregations in Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia; recruited and trained missions teams; and traveled extensively researching evangelism opportunities in countries such as Taiwan, Japan, China, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Myanmar, Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia. In the U.S. he was pulpit minister for congegations in Lake Jackson and Sonora, Texas. From 1991-2004, he taught Bible classes at ACU to several thousand international students who came to know their “Uncle Ken” as a lifelong friend, mentor and spiritual father.

In Abilene he was a member of South 11th and Willis Church of Christ, where his service as outreach coordinator included pastoral teaching and counseling in the Taylor County Jail and several prisons in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice system. He was preceded in death by his parents, William H. and Myrtle (Sandefur) Sinclair; two sisters; and a brother.

Among survivors are his wife, Estelle (White ’65) Sinclair; a son, David Sinclair (’96); a daughter, Kyna Sinclair (’99); and five grandchildren.

Arthur Draper Evans, 97, died Dec. 17, 2015, in Abilene. He was born in Wapanucka, Okla., on July 15, 1918, and graduated from Weatherford (Okla.)

High School in 1935.

He married Dorothy Frances Yates on July 29, 1939, in Enid, Okla., and earned a bachelor’s degree in music and history education in 1941 Evans from Southwestern Oklahoma State University. He also did graduate work in industrial psychology at Purdue University.

He served from 1942-46 as a technical sergeant in the U.S. Army during World War II, and in the Army Reserve from 1946-53 as a master sergeant. He was stationed at Purdue University, where he taught and worked on his master’s degree, and was deployed later to China before returning to Oklahoma to be with

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his family. He worked for the Railway Express Agency in Oklahoma; Kansas; Kansas City, Mo.; Des Moines, Iowa; and Chicago, Ill. He retired in 1975 as REA operations manager in Kansas City after 40 years of service. After retiring, he moved to Abilene and worked at ACU as a personnel representative in the Human Resources Office until retiring again in 1999. He chaired the ACU Credit Union board, and was a member of the Abilene Founder Lions Club and University Church of Christ. He was preceded in death by his parents, Arthur Thomas and Augusta (Draper) Evans; Dorothy, his wife of 71 years; two brothers, Dr. Samuel Evans and Gene Evans; a sister, Willie (Evans ’34) Wilkinson; and two grandchildren. Among survivors are his son, Stephen Evans; his daughter, Pati (Evans) Espenlaub; three grandsons; and one great-grandson.

Ralph E. Harvey (’56) died Jan. 5, 2016, at the age of 82. He was born Feb. 8, 1934, in Spiro, Okla., and graduated from Classen High School in Oklahoma City. He met Ava “Maxine” Williams (’57) at ACU and they married in 1955. Ralph earned a master’s degree in geology from The University of Oklahoma and founded Harvey Marlin Oil Corporation in 1972. He was a key supporter of several Christian universities, including ACU (where he was a member of the Board of Trustees from 1983-2004 and Senior Board from 2004-07) and Oklahoma Christian University, where the Harvey Business Center bears his family’s name. He was a Bible school teacher and supporter of church mission work; a member of the Rotary Club of Oklahoma City, the Oklahoma Geological Society and Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs; and served numerous roles in the local and national Republican Party.

Ralph and Maxine’s work on behalf of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation was recognized when the couple received the Oklahoma City chapter’s Breath of Life Award. Ralph was preceded in death by his parents, Opel Leon Harvey and Berniece (Cox) Harvey; and Maxine, his wife of 58 years. Among survivors are his daughter, Tracy (Harvey ’84) Fields; a son, Mark Harvey, M.D. (’81); a sister, Wanda Johnson; and five grandchildren.

Maurita Jean Dietz (’51) died Nov. 29, 2015, in Wichita Falls at the age of 87. She was born Jan. 26, 1928, in Harper, Kan., and graduated from Harper High School in 1945.

She attended ACU for two years before the university hired her in 1950 as a secretary and bookkeeper. She retired in 1993 as senior executive secretary to the late vice president of finance, Dr. L.D. “Bill” Hilton (’48), having served as his assistant her entire 43-year career

at Abilene Christian.

After retirement, she completed her degree, graduating with a B.A. in applied studies in 1996. She traveled to all 50 states and more than 20 countries, assisting in missions Dietz work and library services in Europe and Central America. She was preceded in death by her parents, Albert F. and Frances L. (Babcock) Dietz; two sisters, Dortha L. (Dietz ’55) Heyen and Donnis L. (Dietz ’52) Duwe; her twin brother, Maurice D. Dietz; and another brother, Kenneth D. Dietz. Among survivors is her brother, Dalton Lee Dietz.

Susie Earline (Davidson ’48) Perry died Feb. 19, 2016, in Abilene at age 88. She was born Nov. 3, 1927, in Wichita Falls, Texas, and graduated from Rusk (Texas) High School.

She married Dr. Lowell G. Perry (’47) on June 10, 1947. She studied at The University of Texas at Austin and at ACU before finishing a bachelor’s degree in Perry English and business in 1948 from Indiana State University, where Lowell was working on a master’s degree in speech. Later, she taught at Draughon’s Business College in Abilene and was an instructor of business administration at ACU. She worked on a master’s degree in missions at Abilene Christian and taught from 1970-74 in its summer missions workshop. She was a successful real estate agent in Abilene for 22 years, retiring in 2000. During ACU’s May 2013 Commencement, Earline received ACU’s Dale and Rita Brown Outlive Your Life Award. She served many years on the Board of Directors for World Christian Broadcasting Corporation, helping advance her husband’s dream and her own desire of spreading the gospel throughout the world via shortwave radio. Lowell, who taught in ACU’s Department of Communication for more than two decades, died in a plane crash in 1977 near the island of Martinique while scouting a broadcast site in the Caribbean.

Earline’s love of missions, fostered by exploring Europe in 1950 and by living in Brazil with her husband from 1965-67, was a lifelong passion.

She was preceded in death by her parents, M.E. and Susie (Wright) Davidson; Lowell, her husband of 29 years; and a sister, EuAlice (Davidson ’57) McMillan. Among survivors are two sons, David Perry (’73) and Greg Perry (’83); a daughter, Susan Perry (’77); four grandchildren; and seven great-grandchildren.

(See story on page 80.)

and raised their family in Wisconsin, Texas and California. She was a high school English and drama teacher (1971-81); a newspaper reporter and photographer for the Sierra Home Advertiser in Oakhurst, Calif. (1981-83); and an award-winning copy and entertainment editor, theatre critic, and lifestyles and food writer for the Fresno (Calif.) Bee (1983-98). In retirement she was active in community theatre and pursued her lifelong interest in painting.

Her love for animals led her to help create a community dog park in Payson, Ariz. She was preceded in death by her parents, Vinson Lee and Frankie Leona Watson; two brothers, Stanley Taylor and Donald Taylor; and a sister, Marian Giles (’55). Among survivors are her son, Gregory J. Amerind; a daughter, Jeni Sue Wilburn; a brother, David Taylor (’68); three grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.

1955

Larry Jack Hill, 82, died March 26, 2016, in Abilene. He was born June 29, 1933, in Swenson, Texas, and graduated from Abilene High School. He earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees from ACU, and married Nancy Culpepper (’58) on Dec. 16, 1955.

The couple served on the Sao Paulo, Brazil, missions team from 1960-64, and Jack was a minister for congregations in four states. The Hills were co-founders of KGNZ-FM, the first Christian radio station for Abilene, San Angelo, Lubbock, Graham, Snyder, Brownwood and the Big Country. Jack was preceded in death by his parents, Lloyd and Mana Lee Hill; his wife, Nancy; and a daughter, Kathy (Hill ’84) Houston. Survivors include two sons, Larry Hill (’84) and Gary Hill; and 12 grandchildren.

Dr. William Wesley Grasham, 85, died March 19, 2016, in Abilene. He was born Aug. 2, 1930, in Phoenix, Ariz. He served in the U.S. Navy and afterward turned down several Major League Baseball contracts to attend college. He married Eleanor Marie Spainhower (’54) on May 4, 1952. Bill earned an M.A. in history and Bible from Pepperdine University (1968), an M.Div. from ACU (1975), a doctorate from California Graduate School of Theology (1970) and another doctorate from the University of Aberdeen in Scotland. He did post-doctoral work at Hebrew University in Jerusalem and taught for 15 years at the Center for Christian Education, along with Bible and theology classes at ACU and McMurry University. He authored a two-volume Truth for Today commentary on the book of Genesis.

He preached for more than 60 years in Texas, California, Arizona, Germany and Scotland, including an American military congregation in Kaiserslautern, Germany, from 1975-78. He was preceded in death by his parents, John and Olive Grasham; Eleanor, his wife of 63 years; and a granddaughter, Rachel Blasingame.

Among survivors are two sons, William Grasham (’76) and John Grasham (’78); two daughters, Julie (Grasham ’80) Blasingame and Terri (Grasham ’83) Peterson; a brother, John Grasham; a sister, Oliver Fletcher; 17 grandchildren; and 16 great-grandchildren.

1957

Ruth Nell (Kuykendall) Sorensen, 80, died Jan. 25, 2016, in Lubbock. She was born April 2, 1935, in Burnet and grew up in Midland, Texas.

She earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in education from ACU and an M.A. in museum science from Texas Tech University. Ruth taught at several Texas public schools in Lubbock, Abilene and Meadow, and worked as a docent for the Museum of Texas Tech. She is survived by her husband, George Sorensen; a son, Jon Sorensen; and a granddaughter.

1959

Gene Cecil Cutler, 77, died July 23, 2015, in Amarillo. He was born Nov. 26, 1937, in Detroit, Mich., and grew up in Carlsbad, N.M. He earned a master’s degree in chemical engineering from Texas Tech University.

He worked for Dow Chemical for many years.

He married Carol (Onwiler ’58) Cutler on Sept. 2, 1999, in Amarillo. She survives him, as do her daughters, Rebecca Smith and Karen (Pfleiderer ’78) Cooper; seven grandchildren; and six great-grandchildren.

1960

George William McAulay, 76, died Aug. 5, 2015, in Sun City, Texas. He worked for Arthur Andersen, First National Bank Dallas and other Texas companies in Dallas, Salado and Georgetown. He is survived by his wife, Becky McAulay; a son, Alan McAulay (’86); a daughter, Caitlin Yeldell; eight grandchildren; and two great-granddaughters.

1962

Mary Jim (Davis) Clark, 75, died Aug. 2, 2015, in Amarillo. She was born in San Angelo and graduated from Mertzon High School. She worked as an elementary school teacher and later as a counselor. Mary Jim married Walter Dale Clark in 1970. He preceded her in death.

She is survived by a son, Brad Clark (’94); a daughter, Amy Yarbrough; a brother, Elton Davis (’66); and five grandchildren.

1969

Cary Stovall Boone, 69, died Nov. 20, 2014. He was born Aug. 17, 1945, in Jackson, Tenn., grew up in University Park, Texas, and raised his family in Plano. He had a long career in finance, was an avid runner and cyclist, and was a longtime member of Waterview Church of Christ. Among survivors are his wife, Diana (Smith ’70) Boone; sons Justin Boone (’00) and Reagan Boone; a daughter, Kathryn (Boone ’05) Withycombe; a brother, former ACU trustee Michael Boone; a sister, Phyllis (Boone ’65) Marchman; and two grandchildren.

1972

Stephen Henry Prescott, 64, died Aug. 2, 2014. He was born Nov. 25, 1949, in Stillwater, Okla., and grew up in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. After graduating from ACU, he worked as a teacher and coach in Fort Worth, Lubbock and other Dallas-area schools. He married Patricia Kay Scott (’74) on July 28, 1973. Steve was an avid and accomplished woodcarver.

He is survived by his wife, Pat; two daughters,

Meridith Hayes and Erin (Prescott ’02) Berg; his parents; and four grandchildren.

1978

Thomas Shillington “Tom” Fleming, 58, died Nov. 15, 2015, in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. He was born March 7, 1957, and grew up in Beamsville, Ontario. He worked for many years in the poultry industry and served for 20 years as a volunteer firefighter. Tom is survived by his wife, Jo-Anne Fleming; a son, Andrew Fleming; a daughter, Rachel Buckborough; a sister, Peggy (Fleming ’75) Stirman; three brothers, Arthur “A.D.” Fleming (’78), John Fleming and Andy Fleming (’79); and three grandchildren.

1980

John “Buster” McDuff, 57, died Nov. 29, 2015, in Lubbock, of complications from cancer.

He was born Aug. 9, 1958, in Fort Worth and married Sherry Blunt (’79) on June 2, 1979.

She survives him, as do three daughters, Sarah McDuff, Caitlin (McDuff ’09) de Boer and Lauren McDuff (’12); two sons, Jeffrey (’08) and Clinton McDuff (’14); a brother, Richard McDuff (’83); and a sister, Evelyn (McDuff ’86) Hartz.

1982

Henry Harold “Butch” Hendrix Jr., M.D., 56, died Feb. 26, 2016, in Abilene. He was born Dec. 15, 1959, in Topeka, Kan. After graduating from ACU, he earned a medical degree from the University of Kansas School of Medicine and completed his residency in orthopedic surgery at the Texas Tech School of Medicine. He worked as an orthopedic surgeon, first in Irving and then in Abilene, for 25 years. He is survived by his wife, Becky (Garrett ’81) Hendrix; two sons, Blake Hendrix (’10) and Jason Hendrix (’14); two daughters, Hannah (Hendrix ’11) Cherry and Sarah Hendrix (’15); his parents; and two sisters.

Patty Julia Welsh Cox, 73, died Jan. 28, 2016, in Abilene. She was born Aug. 30, 1942, in Houston and earned a bachelor’s degree from Iowa State University and a master’s degree in education from ACU in 1982. She taught elementary school in the Abilene ISD for many years until her retirement in 2008. Patty is survived by her husband, Dr. Richard Cox; a son, Kendall Cox (’88); a daughter, Sadie (Cox ’09) Weaver; and four grandchildren.

OTHER FRIENDS

Elizabeth Agatha “Bettie” (McKnight) Hart, 88, died Feb. 24, 2016, in Abilene. She was born Oct. 13, 1927, in Fort Worth and earned her bachelor’s degree from Arkansas State Teachers College and her master’s degree from Baylor University. She taught physical education at ACU from 1955-58 and later taught and worked as a secretary at Abilene Christian Schools. She married Dr. Dwain Hart on May 28, 1954; he preceded her in death in 2012. Bettie is survived by two daughters, Kem (Hart ’80) Hatch and Kerri Hart (’86); a son, Kent Hart (’82); and seven grandchildren, five of whom have attended ACU. ACU TODAY

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Summer-Fall 2016

79

SecondGLANCE

BY RON HADFIELD

Short wave radio still makes the Gospel world go round It’s easier, a wise person once observed, to see God’s hand at work behind than in front of us. Time and again, the evangelistic endeavors of World Christian Broadcasting (WCB) form a proof case for that truth.

Across its 32-year life span is a great cloud of witnesses with Abilene Christian University ties and roots.

ACU journalism professor Dr. Charles Marler (’55) dismissed his classes early the first day back from Spring Break in 1977, walking away to grieve in his office.

News of the tragic death of his colleague, Dr. Lowell Perry (’47), was two days old but still fresh on his heart.

Perry died March 25 with two other men when their plane broke apart over the volcanic Caribbean island of Martinique while scouting potential locations for a WCB short wave radio transmitter.

Twenty years earlier, veteran evangelist-missionary Maurice Hall (’49) – building off his U.S. military experience with short wave radio (SWR) in World War II to help Franklin D. Roosevelt communicate with the White House during a 1945 meeting with Joseph Stalin and Winston Churchill in Yalta – was perhaps the first in Churches of Christ to recognize the potential of its technology.

Hall was joined in the 1950s by Perry, who became an expert in using SWR as a tool for mass media communication, especially sharing the Gospel.

Perry helped found WCB, and ACU journalism professor Dr. B.E. Davis was its first president.

WCB opened a radio station in Anchor Point, Alaska, in 1983, and began sending Christian programming via SWR to Russia, China and the Pacific Rim. In 2002, Perry’s oldest son, David (’73), traveled with WCB officials to look for additional sites in the Indian Ocean that would open new doors for broadcasts into other parts of the world.

They returned disappointed, but a conversation with ACU administrator Dr. Robert D. “Bob” Hunter (’52) steered them to 1960 U.S. Olympic gold medalist Earl Young (’62) of Dallas, who had business dealings in Madagascar, an island nation off the coast of Africa.

Young arranged for a meeting in Washington, D.C., in May 2003 with Malagasy president Marc Ravalomanana, a new head of state but also a devout Christian who owned TV and radio stations in his homeland and knew the power of mass media to reach people in far-flung places.

“Come build your station,” Ravalomanana responded 80

Summer-Fall 2016

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ACU TODAY

to a WCB proposal, opening the door to using government land in the mountainous northwestern end of the island.

Young organized a world trade mission to Madagascar in November 2003, which was attended by WCB president Charles Caudill, executive producer Dale Ward (’70) and vice president for engineering Kevin Chambers, along with then-ACU vice president for advancement Dr. John Tyson (’81), who was vice chair of WCB’s board at the time.

Ravalomanana’s growing relationship with Tyson and appreciation for ACU helped start the Madagascar Presidential Scholars Program, through which 24 Malagasy students earned degrees from Abilene Christian in 2008, their educations financed by the World Bank.

Work on the station near Mahajanga endured more than a decade of government red tape and the inherent challenge of building a first-world facility in a developing country with a multitude of economic and political issues, chief among them Dr. Lowell Perry a military coup and related turmoil that removed Ravalomanana from office in 2009.

Fittingly, Madagascar World Voice began broadcasts on Easter, March 29, 2016, and responses arrived from people across six continents. Lowell’s widow, Earline (Davidson ’48), died Feb. 19, just weeks before her family’s vision for WCB could be realized. Her daughter, Susan (’77), and Tyson were among 300 who assembled in Madagascar for the station’s dedication in June. Their specific joy: Combined with WCB programming broadcast from Alaska, all of the world can now hear the Gospel.

One constant among this remarkable timeline: the efficiency of SWR signals bouncing easily off the ionosphere and across geographic features.

In 1941, Chinese Communist leader Mao Tse-tung thought enough of SWR’s potential to distribute radios, demand 70 million speakers be installed across his nation, and that his people listen – all 400 million of them at the time. Seventy-five years later, billions more do. They still hear propaganda and news from around the earth.

But among the messages is the Good News of Jesus Christ, spoken in a language most can understand.

“If God used a dictator to get radios in people’s homes so we might one day use them to tell others about Jesus,” Susan Perry asked, “is there anything He can’t do?”

WCB’s listeners and other witnesses would love to answer that question for you. 

Philanthropy MADE EASY, MEANINGFUL

J

oe and Marilyn (Colby ’63) Willems believe in Abilene Christian University.

Their faith in our students and faculty inspired them to give to an endowed scholarship named for Marilyn’s late father, T.W. Colby, a long-serving ACU agriculture professor.

The couple wanted the scholarship to continue to grow and to help more students, so they began to donate through their Individual Retirement Accounts (IRA) with a charitable rollover.

Thanks to a new tax law, if you are age 70 1/2 or older, you can make a charitable gift from your IRA account to support your favorite nonprofits, such as ACU.

A charitable gift through an IRA is quick, simple and can potentially help lower your taxes. Gifts made from an IRA, up to $100,000, are not reported as taxable income, and these donations also qualify as a required minimum distribution.

Contact The ACU Foundation today to learn more about how an IRA charitable rollover can work for you – and advance ACU.

Hunter Welcome Center ACU Box 29200 Abilene, Texas 79699-9200

800-979-1906 • 325-674-2508 • theacufoundation.org • garrettd@acu.edu

Nonprofit Org. U.S. Postage PAID Abilene Christian University

Abilene Christian University ACU Box 29132 Abilene, Texas 79699-9132 ADDRESS SERVICE REQUESTED

C OMING UP Movies on the Hill: Jungle Book ................................................................ August 4 Wildcat Week (previously Welcome Week) ........................................ August 16-20 Opening Assembly ................................................................................. August 22 Football Season Opener: ACU vs. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colo. ................ September 3 Wildcat Preview Day for Future Students .......................................... September 9 Family Weekend and Freshman Follies ......................................... September 9-11 National ACT Test Dates ........................ September 10, October 22, December 10 Football Pregame Party: ACU vs. Houston Baptist in Houston ......... September 17 Admitted Student Visit Day ....................... October 10, November 11, December 2 110th Annual Summit .................................................................... September 18-21

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National SAT Test Dates ................................October 1, November 5, December 3 Homecoming 2016 .......................................................................... October 20-23 JMC Gutenberg Celebration ................................................................. October 20 Sports Hall of Fame Dinner and Lettermen’s Reunion .......................... October 21 Wildcat Weekend ...................................................................... January 13-14, 2017 Wildcat Preview Day for Future Students ...................... February 17, 18, March 27 Sing Song ......................................................................................... February 17-18 President’s Circle Dinner ...................................................................... February 18 Presidential Scholar Weekend ....................................................... February 19-20 High School Scholars Day ........................................................................... April 21 May Commencement ................................................................................... May 13

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Big Man on Campus Rare, newly discovered full-color images from Homecoming 1955 show what 52-foot-tall Big Tex looked like in living color on the front lawn of ACU’s Hardin Administration Building. The iconic fellow was rebuilt in 2012 after a fire, and is no longer allowed to leave the State Fair of Texas in Dallas. Wildcats everywhere, however, are invited back to campus Oct. 20-23 for 2016 Homecoming festivities. See pages 40-41 for details.