The Magazine of Rhodes College - Fall 2023 / Winter 2024

FALL 2023 / WINTER 2024

Celebrating Rhodes

175th Anniversary

The Rhodes Institute for Health Equity

Creating a Culture of Equity in Memphis and Beyond

Rhodes Inaugurates

Jennifer M. Collins as its 21st President

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rhodes.edu

NATIONALLY RANKED LOCALLY INVESTED Rhodes College is consistently recognized as an exceptional place to learn, work, and live, making our rankings no surprise.

U.S. News & World Report

Forbes

The Wall Street Journal

The Princeton Review

2024 Best Colleges

America’s Best Colleges 2024

America’s Top Colleges for 2022

2023 Best Value College 2024 The Best 389 Colleges

Money’s Best Colleges in America 2023

Quality, affordability, and student outcomes

DegreeChoices

#13 among liberal arts colleges for economic return

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Best Degree Programs

#10 nationally and #1 in Tennessee among Most Beautiful Best Small Colleges

Architectural Digest

Among the Prettiest College Campuses in America

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Southern Living Among the Most Beautiful College Campuses in the South

Billboard Magazine 2023 Top Music Business School

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Cover Photo: Justin Fox Burks

FALL 2023 / WINTER 2024

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Celebrating a Legacy of 175 Years

Jennifer M. Collins President

Jenna Goodloe Wade Vice President for Development

Tracy Vezina Patterson ’84, P’22 Director of Alumni Relations

Martha Shepard ’66 Editor Emeritus

Linda Bonnin

Vice President for Marketing and Communications

Jana Files ’78 Assistant Director of Digital Communications

Charles Kenny

Assistant Director for Marketing and Communications

Larry Ahokas Graphic Designer

CONTRIBUTORS

INFORMATION

Samuel X. Cicci ’15 Matthew Harris ’20 Timothy S. Huebner Troy Wiggins

901-843-3000

PHOTOGRAPHERS

1-800-264-LYNX

Justin Fox Burks Matthew Harris ’20 Corey Nolen

ADMISSION OFFICE

1-800-844-LYNX ALUMNI OFFICE

Please send address changes to alumni@rhodes.edu

© 2023. All rights reserved.

Reproduction in whole or in part of any of the materials contained herein is forbidden without expressed written consent of Rhodes College.

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FEATURES

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Under the Oaks

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Faculty Focus: Joel Parsons ’07

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Homecoming/Reunion Weekend

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Celebrating Excellence

Family Weekend

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Embracing Healthcare Futures

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Inauguration Celebration

Alumni Spotlight: Julie Gehrki ’02

Class Notes

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A LE T T E R F R O M P R E S I D E N T J E N N I F E R C O L L I N S Welcome to the Fall 2023 edition of our magazine! Rhodes has had a wonderful semester celebrating the college’s 175th anniversary.

The celebrations have focused on what makes Rhodes so very special—our outstanding and dedicated faculty and staff, our talented and curious students, and the extraordinary research and creative activity that infuses the halls of our beautiful campus. I hope you will enjoy reading about all the ways we have commemorated this milestone and some very special highlights, such as the stunning Young, Gifted and Black art exhibition Professor Joel Parsons ’07 worked tirelessly to bring to our Clough-Hanson Gallery.

Of course, our alumni also make our community a remarkable and welcoming place, and we are delighted to highlight in this issue Class of 2002 alumna Julie Gehrki, whose community work while a student at Rhodes inspired the career she has today at the Walmart Foundation. I want to extend a personal thank you to all of you who took the time to attend the inauguration—you made the day so special for my family and me, and I can never thank you enough for all the ways you support the college.

You will also have the chance to read about some lovely recognition that Rhodes and members of our community have received this fall. We are all absolutely thrilled for Class of 2022 alumna Mariam Khayata, who has been selected one of this year’s Rhodes Scholars. Only 32 students were selected from across the country, and only three from liberal arts colleges, for this very prestigious scholarship program. Mariam is our eighth Rhodes Scholar, and the first woman from Rhodes to receive this honor.

Mike Curb Institute for Music. More locally, our talented theater students won 11 of the 18 Ostrander Awards given out this fall to celebrate the best of community theater in Memphis. I hope you will take the time to attend a concert or theatrical production this spring; I promise that you will be amazed by the talent of our students.

We are also very excited to be bringing a focus on entrepreneurship back to the Rhodes community, and are so grateful that alumnus Eric Mathews ’02 has joined us as our entrepreneur-in-residence.

Providing classes, clubs, and competitions in entrepreneurship is a way to open up career possibilities for our students, while also serving our beloved city of Memphis and community members who want to launch a small business.

We are eager to hear from our alumni who work in this space about their ideas and suggestions for the program, so please reach out to have a conversation with us.

We are now beginning to turn our attention to the 100th anniversary of the college’s move to Memphis in 1925—we promise there will be even more celebrations to come. Thank you for being part of the Rhodes community!

Jennifer Collins

We are delighted to once again be selected as one of Billboard magazine’s Top Music Business Schools, thanks to the terrific work of the

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Under the Oaks

Billboard Magazine Again Names Rhodes a Top Music Business School Rhodes’ Mike Curb Institute for Music has again been named to Billboard’s annual list of the Top Music Business Schools. Programs, featured alphabetically rather than by rank, were chosen based on factors including industry recommendations, alumni success post-graduation, innovative music industry curriculum, and noteworthy events/speakers and community partnerships.

In the Curb Institute students learn the inner workings of the music business, from sound editing and video production to marketing and community engagement.

Curb Institute fellows also are involved in producing the on-campus music festival Respect Fest; Dredge, a digital magazine which spotlights the Memphis music scene; and the Beyond Beale podcast, which has received honorable mentions in the NPR Student Podcast Challenge. In addition, they record and produce original music through the college’s Arboretum record label and at Memphis’ historic studios, including Royal Studios, where Al Green, Ann Peebles, John Mayer, and Bruno Mars recorded hits.

“We are honored to be recognized by Billboard as a 2023 Top Music Business School and to be included among so many other great programs,” says Dr. John Bass, associate professor of music and director of the Curb Institute. “It is a validation of the model we have created that combines real-world industry education with Rhodes’ strong liberal arts foundation, and it is a testament to the great work our students, faculty, and alumni are doing in Memphis and beyond.”

Rhodes Scores High on Campus Pride Index Rhodes scored 4.5 out of five stars on the Campus Pride Index, which rates colleges and universities nationally based on institutional commitment to LGBTQ-inclusive policies, programs, and practices.

The Campus Pride Index takes into consideration non-discrimination statements inclusive of sexual orientation and gender identity/expression, gender affirming health care, LGBTQ+ peer mentorship programs, campus safety trainings on sexual orientation and gender identity, LGBTQ-specific major and course offerings, and the presence of LGBTQ and ally student and faculty organizations.

Rhodes is committed to a diverse faculty, staff, and student body and an inclusive campus community. Since 2010, the college’s LGBTQ+ Working Group has fostered a community which promotes belonging, empowerment, and growth for people of all genders and sexualities through advocacy and community building.

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Distinguished Alumni Awards Presented During Homecoming/Reunion Weekend December 1992. Formerly, he was executive vice president of the Bear Stearns Companies; a partner at a U.S. government securities firm, J.F. Eckstein & Co.; and a senior investment officer at the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (World Bank).

The Black Student Association’s Distinguished Alumni Award recognizes African American alumni whose record of outstanding personal achievement and service to others has inspired Rhodes students and brought honor to their alma mater.

Dr. Wilfreda Lindsey ’11 serves as a pediatric neurologist and neurodevelopmental specialist at Kennedy Krieger Institute, which is a nonprofit affiliate of Johns Hopkins Medicine in Baltimore, MD. She also serves as the clinic director for the recently founded Angelman Syndrome clinic, which specializes in neurology and neurodevelopment medicine, genetics, speech language pathology, physical/occupational therapy, and social work.

Rhodes College’s 2023 Alumni Awards were presented during the college’s Homecoming/Reunion Weekend Sept. 29-30. William J. Michaelcheck ’69 received the Distinguished Alumni Award and Dr. Wilfreda Lindsey ’11 was the recipient of this year’s Black Student Association’s Distinguished Alumni Award.

The Distinguished Alumni Award recognizes alumni who have brought honor to Rhodes College through extraordinary achievement in their profession and community.

William J. Michaelcheck ’69, founder and co-CIO of Mariner Investment Group, LLC in New York City, has been a member of Rhodes’ Board of Trustees since 1989 and was the first Rhodes alumnus to serve as chair, from 2009 to 2017. In the position, Michaelcheck was a founding member of the Rhodes Common Table, ensuring improved communication among trustees, students, faculty, and staff.

He served as co-chair of the Search Committee for the 20th President of Rhodes, and in 2017, the college awarded him an honorary Doctor of Humanities degree.

Michaelcheck graduated with a bachelor’s degree in economics from Rhodes and received an MBA from Harvard Business School. He founded Mariner Investment Group, LLC in

Lindsey graduated from Rhodes with a bachelor’s degree in biology and went on to earn a master’s degree from Mississippi College and an MD from the University of Mississippi Medical Center. At Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, TX, she was a neurodevelopmental disabilities resident and chief resident.

Mock Trial Travels

Traveling to competitions is a large part of the Mock Trial experience. In November, Rhodes B Mock Trial Team traveled to Chicago to compete in Northwestern University’s “Mock at the Rock” Invitational, where they took first place against much larger schools such as the University of Michigan, Ohio State University, and the University of Wisconsin. Rhodes A and Rhodes Red traveled to Missouri State University’s invitational tournament, where Rhodes A took home the championship and Rhodes Red finished second, just behind their older fellow Lynx teammates!

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Under the Oaks

Bravo! Rhodes Theatre Guild Wins Eight Ostrander Awards The Rhodes Theatre Guild (RTG) won eight awards in the Division II category for the 2022-2023 season at the Ostrander Awards held Aug. 27 at the Halloran Centre in downtown Memphis. This annual event celebrates excellence in collegiate, community, and professional theater in the greater Memphis area.

Maggie Emmendorfer ’24 won leading actress for RTG’s production of Once Upon a Mattress.

A round of applause also goes out to the Wire in the Garden ensemble for seven of the eight wins: • Props Design - Emily Matusik ’25 • Lighting Design - Melissa Andrews (staff) • Sound Design - Kaitlin Starnes ’25 • Supporting Actress - Epiphany Aiken ’23 • Leading Actress - Kathryn Dressel ’25 • Best Ensemble - Wire in the Garden

The cast of Wire in the Garden

• Direction - Julia Hinson “Rhodes Theatre Guild is incredibly honored and proud to have received so many awards for all the hard work our students did this past year.

We look forward to another great season full of amazing shows and talent,” said RTG President Kathryn Dressel ’25.

RTG was established in 2016 as a space for students to spearhead their own projects with the support of the college’s resources and facilities. It is open to anyone wanting to hone their skills in acting, singing, dancing, improv, or technical work.

Aaron Fitzgerald ’10 Recognized Nationally Among Climate Leaders and Innovators Rhodes College alumnus Aaron Fitzgerald ’10 has been named to the Grist 50 list, which features leaders and innovators from across the country who are working on solutions to the planet’s most pressing challenges.

In partnership with the Clinton Global Initiative, nonprofit media organization Grist publishes the annual list. The 2023 honorees were recognized at a ceremony in New York City.

Fitzgerald is co-founder and CEO of Mars Materials, which uses market-driven approaches to commercialize technologies capable of removing and sequestering greenhouse gases. He says that finding uses for captured CO2 creates a market that promotes carbon dioxide removal from the atmosphere.

Fitzgerald became interested in sustainability and stewardship while at Rhodes, and during spring and fall breaks, traveled to New Orleans with a group of students to help with rebuilding efforts after Hurricane Katrina. He also served as president of the Rhodes Student Government and as a student trustee.

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Rhodes Creates New Programming for First-Generation College Students Research has shown that first-generation college students (first-gen students) can experience an array of challenges, from financial setbacks to anxiety about social inclusion to doubting one’s abilities. To provide a network of support and celebrate their successes, the Student Life First-Generation Programming Committee at Rhodes has been working to create more intentional programming for its first-gen students. The group is led by Melissa Campbell, dean of student success, and Jazmine Rodriguez, dean of belonging.

The goal of the First-Generation Programming Committee is to foster a sense of belonging on campus, and programming has included: • Family webinars held in the summer on financial aid and navigating Rhodes as a new student • A meet-up luncheon on Move-In Day held in the fall to give first-gen students and their families a chance to meet each other, faculty, and staff • Creation of a First-Year Experience Seminar section cohort of first-year, first-gen students to build a sense of community among themselves • Social luncheons with themed activities and prizes held on the first Friday of each month

“As we work toward the goal of creating meaningful mentorship opportunities, it’s important for us to remember that we all The college defines a first-generation college student as one whose learn through experience, listening, and asking questions,” says parent(s) or legal guardian(s) did not complete a four-year college Rodriguez. “Good mentors can help guide students using critical or university degree, regardless of another family member’s level thinking while pointing them to resources available on campus. of education. Rhodes has more than 200 first-gen students. The More than likely, another student has a similar concern or issue, First-Generation Programming Committee collected data from and so mentors coming together and sharing their experiences students at the beginning of the fall semester. enhances first-gen programming for the future.”

“Through that survey, we learned that there is a desire to build “Rhodes faculty and staff are here to help all students when community with other first-gen students and to participate in facing challenges, and we love sharing in their excitement and mentorship opportunities with faculty and staff,” says Campbell. pride as they achieve academic goals and move on to life after “We’ve also collected data from faculty and staff eager to get more Rhodes,” adds Campbell. “We also love hearing from alumni on involved in mentorship opportunities, and we are strategizing how how their liberal arts education has helped prepare them for life we can utilize our campus community to broaden our impact. As after college.” a first-gen graduate myself, it’s a great feeling to be part of the journey and help other first-gen students write their college story.”

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Under the Oaks

Rhodes Welcomes 2023 New Faculty Chathurika Abeykoon Mathematics

James Engman Biology

Patrick Harris Search

Amanda Hasselle Psychology

Beck Henriksen Religious Studies

Eric Horne Business

Sean Kugele Computer Science

Carlos Lafourcade Neuroscience

Zoe Laulederkind ’18 Economics

Kailey Lawson Psychology

Kathryn LeCroy Biology

Laura Leisinger Anthropology & Sociology

Ricardo Martins Modern Languages & Literatures

Alix Matthews ’14 Biology

J. David Maxson Media Studies

Nina Morais Modern Languages & Literatures

Nate Phillips Computer Science

Ramesh Sapkota Chemistry

Kate Shields Environmental Studies and Sciences

Be Stone Politics and Law

Jacob Sunshine Music

Sean Wu Physics

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Mentoring Program Connects Students and Alumni In celebration of National Mentoring Month in January, the Offices of Alumni Relations and Career Services host the annual Rhodes College Winter Mentoring Program to connect students to the alumni and parent network.

The Winter Mentoring Program supplements a student’s academic career with real world exposure. The interactions with alumni and parents are intended to be professional in nature and offer an opportunity for professional development, networking, and an exchange of ideas between experienced professionals and the next generation of leaders. More than 300 alumni and current parents have volunteered to serve as mentors!

Although it is not expected that participating in Winter Mentoring will result in a job or internship offer, it does happen. Elise Keller ’24 participated in the program during her

sophomore year. “I was interested in data work with nonprofits, especially around transportation or accessibility,” she says. “I was matched with Andy Nix ’91, executive director at My City Rides.” After several conversations, Nix offered her an internship at the Memphis nonprofit focused on supporting workforce development by making reliable transportation affordable. Keller graduates in May, and Nix is helping her network to find the next step in her journey.

Winter Mentoring benefits students wherever they are in their career journey, introduces them to the benefit of building and nurturing their professional network, and results in better career outcomes for students. Ideally, having a positive experience in the program will also encourage students to give back to future generations of Lynx by serving as mentors.

Rhodes College Faculty Video Series Our world-class professors are often the best ambassadors for sharing the value of a liberal arts and sciences education. Now, Rhodes has launched a video series for prospective students where faculty, in their own words, share what makes them passionate about their fields of study and where those studies can lead in life.

“Literature gives you a place to contemplate the most pressing issues in our world . . . ” Dr. Marshall Boswell — English

“Our faculty will work with you to personalize your music education.”

Dr. Carole Blankenship — Music

“You’ll work closely with your professors on their research teams and in seminar courses to gain valuable hands-on experience . . . ” Dr. Kiren Khan — Psychology

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Under the Oaks

Webb Assumes Role of Associate Vice President for Campus Safety at Rhodes College L. Angela Webb is the new associate vice president for campus safety at Rhodes College. In this position, Webb serves as the chief security director and emergency management leader for Rhodes, interfaces with senior leadership, campus partners, students, faculty, staff, parents, and local neighborhood leaders and law enforcement to strengthen safety and security and to build fully inclusive and transparent relationships with all stakeholders. Her responsibilities also include developing, implementing, and evaluating safety, emergency, and risk management policies, protocols, programs, and services to address challenges facing the safety of the campus community.

Webb previously served as the executive director of police services and risk management at Southwest Tennessee Community College (STCC). Prior to her tenure at STCC, she served as an officer in the Memphis Police Department for 29 years, retiring from MPD in 2015 at the rank of major.

Webb has received numerous honors and distinctions in her career, including a Resolution for Outstanding Leadership and Achievement from the Tennessee State Senate in 2021. She is the president-elect for the International Association of Campus Law Enforcement Administrators, the largest professional association devoted to excellence in campus public safety and law enforcement.

A native of Los Angeles, Webb holds a bachelor’s degree in applied psychology from Christian Brothers University and a master’s degree in operations management from the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville. She is also a graduate of the Leadership Memphis program and is president of the Memphis alumnae chapter of Delta Sigma Theta sorority.

Haynes Receives Jameson M. Jones Award for Outstanding Faculty Service Dr. Stephen Haynes, professor of religious studies, was presented the 2023 Jameson M. Jones Award for Outstanding Faculty Service on Aug. 18 at the college’s Opening Convocation. A member of the faculty since 1989, Haynes has taught a range of courses on religion and racism, the Holocaust, the Bible, and religion and literature, and he has served on many standing and ad hoc committees.

“Most recently, he served as the presiding officer of the faculty, and especially during the pandemic, he guided our faculty meetings with incredible grace,” said Dr. Katherine Bassard, provost and vice president for academic affairs, who made the presentation. “He also played an instrumental role on the Palmer Hall Discernment Committee and the renaming of what we now call Southwestern Hall. And his most significant contribution to our educational mission has been the creation of the Rhodes College Liberal Arts in Prison Program.”

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CELEBRATING EXCELLENCE

RHODES SCHOLAR CONGRATULATIONS TO RHODES GRADUATE MARIAM KHAYATA

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ariam Khayata, who graduated from Rhodes College in 2022 with a Bachelor of Arts in International Studies and Political Science, is one of 32 individuals chosen from the United States as a Rhodes Scholar.

The announcement was made

by Ramona L. Doyle, American Secretary of the Rhodes Trust, on Saturday, Nov. 11. Khayata will pursue a Master of Philosophy in Modern Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Oxford in England beginning October 2024. She is the eighth Rhodes Scholar from Rhodes College.

Rhodes Scholarships were created in 1902 by the will of Cecil Rhodes and are provided in partnership with the Second Century Founders, John McCall MacBain O.C. and The Atlantic Philanthropies, and many other generous benefactors. The scholarships are the oldest of the international study awards available to American students and provide two or three years of study at Oxford. Applicants must be endorsed by their college or university.

Selection is based on academic excellence; great ambition for social impact and an uncommon ability to work with others to achieve one’s goals; commitment to make a strong difference for good in the world; concern for the welfare of others; and great promise of leadership.

The 32 Rhodes Scholars (from a pool of 862 applicants) selected from the United States will join an international group of Scholars chosen from more than 70 countries from around the world.

“Mariam was a shining star on campus and in our community, and this honor is richly deserved,” says Rhodes College President Jennifer M. Collins.

Khayata currently works as an education coordinator at American Lebanese Syrian Associated Charities (ALSAC), the fundraising and awareness organization for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

She also is the executive director of Memphis-based Muslim

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nonprofit 901 Ummah that works to bring young Muslims closer to their faith. During her time at Rhodes College, she served as chair of the Rhodes Student Government’s diversity and inclusion committee and successfully advocated for the creation of interfaith prayer spaces on campus. In addition, she was a Clarence Day Scholar and worked in the development office as a digital content associate. Khayata was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa and the Rhodes College Hall of Fame.

“When Mariam graduated in spring 2022, she was beloved by students and faculty alike. Mariam has a wonderfully agile mind and joyful sense of wit. She is uncommonly centered and well grounded. Her balance, steady character, and clarity of thought is what doubtless makes her such a phenomenal and much-admired leader. An amazing presence, Mariam will be extraordinary as a Rhodes Scholar,” says Dr. Jason Richards, co-director of postgraduate scholarships.

“My four years at Rhodes College had a profound impact on me,” says Khayata. “My international and Middle East studies classes inspired me, challenged me, and equipped me with hope that it is possible to make meaningful change for our world. Rhodes Student Government taught me the meaning of service and how to turn big ideas into school-wide policies. Special thanks to the Muslim Student Association, VOICES, the Clarence Day Scholars, and Chaplain Beatrix who made Rhodes College feel like home. This opportunity would not have been possible without the generous advice and support of my mentors and recommenders Dr. Esen Kirdis and Dr. Jason Richards along with my professors and Rhodes letter-writers Dr. Amy Risley, Dr. Etty Terem, Dr. Erin Dolgoy, and Chaplain Beatrix. I owe thanks to every individual at Rhodes College from my friends and classmates to alumni and the administration. I pray this opens the door for a world of Rhodes College students to become Rhodes Scholars.”

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FALL SPORTS ROUNDUP

MEN’S SOCCER finished second in the conference standings with a record of 12-2-3. Eli Pilcher ’25 was named SAA Defensive player of the year.

WOMEN’S SOCCER finished at 11-5-2 on the season and finished third in the conference standings.

FOOTBALL The Lynx finished the season 6-4 and took home the Orgill Cup again.

VOLLEYBALL Rhodes Volleyball finished the season 11-18. Yzzi Dsamou ’27 was named to the SAA all-conference team.

FIELD HOCKEY The Lynx finished their season with an overall record of 14-4, 6-2 in conference play, and as the 2023 Southern Athletic Association (SAA) Field Hockey Champions!

Offensive Player of the Year Sophie Croci ’24 led the SAA in nearly every offensive category, scoring 48 points on the season on 21 goals, including five game winners, and six assists.

CROSS COUNTRY The Rhodes College Men’s and Women’s Cross Country team competed in the DIII NCAA South Region Cross Country Championship. The men finished 6th overall and the women finished 11th.

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The 2023 Athletic Hall of Fame inductees were Grand Marshals of the Student Homecoming Parade. This year’s inductees were the 2007 Baseball Team; Sharwil Bell ’12, women’s basketball; William Barry Boggs ’67, track & field; Sara Bowen ’11, softball; Molly Buck ’11, track & field; James Bradford Chase ’88, football; Jimmie Glorioso ’97, football, track & field, and baseball; Mason Mosby ’09, football & baseball.

The Mallory Gym court was officially named for long-time coach Herb Hilgeman during Homecoming this year.

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Class of 2027

ailing from 41 states and 16 countries, members of the Class of 2027 have standout academic credentials, with 48 percent ranking in the top 10 percent of their high school class. Sixteen served as student government presidents, 106 as club presidents, 119 as sports team captains, and 11 as music leaders, such as drum majors.

“This is the most diverse class in Rhodes history,” said President Jennifer Collins at Opening Convocation.

“But here are some more facts about your fellow classmates. Many of you have founded nonprofits,

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First-Year Students

including organizations that help people in Kenya, Sri Lanka, and right here in Memphis. We have a jewelry maker, a baker, at least two circus performers, and amazing artists and writers. We have a world youth chess champion and a player on the U.S. Virgin Islands national soccer team.”

For more photos scan the QR code below

Among the top subjects of interest for the entering class are business, biology, politics and law, neuroscience, psychology, biochemistry and molecular biology, computer science, international studies, and English.

Welcome to the Class of 2027!

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%

Students of Color

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3.50 Grade Point Average or Greater

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WORKING HARD TO REACH A NEW GENERATION OF STUDENTS TELLING THE RHODES STORY Storytelling is essential to any college’s continued success. “We must tell the Rhodes story more boldly and broadly than ever before,” says Linda Bonnin, vice president for marketing and communications. “We are right up there competing with the best colleges across the nation, and we are all recruiting the same students, those who have achieved not only great success in high school but also have the potential to be impactful in their fields when they graduate from college. If we don’t tell these students why they should choose Rhodes, we may lose them to someone else, and we can’t let that happen.”

Building a brand story is nothing new to Bonnin. She has spent the last 26 years at five colleges and universities doing just that. The most recognized brand she built was in 2016 at the University of Alabama. Now in its eighth year, Where Legends Are Made was named the number one branding campaign in higher education internationally in 2019.

“A great brand story should lift all pillars of the college, increasing enrollment, alumni engagement, and fundraising.

It will help drive your success. Telling your story is that important,” adds Bonnin.

A native Memphian, she began her career in higher education at the University of Memphis in 1997, leaving as vice president in 2014 to take the same role at Louisiana State University (LSU). A year into that job, serendipity happened when the LSU provost was named president at Alabama, and she joined his senior team.

“He gave me one charge – to integrate communications across the campus because it was so fragmented. With 7,000 staff and almost 40,000 students, it was a massive endeavor.” Bonnin chose to build a brand story to do just that.

Coming to Rhodes in 2022 with President Jennifer Collins, she saw an opportunity to build something special for the renowned liberal arts college tucked inside her hometown.

“I grew up in Memphis knowing about Rhodes,” she says. “I saw an opportunity to work at this amazing place I had admired from afar for so long and to try to increase its national visibility so even more talented students would choose Rhodes – and choose Memphis – for their home. That’s what excited me.”

It began with focus groups of students, faculty, staff, alumni, and trustees to learn how they viewed Rhodes and the words they used to talk about it. When all that data was collected and analyzed, one thing became clear: everyone was on the same page.

“That was a sweet surprise. Out of 32 words, we learned that everyone uses the same three or four words to describe Rhodes – transformational, beautiful, inspiring, and supportive. It didn’t matter if you were an 18-year-old student or a 60-year-old alumnus, we all saw Rhodes through the same lens. That was remarkable.” Bonnin then settled on a five-word positioning line that would turn into a storytelling campaign. A Place Like No Other was unveiled this fall with the creative help of Charlie Kenny, Rhodes’ assistant director of marketing and communications.

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Today that mantra is being used on pole banners, on the web site, in digital and print ads, in videos, in communications with prospective students and families, and as part of the vernacular for Rhodes College.

“We know Rhodes is a very special place. It is certainly beautiful and inspirational on the outside, but the true beauty of the college takes place inside our walls. Rhodes is a place that transforms the lives of so many with our supportive, inspiring environment inside the classroom, in our labs, and in this incredible city that is also like no other. Memphis is a soulful, unique place, and that’s the essence of our story here at Rhodes, too,” says President Jennifer Collins. “You can come to Rhodes, be your authentic self, discover all the things you are most passionate about, and do it within a community that supports and embraces you.

What parent doesn’t want that for their student?”

As they look to the future, Collins and Bonnin agree that raising the national profile of Rhodes is one of their top priorities.

“Our national rankings are strong, and have been for a number of years,” says Collins.

“Our faculty are incredibly gifted and invested in the success of our students. Our alumni are supportive and engaged with us on so many levels. There is nothing holding us back. All the pieces are in place.”

FOCUSING ON

DIGITAL STRATEGY As Rhodes works to continue recruiting the most talented students in the nation, it has moved more heavily into data-driven digital marketing. “We must put our messages in the palms of their hands,” says Bonnin. “Today’s students live on their mobile devices. If we want to grab their attention, we must be very intentional and targeted.”

In August 2023 Rhodes hired Natalie Ledford as chief digital strategy and enrollment services officer. In this new role, she identifies data across multiple demographics to optimize all digital communications, including emails, social media messaging, and digital advertising to entice students to consider Rhodes.

“Every morning begins with looking at data that illustrates where we are, where we need to go, what has worked, and what can be

ADDRESSING

ENROLLMENT CHALLENGES Falling admission numbers in colleges across the country are due to a variety of factors, including what’s known as the “demographic cliff.” The number of traditional college-aged students will peak in 2025 and then decline dramatically for several years, partly in response to declining birth rates following the recession in 2008.

But there’s also a “demand cliff”—the percentage of 18- to 24-year-olds choosing to attend college has been declining since before the pandemic, which particularly affects smaller private colleges and public and community colleges.

The constantly shifting college admissions landscape means admission officers such as Gil Villanueva, vice president for enrollment and dean of admission and financial aid at Rhodes, must stay nimble to meet their enrollment goals.

“So much has changed,” says Villanueva.

“The smartphone has made it easier for young people to discover schools and communicate with colleges and universities.”

Villanueva has served as a higher education professional and leader for more than 30 years and leads the college’s effort to identify, attract, and enroll the best and brightest students, both nationally and internationally. He credits work that began in the Clinton administration with improving access to college for underserved

improved,” says Ledford. “Then we move quickly to make any adjustments. The goal is to establish quick wins and see gains.”

“I love to champion new ways of using digital outlets to tell our story,” Ledford adds. “With the introduction of a strong brand campaign and quality digital experiences, we are now making Natalie Ledford

students, a move that helps students thrive in the global market.

“I think in the last 10 years, in particular, we have made some inroads with having more young people get some kind of tertiary degree. It’s exciting to see that.”

Despite that progress, admission officers still must navigate significant hurdles.

According to Forbes, politics and changes to application processes contribute to shifts in perceptions of college and the admissions process.

“One of the things that still keeps me up at night is the fact that many, many students out there can go to college but don’t, and it becomes a puzzle,” says Villanueva. “On top of that, there’s the cost of attending college. There’s no other industry that has ballooned more in terms of price and cost than American college education.”

Despite the scale of these issues, Villanueva thinks a tried and tested strategy will help Rhodes navigate this increasingly complex field. In addition to leveraging connections with caregivers, Villanueva and the admission team seek to make Rhodes attractive to all kinds of students.

“It all begins with living up to our mission.

We do an excellent job while students are here at Rhodes, and then we put them in a position to realize bigger and better things after graduation. I believe in our mission.”

timely decisions based on the market and student journeys. Essentially, we are letting the prospective students and their families drive the narrative to themselves, rather than relying on blanket messaging and hoping it will resonate.”

“We are fortunate to have Natalie join our team,” says Gil Villanueva, vice president for enrollment and dean of admission and financial aid. “She brings a wealth of experience from working at the University of Alabama and Abilene Christian University, as well as from the private sector, and we look forward to seeing the impact of these efforts.”

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FAMILY WEEKEND

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ach fall, Rhodes holds a special weekend of events for parents and families to reconnect with their students at Rhodes and to experience many aspects of campus

life. From campus tours to tours of historic Memphis, from picnics to athletic events, and from student presentations to attending a class, families get to do it all.

For more photos scan the QR code

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faculty focus

Joel Parsons ’07

By Matthew Harris ’20

“It’s special to come back and join the department that shaped me, and now to be colleagues with these amazing people who I worked with previously as a student.”

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aised in rural Arkansas, Joel Parsons ’07 envisioned himself as an English major until a painting class led by Erin Harmon altered his course entirely.

With her encouragement, he embraced a newfound passion that eventually transformed him into an art major whose work has been exhibited both nationally and internationally.

“Growing up where I did and the way I did, I didn’t know it was possible to be an artist.

I never went to museums. I didn’t have real experience in the art world, and so through just taking a few classes and getting involved in the art department here, I found this whole new way of thinking and being.”

After graduating, Parsons embarked on a year-long journey through the Watson Fellowship, which allowed him to travel and collaborate with artists in five countries on four continents. He then received a Master of Fine Arts on a President’s Fellowship from the sculpture department at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Back in Memphis, Parsons worked at the Urban Art Commission and the Metal Museum, gaining valuable experience that would shape his future. Although rewarding, an opportunity at Rhodes College—a oneyear position at the college’s Clough-Hanson Gallery—piqued his interest. He returned to Rhodes as a part-time faculty member and to serve as the director of the gallery for the 2013-2014 academic year—and has been at the college ever since.

“It’s special to come back and join the department that shaped me, and now to be colleagues with these amazing people who I worked with previously as a student. That’s meaningful to me as well, to be part of that transformational experience for generations of more students.

“I was truly a product of the liberal arts; I had amazing teachers in English and religious studies. I think that’s the best way for a young artist to be trained. Artists should have that breadth and should be able to write and think and articulate, and I don’t think there’s a better way to do that than the liberal arts.”

For Parsons, being an art professor isn’t just a profession; it’s a lifelong commitment to nurturing creativity, shaping futures, and

building enduring relationships that echo far beyond the confines of the classroom.

“To me, the number one thing is the relationships that we get to build with students. There’s nothing better than seeing a student kind of figuring things out: ‘What’s my place in this institution and what’s my place in this class and in this department?’

And then you get to work with them again, or maybe become their advisor, and before you know it, you’re helping them install their senior thesis show in the gallery, looking at this art that they’ve made and this full expression of who they are and how they’ve grown.”

Parsons has brought many shows to the Clough-Hanson Gallery, but his most recent, The Young, Gifted and Black exhibition, has meant the most to him. The exhibition was organized in partnership with the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, which presented Black American Portraits concurrently with the Clough-Hanson exhibit. Parsons coordinated a full season of related programming for the exhibition, including artist talks, panel discussions, and a course through the Meeman Center for Lifelong Learning.

from the private collection of art collector, patron, educator, and advocate Bernard Lumpkin, features pieces from well-known artists such as David Hammons, Kerry James Marshall, Mickalene Thomas, Henry Taylor, and Kara Walker, as well as a younger generation gaining wider recognition, including Tunji Adeniyi-Jones, Sadie Barnette, Cy Gavin, Chase Hall, Jennifer Packer, and others.

“Every time I walk past the gallery, I still get a little rush seeing the artists that are represented there and thinking about the students who get to experience that show and being able to bring classes in and planning events around it. These are artists who I learned about in classrooms at Rhodes College and it’s humbling to be the person to present it to the world.”

“I think that the ambition and the scale of the show elevated every aspect of what the gallery does. I developed robust partnerships around Memphis so that we could use this show as a bridge to the Memphis community. We had to bring in the walls; we had to plan extra time in the calendar to facilitate, install, and de-install. I think that the scale, the number of works, the size of works, necessitated taking everything to the next level.”

The exhibition, which is composed of works

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RHODES COLLEGE CELEBRATES

175 YEARS

From its humble beginnings in 1848 in Clarksville, TN, the college has grown into a nationally recognized institution of the liberal arts and sciences in the vibrant city of Memphis.

By Dr. Timothy S. Huebner

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ur semester-long celebration of the college’s 175th anniversary included a series of community-wide special events, opportunities to learn about the college’s history, and— most importantly—the inauguration of the college’s 21st president, Jennifer M. Collins.

The festivities began in August with a 175th anniversary kick-off luncheon, complete with food trucks and T-shirts. Other notable events included a conversation with New York Times columnist David Brooks, a panel at Homecoming/ Reunion Weekend celebrating the college’s legacy of creative excellence (featuring alumni poets and English professors), and the annual Rhodes Reads event, featuring the authors of the Pulitzer-Prize winning book His Name is George Floyd.

A new course gave students an opportunity to learn about and reflect on the college’s history. Co-taught by myself, and Bill Short ’71, associate director of the library, Rhodes College and the American South was offered through the

Department of History. It allowed students to delve into the college archives, as well as to learn from the expertise and experiences of faculty and alumni. Special guests included former president William Troutt and President Collins. Non-students were able to enroll in an abbreviated version of the class offered through the Meeman Center for Lifelong Learning.

The centerpiece of the college’s celebration was Inaugural Weekend in October. Board members, faculty, staff, and students heard seven faculty members from a variety of academic disciplines offer brief presentations on topics ranging from digital art to antibiotic development to applying research to issues in the local community during the Inaugural Talks program. The next day, the entire community and special guests from across the country came together to inaugurate the president, enjoy brunch, and celebrate at the Inaugural Ball.

Happy 175th, Rhodes!

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The Inaugural Talks featured the Rhodes faculty: (left to right) Karl Erickson, assistant professor of art; Peter Hossler, associate professor of urban studies; Elaine Frawley, associate professor of biology; Larryn Peterson, associate professor of chemistry; Cara Djonko-Moore, associate professor of educational studies; Kelly Pledger Weeks ’92, P’27, associate professor of business; Marshall Boswell P’25, professor of English.

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celebrating

the inauguration of the twenty-first president of rhodes college

Jennifer M. Collins

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he inauguration ceremony for President Jennifer Collins was held on October 21, 2023. The ceremony was presided over by Board of Trustees Chair Deborah Legg Craddock ’80, P’12 in the Bryan Campus Life Center, where she greeted guests that included representatives of organizations and institutions of higher learning from Memphis and around the country.

Messages of welcome to President Collins were extended from faculty, staff, students, the parent community, alumni, City of Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland, and U.S. Representative Steve Cohen. Dr. Michael Lamb ’04, a Rhodes Scholar (Oxford) recipient who is now the executive director of the Program for Leadership and Character at Wake Forest University—where President Collins taught for 12 years, before joining Southern Methodist University as the Judge James Noel Dean and professor of law—spoke to the values instilled by Rhodes College.

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President Collins with Professor Terry Hill, bearer of the Rhodes Mace (on left), and Professor Leslie Petty, recipient of the 2022 Jameson M. Jones Award.

Special inauguration guests included Rhodes’ 19th president, William E. Troutt, and 20th president, Marjorie Hass.

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faculty talks

inaugural dinner

inaugural ceremony

inaugural ball

a grand celebration

Inauguration festivities included the Inaugural Talks, faculty presentations highlighting the depth and breadth of the liberal arts and sciences; a dinner for staff and honored guests; a brunch immediately following the inauguration ceremony; and a Student Inaugural Ball celebrating President Collins. To see more photos of the events please use this QR code or go to rhodes.edu/inauguration.

R H O D E S . E D U / I N A U G U R AT I O N

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EMBRACING HEALTHCARE FUTURES

By Troy Wiggins

How Rhodes’ Institute for Health Equity and Community Justice is creating a culture of equity in Memphis and beyond.

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emphis, known widely for BBQ, the policymakers, inequity still abounds in healthcare practice and blues, and rock ’n’ roll, also enjoys a delivery, even in the most advanced systems. less well-known status as one of the “America has great doctors, hospitals, and medical research nation’s premier medical care and facilities, but not everyone benefits equally,” says Kendra Hotz, innovation sites. The Memphis Chamber the Robert R. Waller Chair of Population Health and director of Commerce describes our hometown of the Rhodes College Health Equity Program. “The poor to investors as “a healthcare city,” a and racialized minorities suffer from health inequities that are designation worthy of its deep driven by three primary factors: social forces like housing and and complex medical history. food insecurity, historical and contemporary policy forces like The city’s roots in healthcare innovation most likely date to redlining, and unconscious bias among healthcare providers. the historic yellow fever epidemics of the 1870s, catastrophes We take a place-based and historically contextualized approach that claimed the lives and livelihoods of more than 30,000 that helps healthcare professionals understand what causes Memphians and cost the city its charter for more than a disparities and learn how to form empathetic connections decade. However, that epidemic stewarded social and medical with patients as a form of harm reduction.” innovations that would forever change Memphis. More than Illuminating these disparities for healthcare professionals and 30 years later, the University of Tennessee College of Medicine collaboratively devising solutions for them is a central aim was established here, serving as a nexus of statewide medical of the Health Equity programming offered at Rhodes. Our education until it was folded into the University of Tennessee baccalaureate and post-baccalaureate health equity programs Health Science Center (UTHSC), a similar statewide seek to prepare students to become skilled and compassionate educational body that trains and qualifies health professionals. healthcare providers, public health professionals, and policy Memphis is also home to leading pediatric institutions like St. advocates with a deep understanding that social determinants— Jude Children’s Research Hospital and Le Bonheur Children’s nonmedical forces and conditions that shape the contours of Hospital, which are on the front lines of medical research— daily life—can impact health outcomes for stigmatized and some of which is contributed by Rhodes students and alumni. underserved populations. The Health Equity academic program By all accounts, Rhodes is doing an excellent job of educating equips students to go into communities and extend their talents and preparing healthcare professionals, with our graduates to the organizations they serve. enjoying an 82 percent acceptance rate to post-graduate health programs over the last five years. Our students, faculty, and alumni are indelibly connected to medical institutions in Memphis and beyond. Faculty support hospital systems and community clinics with research and education. Alumni continue work they may have begun during undergraduate research or service projects in clinics, labs, and waiting rooms in cities nationwide. Students from a diverse collection of “Early on in the pandemic, the health equity faculty found majors, including urban studies, chemistry, religious studies, ourselves suddenly flooded with requests from organizations and health equity, study and serve domestically and abroad, around the country for educational events,” says Hotz. “The impacting neighborhoods all over the globe and applying their uneven impact of the pandemic made health disparities visible hard-earned classroom lessons to real-world issues. However, to people who had never thought about them before. It was amazing to see so many large healthcare organizations actively despite decades of innovation from healthcare professionals and

A different epidemic, the COVID-19 pandemic, spurred another wave of innovation.

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(l to r) Dr. Duane T. Loynes Sr., Dr. Peter Hossler, and Dr. Kendra Hotz serve as faculty-in-residence for Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital’s Center for Bioethics and Health Equity, where they assist medical staff in untangling challenging ethical problems related to patient care.

“Our goal is to show how social forces affect human health, to show that these are not separate drivers.” — Dr. Kendra Hotz seeking out ways to understand the interlocking social, clinical, and policy forces that produce health disparities.”

The increased demand for health equity education, buoyed by a 2019 grant from the Mellon Foundation, made the work of Rhodes faculty such as Hotz, Assistant Professor of Urban Studies and Africana Studies Dr. Duane T. Loynes Sr., and Associate Professor of Urban Studies Dr. Peter Hossler essential in the pursuit of opportunities to create healthcare partnerships while sharing the college’s liberal arts mission to external, professional audiences. Seeing an opportunity to fill a gap, these faculty, using the expanded possibilities presented by virtual programming, provided impactful sessions that helped deepen collective understanding of how social forces can impact health outcomes while exploring ways to help practitioners effect change within their existing systems.

Among other efforts, Hotz and Loynes developed and delivered a grant-funded lecture series featuring engaging talks from several Rhodes faculty covering topics related to health equity during the pandemic. This included information on environmental risks affecting low-income neighborhoods, physician bias, food insecurity, narrative medicine, race and poverty, and the profound impact of substandard housing and

transportation on health outcomes. Hossler is the founding director of the Wellness and Stress Clinic of Memphis, which provides uninsured and underinsured residents with the resources they need to improve their health and reach their economic and healing goals. The clinic served thousands of community members during its pandemic operations.

Hotz, Hossler, and Loynes all serve as faculty-in-residence for Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital’s Center for Bioethics and Health Equity, where they assist medical staff in untangling challenging ethical problems related to patient care. Their courses on key health equity issues were included in a hospice and palliative medicine program offered as part of a postresidency fellowship at Le Bonheur. Courses developed by this same group have been cemented in UTHSC’s Serving the Underserved curriculum, which is the backbone of the Social Determinants of Health Certificate offered in its Community Engaged Care program, itself a vital component of the institution’s Quality Enhancement Plan. And beginning in August, UTHSC is offering a required four-year course in Social Medicine in the College of Medicine.

But health disparities affect patients across the country and, like many sticky social issues, require immense collaboration, communication, and education to unravel. Within a short period, it became clear that the demand for these professors’ particular brand of health equity education was not decreasing.

“We needed to figure out a structure to make the work manageable and sustainable,” Hotz reflects. “Duane Loynes, Peter Hossler, and I met on the back porch of West Campus B one day and began dreaming. We were clear about two things. First, we didn’t want to crank out generic, ‘check the box’ events just so participants could get continuing

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education credit. Second, we couldn’t separate the work of educating healthcare professionals from our relationships with community partners in Memphis who are doing the work of building equity. The content we are teaching grew directly from our roots here in Memphis. Whatever we did had to honor that connection.”

From this conversation, the Rhodes College Institute for Health Equity and Community Justice was born.

with nurses, I often give them examples from the world of education to get the conversation started. For example, if we’re talking about implicit bias, I share about disparate impacts in school discipline and how Black and brown kids are over-expelled and over-suspended over minor infractions.

Then they provide examples from their field.”

Facilitators such as Kelly and Andrea Jacobo, visiting instructor of urban studies, also help activate nurses as change agents for improved care delivery and as advocates Laura Kelly for a top-down to health equity strategies at the Assistant Professorapproach of Education organizational level. This approach begins with understanding the community.

The Institute is a collaborative effort across several departments, “As a facilitator, the work allows us to see an opportunity to bridge the two worlds of community justice and community disciplines, and teams to share critical research and strategies health.

Particularly, we are starting to realize medical policies for working in solidarity with diverse populations and creating and practices are surfacing when we have these conversations,” equity and justice-centered practices across the healthcare says Jacobo.

“Th at gives us the opportunity to try to critically continuum. With a foundation built on the early work address some of these policies and create a newer policy that is championing just and equitable healthcare systems in the equitable for the nurses and the clients.”

Memphis context, the Institute’s curricula, workshops, courses, Since that initial pandemic work, the Institute’s health and learning opportunities have reached tens of thousands of equity programming has spread beyond Memphis’ borders, healthcare providers, partners, and community members. establishing key partnerships with organizations like Nurse“Our goal is to show how social forces affect human health, to Family Partnership ®(NFP), Humana Healthy Horizons in show that these are not separate drivers.” says Hotz, who also Louisiana, and CHI Memorial Hospital, where Institute serves as the director of the Institute. “This is a team effort. faculty lead monthly lunch-and-learn engagements and two We have 20 faculty facilitators from disciplines across campus day-long retreats with the hospital’s board of directors. working with discussion groups across the nation.”

These faculty hold space for essential conversations, which are the heart of the Institute’s work. Faculty from the Departments of Modern Languages and Literatures, Computer Science, Anthropology and Sociology, Urban Studies, Health Equity, Environmental Studies, Religious Studies, Africana Studies, Media Studies, and Educational Studies programs all serve as facilitators. They also serve as members of an advisory committee that helps the Institute create and develop key strategies to drive its goals.

“Issues that are being faced in the healthcare system are issues that show up in schools as well,” says Laura Kelly, assistant professor of education. Kelly has facilitated more than 15 sessions in her work with the Institute. “When talking

Betsy Kammerdiener, market director for mission integration at CHI Memorial Hospital, says, “We began to ask, ‘What’s the role of healthcare in providing racial equity and social justice?’” CHI Memorial is a not-for-profit, faith-based healthcare organization that offers a continuum of healthcare with 3,500 associates and more than 600 affiliated physicians throughout Southeast Tennessee, North Georgia, and Northwest Alabama. CHI Memorial’s CEO, Janelle Reilly, had a son who was a Rhodes student, and he suggested contacting Hotz to help answer that essential question.

“Kendra and her team presented the material, did their research, and said, ‘Here’s what’s happening in Chattanooga. Let me show you the maps. Let me show you the history.’ They held

“Issues that are being faced in the healthcare system are issues that show up in schools as well . . .” — Dr. Laura Kelly, Educational Studies 33

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“As a facilitator, the work allows us to see an opportunity to bridge the two worlds of community justice and community health.” — Visiting Professor Andrea Jacobo, Urban Studies

up a mirror, allowed us to look at ourselves and allowed us to decide what areas we need to be working on now, and where do we go from here? They didn’t do the work for us, but they helped to facilitate that work,” says Kammerdiener. “We decided that the first group of people we wanted to provide education for was our board of directors. Because if we didn’t have our board lined up and leading the charge, it would be very hard to sustain this.”

reduce maternal morbidity and mortality. Humana is one of several Managed Care Organizations (MCOs) the Institute works with. Those MCOs, or organizations that contract with healthcare providers and medical facilities to provide care for members at a reduced cost, plan to distribute Institute programming to more than 20,000 Medicaid providers in Louisiana by the end of 2024.

“We wanted the education that we offered for our associates and providers in the community to go beyond a check-thebox activity for cultural competency,” says Williams. “The Institute’s work is perfectly aligned with our Humana health equity mission. And the Institute is really helping associates and providers understand the barriers that keep people from being healthy while also normalizing conversations around “Our model has always had a component of culture, bias.

We really think that this work helps us get to the root understanding one’s culture,” says Sharon Sprinkle, co-director causes of health disparities and are hopeful that it’s going of nursing practice with the NFP’s National Service Office. to eventually help us turn the tide towards more culturally The Institute helped the NFP build a programming series responsive care in the state.” called the Cultural Consciousness Pathway, designed to help introduce cultural mindfulness to healthcare providers.

And the Institute’s work only keeps increasing. The Institute’s mission calls for the development of strategies to build equity “The Pathway has helped us understand that everybody comes and repair harm, strategies developed in collaboration with with biases and has helped the nurses we serve across the community partners. So far, the Institute has supported nation understand the importance of how biases show up faculty research and student fellowships related to housing, and how they impact service delivery,” says Sprinkle. “For me, transportation equity, and the distribution of NARCAN. and I think for some of my colleagues across the nation, the The team is currently exploring expanded ways to support Pathway has been eye opening. And the affinity groups have community actors and their actionable needs with respect to helped folks to unleash their power and their voice in a safe affordable housing, food security, transportation access, and space to have conversations about biases and prejudice and more. how that impacts the way they show up in life and the way Staff at the Nurse-Family Partnership (NFP), a national community health program that seeks to improve the health and lives of first-time mothers and children affected by social and economic inequality, have a similar view of the Institute and its work.

they go about doing their work.”

Elly Yost, interim director for nursing education at NFP, agrees. “They connect those dots for everyone who wants to listen, and in such a supportive manner so that you now can say, ‘This is why this is, this is the way it is, what can I do?’

The Institute is genuinely a change agent for improved cultural consciousness within healthcare.”

Kim Williams, director of Health Equity, Population Health, and Community Engagement at Humana Healthy Horizons in Louisiana, discovered the Institute while working with the NFP’s National Service Office as part of a task force to

Through these innovative educational programs, cross-sector partnerships, and dedicated faculty members, the vital work of empowering current and future healthcare professionals to embrace cultural understanding, address health disparities, and champion health equity has become synonymous with the Institute. The unique combination of academic rigor, experiential learning, and a commitment to diverse perspectives has placed the Institute for Health Equity and Community Justice at Rhodes College at the forefront of shaping a more equitable future for healthcare.

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eric mathews ’02 named entrepreneur-in-residence

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hodes was named one of the nation’s most innovative national liberal arts colleges by U.S. News & World Report in 2019, and, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, students were immersed in educational and mentoring opportunities related to entrepreneurship. Now the college is relaunching those initiatives, including the Rhodes College Student Entrepreneurship Club and the annual Rhodes College Business Plan Competition. Students will be connected with alumni working in the entrepreneurial, innovation, and venture investing sectors.

461 - Internship in Entrepreneurial Venturing, students will be tasked with building a new startup or small business. Students in the courses will be encouraged to apply for the Annual Rhodes College Business Plan Competition held in the spring.

To support these activities and ensure both educational and entrepreneurial excellence, Eric Mathews, a member of the Rhodes Class of 2002 and chief executive officer of Memphis-based start-up incubator Start Co., has been selected as entrepreneur-in-residence.

Mathews majored in chemistry at Rhodes and, after earning a master’s degree in cognitive psychology from the University of Memphis where he studied artificial intelligence, became associate director for corporate research and development at the FedEx Institute for Technology.

He founded Start Co. in 2008, and over the years he and his Start Co. team have offered office hours to Rhodes students interested in becoming entrepreneurs, hired them as interns, hosted workshops on campus, and sponsored business idea competitions.

In this new role, Mathews will help the Entrepreneurship Club relaunch by sourcing speakers and tours, suggesting on-campus activities, and helping to build the Business Plan Competition. Along with mentoring students, Mathews will serve as a resource to the entire campus community in directing them to resources on launching new businesses and will participate in fundraising, marketing, and public relations to support entrepreneurship on campus.

Mathews and business faculty members Andrey Zagorchev, Sujan Dan, and Steve Zatechka will serve as club advisors. A three-course entrepreneurship class sequence taught by Mathews and Zatechka will provide students from different majors academic training in starting new ventures.

In BUS 125 - Introduction to Entrepreneurship, students will explore start-up and small business issues and develop some entrepreneurial skills. BUS 126 - Application of Entrepreneurship will enable highly motivated students who wish to truly build a new business venture to develop their businesses and entrepreneurial skills and seek out resources needed to launch their new venture. In BUS

“It is important that students feel confident enough to bet on themselves, their business ideas, and their community for the support they need to start a new business,” says Mathews. “Relaunching these activities is the key to growing entrepreneurship at Rhodes College and provides the confidence students need to startup.”

In 2021, Rhodes commerce and business alumnus Nick Parinella ’17 was issued design and utility patents by the United States Patent and Trademark Office for his invention, the Kangaroozie™, a can cooler (or koozie) with a water-resistant compartment to store valuables. Parinella, who served as president of the Rhodes Entrepreneurship Club and completed an entrepreneurship course taught by Mathews, created a prototype for the invention while a student.

“Nick’s accomplishments as a student entrepreneur, using what he learned in the classroom and the resources he earned from the business plan competition, demonstrated a bigger future for student entrepreneurship at Rhodes College that is now coming to fruition with this relaunch,” says Mathews. “We should anticipate many more patents, product launches, and successes in the future.”

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homecoming

reunion weekend Homecoming is always special (food, fun, football, parades!), but this year also featured events in honor of Rhodes’ 175th anniversary, including bringing Memphis legend (and long-time Rhodes instructor) Joyce Cobb back for a special homecoming concert. Another innovation this year: Reunion Row. Tents were set up in the Bill and Carole Troutt Quad for each celebrating class, creating a mass reunion party in the heart of the campus.

Enjoy more photos from the 2023 Homecoming/Reunion Weekend, September 29 - 30, 2023

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Maggie Emmendorfer ’24 and Hailey Smith ’24 were crowned 2023 Rhodes Royalty

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welcome back! homecoming/reunion weekend

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Classes of ’58 and ’63 celebrate their 60th and 65th Reunions

Past recipients of the BSA Distinguished Alumni Award with the 2023 recipient Dr. Wilfreda Lindsey ’11 (front right)

Class of ’73 celebrates their 50th Reunion

Class of ’03 celebrates their 20th Reunion

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for

PEOPLE and PLANET

Through the Walmart Foundation, Julie Gehrki ’02 is bringing a holistic approach to global community service.

By Samuel X. Cicci ’15

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any students make their way through college with minds devoted to service, but for some, that calling beckons on a grander stage. For Julie Gehrki ’02, the idea of giving back to her community had always been a part of who she is, and today, that devotion to service has led to her current role as vice president of philanthropy at Walmart and the Walmart Foundation, where she uses her skills to target humanitarian causes on a global scale.

For the Arkadelphia, AR, native, pursuing a career in philanthropy was a no-brainer. “The concept of ‘service to others,’ has always been in my family’s DNA,” says Gehrki. “My parents, who are both Rhodes graduates, really instilled that in me. My dad is a physician who cares deeply about his patients and their health. My mom was a professor who now runs a yarn shop in South Arkansas, because she wanted to create a place for people to connect and get to know each other.”

With service at the front of her mind and a passion for community work, Rhodes was an easy choice for Gehrki. As soon as she set foot on campus, she began familiarizing herself

with Memphis, identifying areas where she could make an impact, and drawing up plans to allow herself and other students to do just that.

As a religious studies major, Gehrki worked closely with professors whose work focused on the teachings of Martin Luther King Jr., social justice, and the intersection of theology with philanthropy. “Professor Michael McMahon taught a theology class focused on poverty, which made a big impact on me,” recalls Gehrki. “And Jim Lanier’s History of Philanthropy course really dug into the good and bad of philanthropy and its role in American society. But what I found tremendously powerful about Rhodes is the humanity of the professors, who are willing to grapple with these tough issues and ask really hard questions about our community, and then take that and see how you can be a good citizen outside Rhodes.”

The curriculum and the words of her professors encouraged Gehrki to experience Memphis outside the classroom. Active in the Laurence F. Kinney community service program, Gehrki worked in North Memphis, where she was involved in an

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own workforce, which is 1.6 million people in the United States.

“Philanthropy is important, but not enough on its own to change a system . . .” — Julie Gehrki ’02

after-school program, interned with the Metropolitan Inter-Faith Association (MIFA), and volunteered in the student-run soup kitchen. “Rhodes really encouraged us to be active in the community,” says Gehrki, “so I frequently found myself at the student-run soup kitchen or Holy Community Church.

Community members such as Reverend Moor and frequent soup kitchen visitors such as Abe played essential roles in my educational experience, grounding me in the reality of community issues that were often more theoretical on campus.”

Gehrki’s community work at Rhodes culminated in the Algernon Sydney Sullivan Student Award at Rhodes and recognition as one of six Jane Addams - Andrew Carnegie Fellows by the University of Indiana Center for Philanthropy. Her work at Rhodes set the stage for her eventual role at Walmart, where she applies her micro-level community analysis to issues around the world.

Last year, the Walmart Foundation gave more than $1.7 billion in cash and inkind donations to causes worldwide. The foundation’s work is centered around four pillars: increasing economic mobility, enhancing sustainable supply chains, strengthening community resilience, and advancing racial equality. Gehrki’s mission is to combine the business strengths of Walmart with philanthropic investments to change systems for better outcomes for people and the planet. “It’s not just about writing a check,” says Gehrki. “At Walmart, we try to be systems thinkers when it comes to problem solving, which means you really can’t isolate one part of an issue without recognizing how the big picture fits together. And so, it was really helpful for me to have the analytical frameworks and critical thinking that I

learned in the classroom, along with the global exposure and the tough questions from professors to grapple with.”

“Then, we complement the company’s efforts with philanthropic investments that help society transition to a skills-based economy, where skills gained on the job, in the classroom, or through voluntary service all count. The question we aim to solve is, ‘How do we build that world where all learning counts and it builds on each other, and people can have really dynamic career trajectories whether formal education was right for them or not?’”

Looking ahead, much of Gehrki’s focus is aimed at environmental issues and biodiversity.

Walmart and the Walmart Foundation, she says, have made a commitment to preserve, protect, and sustainably manage 50 million acres of land and one million square miles of ocean by 2030. “Philanthropy is important, but not enough on its own to change a system, so we look at things that complement and extend the impact of the business, like how we source seafood that’s more sustainable for the ocean. And work like that needs to be focused in specific places.” A notable example is Walmart’s relationship with the Marshall Islands, a chain in the Pacific Ocean that runs between Hawaii and the Philippines.

Take, for example, the Walmart Foundation’s approach to sustainability and economic mobility abroad. The company has a large stake in Flipkart, a huge e-commerce platform in India, and Gehrki’s approach looks at how they can support the smallholder farmers and farmer producer organizations who produce food and other agricultural goods in the country. “We travel to rural India and work closely with these farms, as it’s important to be in the community and understand the “That’s where a ton of seafood and tuna is issues they face. We’re helping them increase harvested and caught,” says Gehrki. “And that sustainable production capacity so that they’re is a partnership that the people of the Marshall in a place to sell to formal markets, which Islands helped shape and define. They own the increases their livelihood.” The company’s business now, along with an NGO. It is meant five-year strategy aims to reach one million to really increase the economic viability of the smallholder farmers by 2028, with at least Islands, but also catch tuna with sustainable 50 percent of those being women. So far, the practices for both the people on the boats and company has given out grants totaling $39 the health and biodiversity of the ocean.” million to nonprofits operating in Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, West Bengal, Maharashtra, As Gehrki and Walmart continue to Andhra Pradesh, and Odisha. support new causes, the focus remains on philanthropic systems that benefit Walmart is also developing economic mobility local communities, individuals, and the initiatives right here at home. The company environment, even if that means shaking up has implemented a program where employees logistics. “That’s really the ethos of our work,” without college degrees have a pathway continues Gehrki. “How do we rewire supply towards education, and a way to learn skills that can further their careers. “Walmart can do chains so that the indigenous people in an a lot through the business by providing a huge area benefit? How do we reduce emissions amount of training to our frontline associates,” and retain biodiversity? There’s really inspiring work going on in that space to think beyond says Gehrki. “We’ve restructured jobs so that they work in teams with a coach. And we have the single farm or the single boat, to how we work with governments and others to redesign 200 academies around the country where they a broader region and say this region is going go to get learning that can be good for up to to produce and harvest and grow in ways that 21 college credits. We offer free education— four-year and two-year college, and short-term are good for people on the planet.” credentials—to frontline associates. There’s a lot we can do through the business for our

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CAJUNFEST 2023

Alumni, students, parents, faculty, staff, and friends of Rhodes College gathered at CajunFest on Saturday, Oct. 28, to cheer on the Lynx football and soccer teams. The annual celebration included a Cajun-style feast complete with jambalaya, gumbos, red beans and rice, mushroom etouffee, and red and black King Cake.

The Lynx teams were all victorious! The Women’s Soccer Team defeated Birmingham-Southern (BSC) 7-0 in the quarterfinal round of the SAA tournament; Men’s Soccer defeated Berry College 3-1 in their conference tournament quarterfinal match; and the Football Team beat BSC with a score of 34-8.

For more photos scan the QR code below

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class notes 1956

Reporter: If you are interested in serving as the Class of ’56 reporter, please contact alumni@rhodes.edu.

1957

Reporter: Mary Frances Files Silitch silitch@gmail.com

1958

Reporter: If you are interested in serving as the Class of ’58 reporter, please contact alumni@rhodes.edu.

1959 65th Reunion Homecoming/Reunion Weekend November 1 – 2, 2024 Reporter: Dan Logan danlogan318@gmail.com I talked to Richard Park. He and his wife, Pam, live in Rising Fawn, GA. Richard has had a hip replacement and is currently using a walker but is getting better and hopes to return to hiking soon!

Bob Welch and his wife, Ann, live in Black Mountain, NC. Bob has been a teacher in both the public and private

schools in the North Carolina mountains for his entire career. He is now retired. He reports that he is in good health except for his age (our age)!

Peggy Bornman Kaufman lives in Irmo, SC, close to Columbia. She reports that she is doing well. She is living with her daughter and grandson. She is a breast cancer survivor. Peggy is thankful that she gets to see her grown children frequently. She is a retired music teacher, having taught 50 years. She still plays the piano for her Episcopal church. She also gets to see her sister and other family members on a regular basis. Peggy says that she would love to hear from her fellow class members!

John Gay reports that he and his wife, Ginger, are part of the Rockport, TX, Hummer Bird Festival. Thousands of hummingbirds come by their property on their migration route to Central America.

They are a “hummer house.” Many people come to their property to watch the hummingbirds. John’s job is to keep the feeders filled and to clean up the grounds each day. Keep up the good work, John and Ginger!

Wade Harrell reports that after the death of his wife of many years, he has married

again to a retired Presbyterian minister.

He has also moved from Charleston, SC, to Hickory, NC. They are planning a trip to Norway and the surrounding area. He also has several other interesting trips in the works. Good traveling to Wade and Laurey!

Danny Logan and Buddy Nix and friends are going on an upper Mississippi River cruise from St. Louis to MinneapolisSt. Paul in mid-September. We hope it cools off by that time!

I am still trying to keep up with Shiney Jackson’s reputation as a wonderful class reporter, so please send me some news!

Photographs are welcome too!

1960

Reporter: If you are interested in serving as the Class of ’60 reporter, please contact alumni@rhodes.edu.

1961

Reporter: Harvey Jenkins Whjenkinsjr@gmail.com In case you’ve been waiting to hear (or not), I was unable to find a 1996 Jaguar XJS on my terms, so I now have an almost collector car, a 2005 Audi A4 1.8T.

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Ken Barker reports that he continues to participate in the Mazzotti Anatomical Conference that meets annually in Buffalo, NY. It is a program of anatomical dissection that brings students from Italy to take part in full body dissection with intense instruction. He writes, “I admit to being glad not to be working in these types of labs any longer but am convinced of their importance.” Having visited Italy several times, Ken and his wife enjoy entertaining the students each year.

Jocylyn Agnew Camp is still enjoying life on the Upper West Side of Manhattan (NYC) where museums, movies, stores, church, Central Park, Lincoln Center, and the Y are within walking distance. She is pleased to stay in touch with Lela Garner, Sue Kirchen Betts, and Joan Warren Priest ’60, but mourns the loss of John Somerville and many others.

Margaret Haigler Davis enjoys traveling with her two granddaughters and her sister Carolyn Haigler Ikenberry ’62.

Last year it was Spain, and this year Costa Rica. Her latest trip was to Guatemala with her church to install a water system for Living Waters for the World and stoves. Her son Stephen Davis ’85, his son, and her son George were on the same trip.

Adele Wolf Grilli and husband Guido are about to celebrate anniversary number 61 and are both in good health. They follow the competitions of their granddaughters who dance competitively, and journey to and from Arkansas to Florida to see baseball friends. Their current occupations are fishing and sitting on their back porch watching the White River roll by.

Bill Howard writes, “Our saga began at 4:19 p.m., May 22, 2021. Marlene (Peeples Howard ’62) finished painting our arbor. About 20 minutes later, I was cleaning paint brushes, smoke alarms went off. I went upstairs, peeked into the attic, and yelled, “Marlene! Fire! Get out!” Today, 829 days later, our house inspector looked at everything that had been restored in case the contractor had overlooked anything. Tomorrow, we renew the lease on our apartment. The saga continues.”

Nancy Myers Smith writes from Miami, “Thank God the AC is hanging on. There are those who say this is the coolest year for the rest of our lives.” She wishes everyone well.

Harry Swinney reports that he retired in 2018 from the University of Texas, where he taught physics for 40 years. In summers, he participated in educational programs, like the one seen in a 3-minute video at https://handsonresearch.org. He and wife Beth Kelly bike weekly with a group of octogenarians and septuagenarians. Their grandchildren, ages 10 and 16, often come to their house after school. He would like to hear from other classmates.

Judith Carson Vestal continues to live in Shreveport, LA. She retired from academia 10 years ago but remains active in various professional organizations. She enjoys dinners with friends, visits from family, reading, music, and knitting. Although she has not been on a world tour, climbed Mt. Everest, or been on safari in Africa, she writes, “Maybe next year . . .”

1962

Reporter: Diane McCullough Clark granddiva@charter.net Since so few of the class of 1962 were able to attend our 60th reunion in person (October 2022), we decided to get modern and have a Zoom reunion on May 7, 2023. We were thrilled with the turnout, plan to do it again, and hope all the others can join us next time. The following classmates attended: Joe Ajello, Diane McCullough Clark, Pete Cornish, Bill Davidson, Charles and Martha Ann Gooch Hogrefe, Susan Huffman, Barbara Bell Lawrence, Jim Lindenberger, Bob Maclin, Bill Mankin, David McAdoo, Laney Ray Mills, Gretchen Smith Rich, Mary Ann Stewart Somervill, and Jocelyn Dan Wurzburg.

Joe Ajello reports: “I am presently working in Boulder, CO, where I perform laboratory research and have a graduate student as a Research Scientist funded by NASA and National Science Foundation.

I have been at the University of Colorado rooting for the Buffaloes for the past eight years, after 45 years at the Jet Propulsion

Laboratory, California Institute of Technology. Both present and past positions involve Planetary Space Science ultraviolet research. Yup, it’s a record 53 straight years of research and still paddling along! Since I no longer ski, I now spend winters in San Diego, where I own an avocado farm.”

A note from Catherine Liddell Skapura states she is trying to save the rest of the greenery on her half-acre yard. She lost three big pine trees to the heat and years of drought, but had heavy rains last winter, so currently has plenty of water.

She meets four friends once a month for lunch. She is able to see her son weekly and, of course, still misses her husband.

Charles and Martha Ann Gooch Hogrefe write: “We have been so pleased to have had several opportunities to travel this year. In May we were able to attend two graduations; one grandson graduated from Mississippi State, and our other grandson graduated from high school in Woodstock, GA. We also drove to Memphis to take a short tour of our Alma Mater and saw the evidence of the graduation there that morning. We noticed that Palmer Hall is now named Southwestern Hall—a wonderful tribute to the former name of Rhodes College. The campus has certainly changed, but it is as beautiful as ever. In June we traveled to Somerset, KY, to visit the ancestral home of Martha Ann’s father, and in July our destination was Colorado, where we had lunch with our classmate Bill Mankin and his wife, Mary Beth. It is indeed wonderful to reconnect with old friends! We wish you all happy travels and good times making more memories.”

On Sept. 22 Richard Dew was in Memphis to receive the 2023 Outstanding Alumnus Award of the Tennessee College of Medicine Alumni Association. He is still in active practice as the volunteer medical director of the Mountain Hope Clinic, a faith-based clinic for the uninsured in Sevierville, TN. From hot and sunny Texas, David McAdoo writes: “There’s an old saying that ‘You have to make hay when the sun shines.’ That encouragement has been applied to many endeavors that have nothing to do with actually making hay, but it

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is literally true when you really do make hay like I do here on our miniature Texas ranch. This year, however, we need a corollary to the old saying: ‘You can’t make hay when there is too much sunshine and no rain.’”

Dick Diamond writes from down south in Florida that they are having horrible hot days in the 90s, mixed with very high humidity and rain every late afternoon.

The ocean waters are hot as a hot tub, literally, and in some areas more inland, fish are dying from the high heat. They are ready for a break about now. On a happier note, they were blessed with their second great-grandchild, Barrett, who was born three months early and has developed without any impairments. He has been a little slow catching up, but is a healthy toddler now.

Diane McCullough Clark has completed her year-long Enneagram Teacher Training Course and will be teaching her third “Introduction to the Enneagram” class this fall in the Northwestern Michigan College Extended Education Division.

She will also teach her old stand-by class, “Communicating with Confidence,” at the same location. She continues to teach voice at the college and also in her private studio at home, and she loves serving as the class reporter for the class of 1962!

Robert Patience writes: “I live in Mexico permanently now. After two years in Ajijic, I moved to Guadalajara, where I have been ever since. There are interesting things to know about Guadalajara and pictures I have of it, but I think I should move on to talking about the Ajijic area.

Ajijic is one of the oldest towns in the Americas. It was first seen by the non-indigenous Spanish Conquistadors in 1522; 500 years ago. It has some of the oldest buildings in the Western Hemisphere and the cobblestone streets (around the plaza and the church) are a 100 years older than the Pilgrims (1620) and 246 years older than the United States (1776). Ajijic is located south of Guadalajara on Mexico’s largest lake [Lake Chapala], which at an elevation of 5,046 ft., is one of the highest lakes in the Americas. Being at the same altitude as Denver and latitude of Hawaii, the weather and plants reflect the

best of both worlds. Many of the plants and flowers that grow in Hawaii grace the beautiful valley, which also has the second-best weather in the world, according to National Geographic. There are several towns on the lake (Lake Chapala).

Most expats live in Ajijic, and there is a robust cultural and social infrastructure for English-speaking people there.

It is, however, a small town. I prefer the amenities and energy of urban living, and I am happy in Guadalajara. The biggest town is Chapala, and it is the seat of government for the Chapala Municipality. (Municipality, a.k.a. county or parish in Louisiana.) Guadalajara was founded in 1542, 234 years before the signing of America’s Declaration of Independence, and it is a thriving, prosperous, and progressive metropolis of 5,420,000 people.

Within Mexico, Guadalajara is a center of business, arts and culture, technology and tourism; as well as the economic center of the Bajío region. It usually ranks among the 100 most productive and globally competitive cities in the world.

There’s a lot of interesting history going back well before the Spanish arrived to the area. There are small towns all around the lakefront. There are two good-sized islands. One has a crumbling fort that was used when the native people were fighting off the Spanish conquistadors, and it’s an interesting place to visit. The other is, charmingly, called Scorpion Island. I’ve taken boats out to both of them.”

From Bob Maclin we learn, “We took our granddaughter to Alaska this summer and I traveled home with COVID-19 as a souvenir, but wasn’t too stingy to not share it with my wife, Beth.”

From Sarah Richards High we hear: “The best part of living at an independent living facility is getting to know so many nice people and getting involved in various activities. In addition, I joined the Episcopal church . . . perfect for me . . . and found my ‘giving back’ role to be visiting single lady friends who are in the hospital or here at Waterman Village in a dependent facility. One dear friend is paralyzed from the neck down. Another is 97 and used to quilt, but now she is deaf and has emphysema. I find my life is enriched

by just spending a few hours a week with each, laughing and reminiscing and, of course, quietly talking politics! Ha!” Peggy Welsh Curlovic writes: “My life right now is circumscribed by the care of my husband of 54 years, who suffers from advanced dementia. Those who have been through similar experiences will understand when I say I was blessed with over 50 years of the ‘for better’ in the wedding vows, so I can’t complain about these last few years of the ‘for worse.’ I’m blessed with family and friends who are supportive.”

From Carolyn (Bunky) Haigler Ikenberry: “I’ve had wonderful travels the last two years: Spain, Costa Rica, Mexico, Ireland, and many U.S. places. It took me a while to get my bearings after my husband of 50 years died, and I still miss him every day.

Ironically, my sister’s husband died a few months before mine, so for the first time in our adult lives, we are free to ‘pick up and go’ whenever we want. I’m involved in several volunteer areas that mean a lot to me: Restorative Justice Durham (a first offender diversion program), Eyes Ears Nose and Paws (a service dog agency), working for reproductive justice, and serving as an elder in a progressive Presbyterian church.

I play a lot of pickleball and still some tennis. All that plus grandkids nearby keep my life rich and full. As long as I can keep my health, I’ll keep doing all these things that I love. If any classmates are near Chapel Hill, give me a call. I’d love to have a visit.”

Donna Jo Miles Smith writes from Dyersburg, TN: “I’m happy to report that I am enjoying two great ‘grands’ – London, 4 years, and Dorothy, 10 months. Dorothy’s mom, Halle Priester Gross ’15, a Rhodes graduate, is now a staff lawyer for FedEx. Dorothy’s dad, Danny, was recently named the outstanding Memphis firefighter. So proud of both of them. My son, Joseph, is a music teacher at Dogwood Elementary in Germantown. Last year he started a steel band, which has been very successful. He also plays in the orchestra at his church. His wife, Joanna, is a nurse at Le Bonheur. My daughter, Joanna ’88, and her husband, Dr. Brad Priester ’86, both Rhodes grads, are busy with their lives in Jackson, TN. I’m so

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fortunate they are close by. Serving as junior warden at St. Mary’s Episcopal Church has been keeping me very busy.

While we have no priest, we are painting, repairing, and hopefully getting things ‘spiffed up’ for a new rector. My music club activities keep me busy as well. By the way, there is another little one on the way—a boy. I’m trying hard to finish his cross-stitch quilt before his November arrival!”

Laney Ray Mills writes that he goes by his actual name Laney nowadays, rather than “LR” as he was known as a Rhodes student. He and his wife, Linda, have been focused on taking care of Linda’s 96-year-old father, who has been in failing health and has lived alone for several years.

Her father is now in hospice and needs constant care. LR’s older “only child” Joe ’94 and his wife, Jennifer Foster Mills ’96, both Rhodes graduates, live locally in Charleston, SC. They like to travel and race cars. Younger “only child” Laney Robert Mills ’12, also a Rhodes graduate, lives in Memphis and is a software engineer. LR is trying to write the story of his mother’s early life. She was a Mississippi orphan about whom there is no documentation whatsoever and who never shared her story.

1963

Reporter: Dan Gilchrist dangil4@bellsouth.net

1964 60th Reunion

Homecoming/Reunion Weekend November 1 – 2, 2024 Reporter: Mary Lou Quinn McMillan maryloumc1@comcast.net As Rhodes continues to celebrate 175 years of service, I hope that you will pause and remember the impact that it has had on your life.

Personally, many of you know that I “grew up” across the street from the campus on Snowden Ave., so the school and many of its professors influenced my life and that of our family from the time I was two years old till long after my graduation in 1964. Dr. Charles E. Diehl, who brought the college to Memphis in 1925, was our

neighbor, as was his son, Charles I. Diehl ’31, who was Dean of Men during our tenure at the college. Dr. Fred Neal was also our neighbor, my advisor, and one of my favorite professors. Dr. Peyton Rhodes lived just a block or two behind us and was a good friend of our family. My mother, Flossie Quinn, worked at the college for a number of years, in the alumni office with and later as Dr. Pete Richardson’s secretary. Both of my siblings, John H. Quinn, Jr. ’58 and Fay Quinn Isele ’61, and I graduated from the college. I am more than grateful for the education I received there and for the values imparted to me by faculty and staff throughout my life. I cherish the friendships formed there and the deep “connections” we have shared over 70+ years of my life! Thank you, Rhodes College! Speaking of friendships, I was able to return to the North Carolina mountains for my “annual visit” in July and had fun visits with Jim ’68 and Peggy Early Williamson ’68, Bummie Crowell Nurkin ’66, and Nancy Bullard Ladner ’65. The beauty of the mountains and the richness of these relationships is solace for my soul.

Charley Killinger shared that he and his wife, Pam, are spending the season in Sun Valley, ID, where Charley is completing an updated revision of his history of Italy.

The Killinger condo is at 6,100 feet and about one-quarter mile from Chip ’67 and Linda Hatzenbuehler. All of them regularly attend the fabulous Sun Valley Symphony in the amphitheater, await the fall jazz festival, and send their best.

From Doyle Cloud we hear, “Our granddaughter Addie Cavender has been accepted to the Vanderbilt PhD program studying the impact of poverty on disadvantaged kids—cognitive neuroscience.

She asked her mom about a Presbyterian Church in Nashville and I referred her to Westminster Presbyterian, K.C. Ptomey’s past pastorate. We ran across this article about K.C., which reminded me of the impact of a single individual on their fellow Americans. I am very proud to have been a part of K.C.’s life at Southwestern.

Everyone should read: https://covnetpres. org/2013/05/22/at-the-table-a-witnessto-the-resurrection-and-in-celebrationof-the-life-of-k-c-ptomey/. This felt like

a ‘small world’ story to me because my daughter, Lisa M. Wooley, and her family are members of Westminster and Lisa had the privilege of working with K.C. as an Interim Youth Director when she first moved to Nashville in 1996. I always loved that she got to know and love K.C. and be pastored by him . . . and I got to see him several times a year whenever we visited Lisa.”

Eleanor Geiger wrote of fun connections: “Tom and I were recently on our neighborhood walk in Alexandria, VA, and he was wearing his Lynx baseball cap. A pretty young mom walking her kids asked us if we knew someone who had gone to Rhodes. Turned out that both she and her husband had graduated from Rhodes and she was from Memphis, so we had a long conversation. A month later the house across the street sold and we met the new owners in a visit in our cul de sac. Turns out she graduated from Rhodes and was even in the same sorority as I was. Small world! Rhodes alums are travelling north and getting good jobs. Just before Thanksgiving we head back to Tucson for Tom to enjoy hiking and for Eleanor to play some tennis. We enjoy the warmer climate in Tucson and as Arizonans love to say, “It’s a DRY heat!”

Bill Wilson shared these memories: “The four years I spent at Southwestern/ Rhodes gave me, first, friendships that have lasted a lifetime. The other gift from my time there is the ability to think critically. I thought I knew how to think when I got there, but I was wrong. This brings to mind the opening sequence of the TV series The Paper Chase, starring John Houseman as the fearsome Professor Kingsfield, who told the incoming law students that ‘you come in here with a skull full of mush, and if you work hard, you will leave thinking like a lawyer.’ I didn’t become a lawyer, but I did learn to listen carefully to arguments, sort out fact from speculation or outright nonsense, and draw conclusions on which I could act, even if the conclusions were tentative and awaiting further evidence. My favorite professor was Dr. E. Llewellyn “Lew” Queener. It was my great good fortune to have him as my faculty advisor in my sophomore year. At the end of the

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first semester, he allowed me to bail out of a wretched sociology course and take his course in social psychology, even though I had taken only the first semester of general psychology, normally a prerequisite. He was the finest teacher I ever had, and I am grateful that I got to tell him that when he retired. Because of him I majored in psychology and wound up practicing and teaching it for nearly 40 years at what is now called the Center on Developmental Disabilities at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center, where I still serve on the Institutional Review Board.”

1966

This news from Jim Bullock: “Ervin ’66 and I hosted Bob and Rosemary Hoye Wells this week. We got caught up with our lives this past year as well as zooming into Marrion and Rock Ward, who couldn’t make it because Marrion got a high fever from a tick in their farm in Virginia. She is recovering, but it was an awful surprise. We were happy to reconnect after being friends for over 55 years.

We had a great trip this year to Alaska in late May and early June. We visited a grandson, Noah, a 27-year-old who had become a captain of a fishing boat for tourists. Ervin caught a 120-pound fish.

We saw a glacier emptying into the ocean and beautiful snow-topped mountains. It was a good trip.”

Joyce Wilding continues to work with leaders of Yale’s Forum of Religion and Ecology team. Her work includes addressing climate change via providing information about green building practices and programs and mowing less grass or no more by implementing green land practices!

Tom Lappage reports: “Health problems caused us to postpone two river cruises in May and July, but we did make a cruise and land tour to Alaska in August and September. As usual I wore my Rhodes ball cap and at one point had someone look at it and say jokingly, ‘That’s not Sewanee is it?’ I plan to be at the reunion next year and hope we will have a great turn out of classmates.”

I encourage classmates to let me know what you are doing with your time.

Echoing Tom . . . this reminder: OUR 60th REUNION is THIS FALL! Begin planning now to make the trip back to campus for a fun time of remembering and reconnecting with friends and classmates!

Reporter: Drue Thom White drueboo@aol.com

1965

Reporter: Mary McQueen Porter 2harps1dog@gmail.com

Reporter: Sammy Ann Primm Marshall sammyannmarshall@gmail.com Isabell VanMerlin is still very active in her community. She says that she has had an open mic for the spoken word for 10 years: Merrimac Mic, that meets in Merrimac, MA. “I’ll be distributing the 8th anthology that I’ve put together from the group’s poems: Merrimac Mic: Ten Years Gone. On our way but we’re not there yet! All of the books are available on Amazon.”

I had a chance to visit with Cleve May and Bill Cobb at the Hall High Class Reunion in May in Little Rock. Our reunion party took place in the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts. If you are in the area, it would be a great place to visit. I also recently saw Susan Cheairs, who is among those who have begun playing pickleball.

1967

Reporter: If you are interested in serving as the Class of ’67 reporter, please contact alumni@rhodes.edu.

1968

Dr. C. Lee Giles is the David Reese Professor in Information Sciences and Technology, graduate college Professor of Computer Science and Engineering, courtesy Professor of Supply Chain and Information Systems, and Director of the Intelligent Systems Research laboratory at the Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA. He recently presented a

keynote address at the 2023 Joint Conference on Digital Libraries titled Large Language Models for Information Retrieval and Extraction.

Lee’s research areas include intelligent information processing systems, text processing, deep learning, digital libraries, and novel research search engines. He was a co-creator and now director of the scholarly digital library search engine, CiteSeer. He is a Fellow of the ACM, IEEE, and International Neural Network Society (INNS). He is the recipient of the INNS Gabor prize, IEEE CIS Neural Networks Pioneer Award, NFAIS Miles Conrad Award, and twice the IBM Distinguished Faculty Award. He has published over 600 peer reviewed conference papers and journal articles with collaborators and students, including publications in Science, Nature, PLoS ONE, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and many other conference and journal venues. His publications have over 57,000 citations and an h-index of 115, according to Google Scholar. He can be reached at: https:// clgiles.ist.psu.edu/index.shtml.

Suzanne Troth Donaldson: “My news is that I am thankful to still be able to come to Memphis for our reunions and will miss so many who have gone before. At our 50th, I went over to the table for the 60th reunion (my sister was a member of that class). They were sparse in number and many not in very good shape. I’m still playing golf and won an award for 2nd low net in my flight at the LPGA Amateur Golf Association championship tournament in Bloomington, IN. This is after having Achilles tendon repair in January. I am looking forward to walking all over campus at the reunion weekend.

Go Lynx!”

John Williams: “Always great to heard from you, Drue.” We’re doing great here in the Lake Tahoe area, but we won’t be

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making it to Memphis for the Reunion.

Thank you so much for keeping me in the loop. I do hear from Steve Cole every now and then, but that’s it from Rhodes.

I’m very sorry to hear about my friends Richard and Peggy. Thank you for passing that along. Hope you and yours are doing well. Enjoy the Reunion, and best regards to everyone there.”

Louis R. Pounders, FAIA (BA 1968, Harvard GSD 1972, Rhodes Distinguished Alumnus Award 2005) has received a photography award from “One Photo Challenge” by Architizer.com. The photo “Apple Fifth Avenue” was named a top finalist. The award recognizes the best

international photos that tell powerful stories about architecture.

Bruce Cook: I am working on getting an investor for a TV series I wrote. Claudia and I are both healthy and doing well.

Sorry I cannot attend the reunion this year, but I hope we win the football game.

We enjoyed a week in Destin with Rev. Bill and Jeanne Shearer Mead. Enjoyed giving a prayer for my godchild’s wedding in Ithaca, NY, a few weeks ago, going to Lake Martin with three grand-nieces next week—should be fun. My best to all who come to the Reunion. I am sorry to see the names of those we have lost. May God bless their souls.”

1969 55th Reunion

spend the summers in the mountains of western North Carolina. Otherwise, we travel frequently, working on the bucket list and enjoying the grandchildren. Hope you are well.”

Hello, Class of 1969. Great job checking in again! Super way to start out 2024— our 55th (??) Reunion year. Hoping to see LOTS of you this Fall.

From Patricia Gray: “Here is what I am doing these days. I am president of the Beethoven Club, which is celebrating the 135th Anniversary of its founding in Memphis in October. I have been president for 10 years. I am the general director of Luna Nova Music (www.lunanova. org), a chamber music ensemble founded in 2006. We recently produced our 17th annual Belvedere Chamber Music Festival (www.belvederefestival.org).”

Homecoming/Reunion Weekend November 1 – 2, 2024 Reporter: LouAnne Crawford Cooper louanne@me.com

In the small world department, Linda Harrell Bair reports: “A story to share from the world of Asheville and Rhodes connections: I recently had GI surgery, and was amazed to discover that my primary surgeon, Dr. John Whitfield ’02, is a Rhodes graduate. What are the odds?”

Humorously, Linda also reminds us her last name is Bair—no “l,” no spinning head (in response to a typo last issue.)

Marcia Roberts Cecil shares: “I remember my two years at Southwestern (and my classmates) with fondness and nostalgia. Mary MacLaurin Arnold and I went to France for the last half of our junior year, a decision that had great impact for both of us. I married soon after my return and moved to Washington State, where I finished my degree at Pacific Lutheran University. Mary now lives in France, where she and her husband bought a 300-year-old house in 2007. I have been there several times and have just returned from a visit with her. I can say with great enthusiasm that her house in Vouvant is one of my favorite places. It’s been many years, but I welcome this opportunity to reconnect.”

Margaret Cogswell-Kolb continues with her art and says being back in NYC for a Fall 2023 show, “Feels like full circle, since I began my life in NYC many years ago just blocks away on the corner of 2nd Ave. and Houston in 1969!!! Very exciting to be back in ‘the hood’!!” She also tells us she was so pleased to be able to give back to the New York Foundation for the Arts through their online auction, particularly since they supported her with grants twice in her career.

From Hank Fonde we hear: “I am semi-retired but still advising a select few clients. Home is Jacksonville, but we

Ann Marie Hudson Hanlon and Kathie Maddux Larkin spent 10 days in Poland on a Holocaust tour in July. Both Ann Marie and Kathie taught Holocaust studies for many years and now volunteer at the Holocaust exhibit housed in the Breman Museum in midtown Atlanta. “Our trip focused on the death camps Treblinka and Belzec, and the work/death camps Majdanek and Auschwitz-Birkenau.

While all of the camps were troubling, we found Belzec to be the most disturbing.

In addition to our days at the camps, we toured the cities where the camps were located. We flew into Warsaw, where we saw remnants of the ghetto wall, some of the 90 blocks placed in remembrance of the ghetto uprising, the only functioning Jewish cemetery in Warsaw, founded in 1806 and containing the remains of the ghetto fighters, the Polin Museum, and the monuments honoring the Warsaw Uprising. Then we traveled by bus to Lublin, which is known as the Polish Oxford. The Jewish Ghetto there was in the ‘Old Town,’ which is relatively intact.

Our next stop was Zamosk, a UNESCO world heritage site, which has a beautifully restored town hall and many small shops and restaurants in its Old Town.

On the way from Zamosk to Krakow, we saw a Friar tending the children under his care at the McDonald’s where we stopped for lunch. Our final stop was Krakow, where we saw Oscar Schindler’s factory and the Jewish quarter of Kazimierz where the film was produced.

Many of our group toured the Wieliczka Salt Mine, but we found the 800 steps to

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be too daunting! Although the center of the Holocaust, Poland is a beautiful and vibrant country today. “ Bill and Stephanie Norowski Harris update us with: “We especially enjoyed this May’s Rhodes College graduation exercises, as our grandson, Logan Rayburn ’23, was among the grads. He represents the third generation in our family of Southwestern/Rhodes graduates.

“We were busy prepping for fun family activities during the week surrounding the big day. We so enjoyed hosting Logan’s ‘other’ grandparents from the Jersey Shore, Pat and Norman Merz, as well as Logan’s parents, our son, Dr. Monroe Rayburn ’91, his wife, Carlyn Merz Rayburn ’93, and their daughter, Clara, a sophomore at Vassar College. Soon after graduation, we had great fun and interest in following a three-week-long trip, planned by Logan, to visit six National Parks. He and two friends camped out all but three nights of the trip. They traveled from Memphis to California and back. The heat dome was brutal, but this trip was an amazing accomplishment. I have been dedicated to flower gardening since the age of 12. This spring, Bill and I put in our usual garden and were pleasantly surprised and honored to be awarded Yard of the Month by the Colonial Acres Neighborhood Association. We are blessed to have had such a lovely spring and summer.”

Bill Hulett says: “First, the last update allowed me to reconnect with a favorite fraternity brother, Mickey Brigance.

Had a wonderful visit with him in

Bill Hulett and wife, Karen

Germantown. Karen and I just returned from an eight-day cruise with American Cruise Lines. The trip was themed ‘Music in America’ and we traveled from Memphis to Nashville via connecting waterways. The final night was our first visit to the Grand Ol’ Opry. Sometimes real gems are right in front of you!”

From Courtland Mobley Lewis we learn: “Susan Dillard and Billy Hendrickson ’68 and Courtland and Rich Lewis participate in the annual Hospice of Wichita Falls, TX, Annual Golf Tournament. This is our 7th year to play, and we have had moderate success. Always fun.”

Claudia Oakes shares some fun reminiscences: “I really don’t have news or an event to report, but I was hit with a lovely memory of Southwestern last week. I guess it’s because I was dreaming of fall and cooler temps during our miserable heat wave. I remembered waking up on a Saturday morning in my room in the suite on the third floor of Voorhies that I shared with Sue Packer Warner and Kit Jones McDonald. It was the clink of the radiator cutting on for the first time that season. I could see through the curtains that it was a bright sunny day with a clear blue sky, and I remember thinking how perfect the weather would be for the football game that afternoon. That led me to another third floor Voorhies memory. Mary MacLaurin Arnold and Becky Wynn Weiler shared a suite near the telephone. Mary had an illegal hamster named Anastasia. I must have told Mary that I hated all forms of rodents, even supposedly little cute ones, because sometimes if she saw me standing talking on the phone in my bare feet, she would put Anastasia out in the hallway and give her a nudge toward me. So funny what memories hit you and when they pop up.”

Rebecca Welton Sumlin continues to face the challenges that so often come with a long life but with a hopeful outlook: “Sad news to report as I am on my way to NC for the funeral of my sister, who died two days ago. Since I was widowed over two years ago, I have moved into an independent retirement commu-

nity here in Naples, FL. I love it here! My church has been a great comfort for me and for that I am most grateful. No travel plans for me as my stroke last December has curtailed that. I had planned a month-long trip to NZ, but have had to cancel that for now. Maybe Israel next fall. Hope to see any fellow Rhodes classmates who might be in the area!”

Tom Teasley is settling into his new home: “Not much going on with us, except that Billy (Elliston) and I are enjoying our new home in Richmond and are beginning to explore some of the beautiful and historically rich areas near here—visiting friends in Washington, DC, and visiting gardens in Williamsburg and along the James River. Spoke at length with classmate George Elder last night—he and Suzanne are doing well.

Looking forward to visiting Memphis next year.”

Here’s Linda Emigh Warren’s update: “This is a photo of my husband, William Warren, and me at a restaurant in Quebec City in August 2023. It was part of our trip to Maine and Quebec to spend some special times with cousins. We had just celebrated our 45th wedding anniversary. William and I continue to enjoy our involvement at Balmoral Presbyterian Church (PCUSA) in Memphis, where we sing in the choir and I have completed my first year as an elder. I occasionally substitute on piano and/or organ. Our oldest grandson just started kindergarten in August 2023, and his little brother is 14 months. It is a joy to watch them grow up! Some of you reading this are Facebook friends, which is a treat for me to see your escapades and adventures! I wish all my former classmates well!”

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Peggy Fritsch Woolley also got together with Courtland Mobley Lewis and tells us: “We had a good time together at a reduced reunion. There was a plan for several of us from our class to meet at Shakertown, KY. It turns out Courtland and I were the only ones who could make it, so she stayed with me in Louisville, and we hung out, ate out, and did some touristy things. We did go to Shakertown for the day, and later the Speed Museum and the Louisville Waterfront.

Perhaps most significant was the time we spent with one of Courtland’s childhood friends, a visit to their old neighborhood, and a tour of the home where Courtland lived when I picked her up there to come to Memphis.”

John Yearwood spent the first year with us and shares his memories and some of his story: “Oh friends, you have all been on my mind lately. I remember especially those wonderful hours I spent in the library and the music room, exploring the concert grand for 5 and 10 hours a day.

studying Tennyson manuscripts. Owned a newspaper. Taught high school AP classes then became a professor of communication at Lamar University in Beaumont, TX. Retired—as many of you did—and have published four novels (City and the Gate, Gender of Fire, Icarus Jump, Jar of Pennies), finished a fifth (in more than one sense), and am working on a sixth.

Have two children and one grandchild.

Living in Austin, TX, with Steffi, my wife for 53 years, and two yappy white dogs.

Steffi is one hardheaded woman—let me tell you—which is the secret to our long marriage. Love, John” Have you noticed the authors and artists we have in our class? (Margaret Cogswell, Bob Towery, John Yearwood—I’m guessing there may well be more of you out there . . . ) You can find them online if you search.

I want to mention how many of you write to say how pleased you are to find more and more classmates reconnecting! In addition to the reports above, I also heard from Lynda Alexander, Ken Cushing, Nancy Martin Magallanes (and through her, Carol Caldwell Newman) and Doug Williams just to say thanks to all of you!!!! Keep up the joy!

1970

Reporter: If you are interested in serving as the Class of ’70 reporter, please contact alumni@rhodes.edu.

1971 John Yearwood and wife, Steffi

What a blessing. I kept my textbooks— did you? Remember calculus and that course on mathematics and culture? Occasionally, I look through my old English anthology. Lions roaring from Overton Park in the dead of night. Robb Hall.

We are moving next month, and I found my old ATO paddle with everybody’s name on it. After so long, I will keep it.

I transferred to Tulane sophomore year after busting a knee as a Lynx. Lost the other knee there, but graduated and went to U Texas for PhD in lit. Spent a year on fellowship in Cambridge, England,

Reporter: If you are interested in serving as the Class of ’71 reporter, please contact alumni@rhodes.edu.

Leigh Brasington edited several of his late meditation teacher’s talks on love into a new book titled The Path to Peace, which was recently published. This completes a trilogy of sorts on the three categories of the Buddha’s teachings: Ven. Ayya Khema’s The Path to Peace on ethical behavior, Leigh’s Right Concentration on concentration meditation practices, and his Dependent Origination and Emptiness on insights into the nature of reality. Issac Newton spent his time during the plague

of 1666 inventing calculus and explaining gravity. During the plague of 2020, Leigh only managed to write his second book—this one on the Buddhist doctrines of “Dependent Origination and Emptiness,” which is the name of his book.

He had an offer from a well-established publishing house of Buddhist books, but turned it down to self-publish and give the book away for free. He built the book using only free software tools and free translations of the Buddha’s discourses.

Transcripts of his talks on these subjects were given to him for free and lots of people edited the manuscript for free. It seemed only right that the book should be available for free to everyone who is interested. Anyone can download it from http://sodapi.leighb.com. Other than this, he’s spent the plague just hanging out in Oakland, CA, going hiking in the beautiful SF Bay Area nature, and teaching meditation retreats via Zoom.

Cary Fowler was recently elected to membership in the Council on Foreign Relations, an American think tank specializing in U.S. foreign policy and international relations.

1972

Reporter: Robin McCain robin@slmr.com Catherine Luccock writes: “I am retired after teaching for 37 years and enjoying traveling with my husband.”

1973

Reporter: Pamela McNeely Williams usafa2@sbcglobal.net

1974 50th Reunion

Homecoming/Reunion Weekend November 1 – 2, 2024 Reporter: Wendlandt Hasselle jahlove2222@yahoo.com Valerie Berlin’s painting “Be My Be My Baby” for the annual Works of Heart auction this year was on the cover of The Best Times February issue. She was quoted as saying that “it is an early sketch I did of my rescue dog, Tyrone. This is my

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bedroom from the ’70s when I moved in with the late artist, Mary Sims, to be a ‘governess’ for her daughter.”

Stratton Bull resigned from the Rhodes Board of Trustees on which he selflessly served for many years, having commuted from Natchez for meetings.

Wendlandt Hasselle’s cousin Susan Williford Montgomery ’75 came up from Greenwood one night to Burke’s Bookstore to hear their mutual cousin Richard Williford Tillinghast’s poetry reading from his latest book. Judson L. Williford ’78 and son Ethan ’17 also attended.

Wendlandt’s niece, Amanda Jean Hasselle, recently moved back to Memphis and married last fall One of the few Hasselles to not attend Rhodes, she is now a professor of psychology at Rhodes.

Old age hit with a bang eight days after her 70th birthday in late November, when Wendlandt tripped over her front door threshold and landed on her shoulder, dislocating it. After PT didn’t help, an MRI showed that surgery and intensive physical therapy would be necessary. The surgeon’s schedule would delay it until late Feb. Having already booked a trip to India to attend a friend’s wedding and the doc saying to go on since “it can’t get any worse,” she and a travel buddy went on.

“Spent a quiet week at a favorite beach in Thailand (snorkeling using one arm!) recovering from jetlag, then five weeks exploring new and old areas in NE India.

The groom’s Hindu wedding on the family farm was the highlight! So many interesting and colorful rituals we couldn’t comprehend, but we became part of the large extended family all sleeping under one roof—we had our own room, and a new western toilet had been installed just for us!! Any older women are called aunties. Only seven people spoke English. A big brass band played, and it was fabulous. We next visited a dear old friend who had finally been released from three years in prison (unjustified) and reinstated as the head of police in his state. With him, we toured a village area with the Minister of Education to view their vast progress, and we were on local TV news feeding rescued abandoned (sacred) cows.”

Far right: Wendlandt Hasselle ’74

Speaking of cows, Wendlandt got butted from behind by one outside a temple; luckily, she was not knocked down—apparently, she was in its daily path! “A week in Calcutta was a bit much, but we were glad to return to Mother Teresa’s area of ministry, having taken a slum tour the year after her Nobel prize (it looks markedly better!) and now, to visit her tomb and museum.” They had a tour of a once Methodist church only open on Sundays right across from their Salvation Army hotel where she had stayed in 1980. Nothing looked familiar—turned out it had been razed and rebuilt since that time! She is about to “graduate” from physical therapy; a long haul.

Linda Carter Butler and Debra Jackson Walden spent early March in Sedona, AZ, with side trips to the Grand Canyon and the wonderful El Tovar Lodge at the Canyon. They had great weather with no snowstorms! They have had a 53-year friendship, meeting as freshmen at Rhodes. Debra wrote, “We became roommates and fast friends despite the fact that Linda was a Kappa Delta and I was an AOII!” Their husbands also attended Rhodes. Linda lives in Birmingham, where she is a beloved grandmother, a tutor to high-risk elementary school

Linda Carter Butler and Debra Jackson Walden

children, AND a mentor to Afghani refugee families. Debra still lives in Little Rock and spends a great deal of time with her six grandchildren. She says, “We are both looking forward to our 50th class reunion in 2024!”

Larry Anderson wrote to let us know he’s still alive!

Stephanie Ryburn married Thad Rodda ’72 one week after graduation, and thus they will celebrate their golden anniversary along with our 50th class reunion in 2024! They live in Hein Park near the east gate of Rhodes, “having not wandered far.” Their two children “chose the most wonderful spouses,” each having “two

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beautiful and brilliant children ages 7, 6, 5, and 4, scattered from Minnesota to California.” Their grands enjoy playing together at the beach and other family gatherings.

Communication at the University of Texas at Austin.” (Editor’s note: John reminds us to “Be kind. Always.”)

Ron (Ronnie) Blade retired from the Ordained Ministry of the Presbyterian Church USA after 35 years of service, as well as from working at the Peninsula Pastoral Counseling Center in Newport News, VA, after 30 years. He is “looking forward to the new rhythm of the retired life.”

Reporters: Jill Fuzy Helmer jillhelmer25@gmail.com Bonnie Moore McNeely bonniemcneely2@gmail.com

SteveCathy@earthlink.com sent an automated response that one has to fill out a request form to be an approved sender in his attempt to reduce spam, so y’all have at it if you want to hear his news and have extra time on your hands!

1975

Reporter: If you are interested in serving as the Class of ’75 reporter, please contact alumni@rhodes.edu.

1976

Reporters: Julie Allen Berger jab0539@gmail.com Georgia Atkins atkins.georgia@gmail.com Leonard Ballard has been a practicing CPA in Shelbyville, KY, for 43-plus years. He writes: “When clients ask if I’m going to retire, I tell them I still enjoy what I do and will continue, just doing less. I hand off most new clients to others in the office in order to focus on those in hospice care and/or on life support. Daughter McKenzie (27) is an attorney with the State of Kentucky.

Son Matthew (25) is an accountant with Price Waterhouse, looking to get his CPA shortly. I have a stepdaughter, Kirstie, and step-granddaughter, Kamden, age 15. I hobby-farmed for many years: cattle and sheep. Down to five acres, two dogs, and one cat. Still play a little golf. My wife Debbie of 30 years and I now try to take one out of country trip per year.

July (2023) was a river cruise, Budapest to Amsterdam. We are pictured here in Wurzburg, Germany. When in Cologne,

1977

Leonard Ballard ’76 and wife, Debbie

Germany, I took a misstep and required some stitches and X-rays. I can report that Germany has an excellent healthcare system, reasonably priced. I have been lucky, blessed with good health, overpaid for what I do, and nothing in the bucket list of wants. Anybody passing through Shelbyville, stop by”.

From Paula Beck comes this update: “I retired last year after 40 years in banking and corporate America. My husband and I live in Hoover, AL, in a great house my architect husband designed. We raised two amazing sons, who now both live in Austin, TX. Later this year we look forward to our first grandchild and our older son’s wedding. Retirement has been a blast so far, with lots of travel and concert-going to hear our favorite aging rock bands (Doobie Brothers, Hall and Oats, Jeff Beck—before he died—and ZZ Top!) Next year we are celebrating our 40th wedding anniversary in France. Hope all my classmates are enjoying life as much as I am!”

John Brejot writes: “My wife and I are leaving Austin after almost 15 years to live in the mountains of North Carolina outside of Asheville. Time to get back to four seasons in a progressive community.

If you live in the area let me know so we can meet up. Barb will continue to teach yoga and provide sound therapy and I still fundraise for the Moody College of

Bill Hulsey has received the Economic Development Professional (EDP) designation to complement his existing designation (2021) as a Certified Economic Developer (CEcD) from the International Economic Development Council (IEDC) in Washington, DC. The EDP designation recognizes professional experience and professionalism in economic development through entrepreneurship, innovation, and capital formation serving startup companies and technology clusters supporting regional economic development. His intellectual property law firm, HULSEY PC, was recognized by The Better Business Bureau for completing 10 years as an “A+” designated company. The year 2023 marks 20 years of practice for HULSEY PC, which now serves inventors and entrepreneurs through offices in Tulsa, OK; Bentonville, AR; Memphis, TN; Birmingham, AL; Ridgeland, MS; and Austin, TX, and maintains a client base of over 600 active clients. Bill serves on the Board for the Heart of Texas Chapter of The Military Officers Association of America (MOAA) and the Waco, TX, chapter of Rotary International. This fall, Bill began an Online Master’s of Science in Nuclear Engineering at Texas A&M University and has been approved to take the Professional Engineers (P.E.) Examination in Nuclear Engineering in the State of Texas, refreshing and putting into action his earlier training as a U.S. Navy nuclear submarine officer. He was named “Lawyer of The Year” in Patent Law by the Top 100 Lawyers of America Registry. He sings as a tenor in the St. Alban’s Episcopal Church (Waco) semi-professional choir and Central Texas Choral Society, where he and wife Donna Bell Hulsey ’78 now reside. In September, Bill and Donna travel to Italy, where Donna will present papers on educating gifted students

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as part of her Ph.D. activities with Baylor University’s Graduate School of Education Psychology.

Retirement has kept Lyn Burdette Johnson of Knoxville as busy as she was during her career. Outdoor activities, including rowing with the Oakridge Rowing Club, volunteering, auditing UTK classes (and sitting on the back row), Mahjong, and time spent with her 5-year-old grandson have more than filled her days and kept her active. Lyn’s husband, Jeff, a book collector, is working part-time at a book shop for rare and used books. This fall they are planning a trip to New York where Jeff will have an exhibit of some of his rare books at the Grolier Club. When asked for one of her favorite Southwestern/Rhodes memories, Lyn responded it was a third-term sailing class. All she remembers is a muddy lake (probably Sardis Lake), no wind, insufferable heat, and actually getting credit for it!

Walt and Annie Stein McCanless write they are adjusting to Louisville, KY, by making new friends, learning the politics, and trying to figure out the weather!

They’ve enjoyed birding, lots of walking, reading, and discovering new restaurants.

It has been a wonderful move for them, with two of their four children as well as two grandsons living nearby.

Bonnie Moore McNeely believes carpe diem best describes life post-COVID. “Fall of 2022 my husband and I finally

Bonnie Moore McNeely ’77 and daughter Elizabeth McNeely ’16 with Peruvian llama family at Machu Picchu in July 2023

took our long-awaited trip to Italy, followed by a wonderful weekend in Memphis for our Class of ’77 reunion. Kudos to our class organizers for a fun evening of fellowship in Hardy Auditorium. In 2023 we have continued to make up for lost time with an amazing trip to Ireland and Oxford, England. (To all former BSAO students, it’s still a beautiful city of spires, colleges, and pubs, but the Morse, Lewis and Endeavor sites add another dimension of enjoyment to the epic University! Long live the Turf Tavern.) Two months after Ireland we enjoyed a grand adventure to Peru planned by our daughter, Elizabeth McNeely ’16. The fabulous food, friendly people, and in-depth Incan history were

truly a revelation. By the time this is published, I will have completed two Rhodes girls’ trips to Santa Fe and San Francisco in the fall. In between trips I continue gardening, reading, working out, and zooming with Rhodes besties.”

Richard Nutting always looks forward to the wonderful week he shares every April with fellow Southwestern at Memphis brothers. Since 2016, Phil Mulkey has been host to his former football teammates to watch the NFL draft from his Pensacola Beach condominium. Only missing 2020 due to COVID, teammates Mike Posey ’78, Joe Badgett ’78, Conrad Bradburn ’77, Jerry Hampton ’79, and Gary Graham ’80 take full advantage

Left to right: Mike Posey ’78, Joe Badgett ’78, Conrad Bradburn ’77, Phil Mulkey ’77, Jerry Hampton ’79, Gary Graham ’80, and Richard Nutting ’77

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of the week playing a lot of golf, indulging in wonderful culinary experiences, playing gin, and telling stories from those past days—which become more hilarious every year.

Michael Pearigen and fellow Rhodes Pike Nashville alumni Tom Baker, John Edmunds ’76, David Green ’78, and Monty Smith ’78 from Tullahoma, recently gathered for a Friday Happy Hour at Nashville sports bar Hi-Fi Clyde’s to reminisce and tell lies. This followed a similar gathering earlier in the year. They are hoping to make this a quarterly event.

Realtor, preacher, pastor, wife, and mother are all hats Memphian Denise Springfield Richardson wears. She is happy to report that she and husband of 38 years, Stanley, have survived raising a blended family of five—four boys and a girl. Her real estate career began shortly after graduating and then in 2007 she became a gospel preacher. As of spring 2021 Denise also serves as pastor in the African Methodist Episcopal Church.

Nell Sistrunk Schwartz and husband Jon are still in Sugar Land, TX, where they celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary and followed up with a trip to Athens and the Greek islands. The fabulous trip included swimming and sailing in the Aegean Sea, roaming around the Acropolis, exploring Minoan ruins (Jon is an armchair archeologist), and dining on souvlaki to their hearts’ content. To help endure the triple digits of the Texas heat, they’re busy planning a trip for fall ’23 to Maine, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick.

Nell is on the board of East Fort Bend Human Needs Ministry and enjoys working at their food pantry. She has remained active at church and recently had two opportunities to preach. Her passion for dogs is fulfilled by doing virtual home visits for prospective adopters through Texas Cattle Dog Rescue, as well as fostering these beautiful animals. She is currently enjoying her eighth cattle dog, Bandit.

Reading, cooking, and life in general keep her as busy as she wants to be.

John and Amelie Christian Weems were in Memphis last July to attend a wedding that could possibly be considered an alumni event. Also in attendance at the

marriage of their niece Maggie Bradley ’18 was niece Page Williams ’93, as well as their own daughter Anne Weems Raffety ’12.

Ace Martin reports that she is “enjoying the free tai chi classes in Overton Park along with a few Rhodes College students who are joining the classes.”

Escaping the sweltering temperatures of Florida, Pat Williams and wife Liz spent the month of July in Cashiers, NC. They had a wonderful time entertaining friends, their adult children, and their four grandchildren (with another on the way). Days were spent hiking, swimming, and of course, gem mining—sadly, no major gems were found. Pleasing the card enthusiasts, time was also found for several hands of bridge.

Dan Searight writes: “For a little trivial background, my actual class was ’77, but I graduated in ’78. Victory lap of sorts. I couldn’t make the ’77 reunion last year, so I will hang out with my fellow grads.

It will be fun to see the campus and catch the game. I have been there in the last few years, and I am amazed at the growth.

The SAE house was still a wreck and I wonder if they are still on campus. I try to forget the foolishness that was my time there, but my liberal arts degree/English Lit was worth it and prepared me for really nothing. I luckily ended up at the University of Texas Graduate School of Architecture, back in my hometown of Austin. I now work in Dallas. I am single, a widower actually, but happily dating.

Perhaps I can convince her to attend with me. That might be terribly boring for her or maybe not.”

1978

Reporter: Sandy Schaeffer sandeford.schaeffer@gmail.com Paul Renfroe and his wife of 44 years, Diane, live in the Destin, FL, area where he nurtures several streams of business revenue. Paul has six books on the market in the genre of Christian non-fiction and Bible study. He is often interviewed by broadcasters after his latest release, the third of his nine-book Unseen Series, Nobody Sees This Creation: The Origin of the Devil and His Replacements. Book One in the series recently won first prize in a nationwide reader-judged contest. Paul’s passion is to help people discover their full function as a living human spirit from the pages of the Bible. He and Diane have two grown sons and one grandson.

Beth Deming Schaeffer has retired from St. Jude Hospital after 15 years of helping the hospital provide educational content across the globe. She had been directing the Cure4Kids website as part of the hospital’s Global Pediatric Medicine initiative. While she may return to some type of part-time work in 2024, her attention can now center on two grandchildren and art (both of which are rather more fun than online education and technology.)

Sandy Schaeffer is not yet joining Beth in retirement. Instead, his plan is to continue (for a while) as a faculty member in the MIS department at the University of Memphis, where he teaches data analytics to undergraduate students and coordinates the graduate program in MIS.

Carol Fuqua Koenig and husband, Steve, have owned a travel agency called Group Trek Travel since 2001. “We have the great fortune of escorting groups all over the world. We manage a travel club called the Barefoot Gang and vacation with our best friends to all kinds of exotic destinations and have many more on their bucket list. We have three wonderful and successful kids and two grandkids and have lived in Franklin, TN, for over 40 years.” For more info visit www. grouptrektravel.com.

Holton Bruce Guyton, who retired last year after 20 years as a Federal Judge, recently accepted an offer from the mayor of Knoxville to become Deputy Chief of the Knoxville Police Department. Bruce’s primary responsibility is to lead the KPD’s Office of Professional Standards, with a focus on developing improved policies and procedures.

Chuck Cobb was on campus recently.

“We attended the Rhodes Cross Country Invitational on Saturday, Sept. 16, 2023.

Congratulations to Coach Robert Shankman ’80 upon a successful event.”

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After graduation Madge Wilson Cleveland worked in Lamar Alexander’s gubernatorial campaign and then in his administration for five years. After that, she returned to Knoxville, where she stayed active in politics, working in Mayor Victor Ashe’s campaigns and administrations. She moved into political and business public relations. At this point, she is very happily retired. Madge was married to Barry Cleveland for 30 years. He died in 2017.

Madge uses her time now to travel, read, and dote on her pet Doberman, and loves cooking, and being with friends. Madge is pumped about coming to the 45th reunion this year!

Iceland, where we are on our first international trip since COVID. Both our sons got married last year and we visit them often, one now in Boston and the other in DC.” Ray Gilmer (below): “My wife, Eileen, and I have relocated to Crozet, VA, from Falls Church. Eileen, a pastor in the United Methodist Church, has accepted a new assignment in the area and I am winding down from daily work responsibilities (marketing/communications) and looking

1979 45th Reunion

Homecoming/Reunion Weekend November 1 – 2, 2024 Reporter: Mary Palmer mpalmerc@comcast.net In response to a request for class info on the day of the deadline for submissions, your recalcitrant class reporter received a record number of submissions. I also have a few new emails, but an increasing number of returned undeliverable. If you are not getting my newsie requests for news, please send an updated e-mail to alumni@ rhodes.edu or mpalmerc@comcast.net.

We have a 45th Reunion upcoming! forward to spending most of my time not working. We don’t miss the DC metro traffic at all. Our daughter, son-in-law, and granddaughter (age two) live nearby, so we’re enjoying that very much.”

Sandy Deeser Branch: “We retired eight years ago and moved to Kona on the Big Island of Hawaii. Most days find us out on the water—paddling outriggers, snorkeling, or swimming—or at home watching the sunset. We’ve loved every minute of it!”

Catherine Caldwell Eagles: “I am still working as a federal district judge in the Middle District of North Carolina and recently assumed chief judge’s duties.

Bill and I celebrated our 40th wedding anniversary last week. I write this from

Helen Ronderos: “I’m one of those classmates that always reads the alumni news but never contributes. Guess it is time to at least let everyone know that I am still out here. After 20 years in the nonprofit world helping low-income families pay for childcare services I retired, and within two months joined Medicare, sold my house, and moved across the state. Not something I would encourage anyone to do. I now live in Flower Mound, TX, (outside of Dallas) and am enjoying playing with grandchildren. One is our own family miracle; born at 23 weeks, he is now a very active, thriving 22-month-old. I

take care of him three days a week—so amazing, wonderful, and tiring all at the same time.”

Terry Ragan: “I recently retired from my job at the U.S. DOT’s Volpe Center where I worked on innovative financing for infrastructure projects. I continue to teach part-time at Boston University in the City Planning and Urban Affairs department. Trudy (Gertrude Palmer-Ball ’82) and I celebrated in February our 30th year living in our Victorian house in Cambridge, MA. All three kids have graduated college and are busy with their careers and life—two in Cambridge and one in Brooklyn. I see Deck Rees every now and then and keep up with Kathy Bruce. Other than that, I don’t run into too many Rhodes people up here. If you ever find yourself in the Boston area, look us up and we will take you out for a lobster sandwich and a bowl of chowder.”

Barney Stengle: “I’m still enjoying employment in sales management at Cengage Learning, a higher education technology and publishing company. My wife, Julie, retired from full-time teaching in May, but is barely finding time for all her other activities. Our son moved to Denver this year and is enjoying activities that the Rockies can provide—skiing, hiking, trout fishing, and camping. We will connect with him in January for a week of skiing at Winter Park. We have now been in Cincinnati for 35 years and continue to love the city. This year we spent a week in Amboise, France, visiting chateaux and Loire Valley wineries. I also schedule a week of backpacking every summer—this year on a section of the Appalachian Trail in NE Tennessee.”

1980

Reporter: If you are interested in serving as the Class of ’80 reporter, please contact alumni@rhodes.edu.

1981

Reporter: Sherri Godi Madden rhodesalum81@gmail.com Beth Patton Allen: “I am married to a Presbyterian Minister, and we live in Roanoke, VA, where he is senior pastor

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at Covenant Presbyterian Church. I have a wonderful job/ministry as Activities Coordinator at a Continuing Care Retirement Community in downtown Roanoke. Each day I strive to give our senior adults a meaningful quality of life and assist them in being part of the larger community! I thoroughly enjoy this job!

We have three children. The oldest one is married and we just welcomed our second grandchild into the world in Charlotte, NC. This summer my husband and I traveled to Nova Scotia, Canada. A trip full of beautiful sights and fun outdoor adventures!!!”

Rusty Robinson: “Beth Vensel Robinson and I have now been married for 42 years, have four kids, a son-in-law, and a grandchild on the way. I am retiring from Tulane School of Medicine/Cancer Center as of March 2024, but am starting a second career!

I (actually, we—Beth and I) are now owners of a live music club/ restaurant in Orange Beach, AL, called D Macs-Orange Beach. We had our Grand Opening on 8-12-23 with Chapel Hart (recent finalist on America’s Got Talent) as the headliner. We had a turn-away crowd and are excited about this new venture. Beth and I are planning to buy a place in the Orange Beach area in early 2024, but will also keep an apartment/condo in New Orleans for Mardi Gras, Tulane Football, grandkids, etc. We have also declared D Macs-Orange Beach to be the “official” headquarters/hangout of Rhodes College on the Gulf Coast! So, all Rhodes College alumni/faculty/students are invited to come see us. Let us know when you are coming, (so we can be there to meet you) and plan on sampling our outstanding menu and terrific live music calendar.

The address of D Macs-Orange Beach is 24821 Canal Rd, which is less than 10 minutes driving from most of the beach condos and hotels.”

Janet Mosby: “I am still busy working from home for Dane Street. I think we have all the remodeling done at my parents’ house. Our latest purchase was a full house generator that got connected the day before the big storms in Memphis.

I have taken up pickleball and spend as much time as I can with our five, soon to be six grandkids.”

Neville Carson: “Heading for Scotland in September for a 10-day tour.

Can’t wait!”

MaryKay Loss Carlson: I have been selected as one of People Asia magazine’s “Women of Style and Substance.”

old times, saw the Barbie movie together, and Lou, VA, Miranda, Mary, and Emily took a trip up to Crystal Bridges in NW Arkansas. Great to reconnect with gal pals for the ‘Barbie Rhodes’ edition!”

Pat Dempsey: “My wife and I are both retired, living in Little Rock and enjoying spending time with our kids and grandkids. The highlight is our 4-year-old twin grandchildren. They are here in Little Rock, so we get to see them a lot! They just started pre-K at Ferncliff Nature school and are having a great time playing in the dirt! We also enjoy visiting our oldest daughter in Birmingham and middle daughter in Mexico Beach, FL. The rest of our time is filled with playing golf, hanging out at Greers Ferry Lake, and volunteer work with our church.”

Also from MaryKay: “A fun impromptu reunion of friends in Little Rock in mid-July happened with Class of ’81 friends Lou Henslee, Virginia Leslie Phillips Hubbert: Marr Yeatman, Miranda “I attended my father’s 90th Fontaine, Mary Kelton birthday party in August MaryKay Loss Carlson ’81 Bridges, and Emily in Baton Rouge, LA. I am Parke. They were joined enjoying the first few weeks by a few gals from the Class of ’82: Karen of my new life as a retired teacher. I Loss, Sarah Lewis James, and Linda spent 25 years teaching music, English to Baird Newbern. We reminisced about newcomers, and ultimately 3rd grade for

Left to right: Emily Parke, Virginia Marr Yeatman, Lou Henslee, Mary Kelton Bridges, and Miranda Fontaine at Crystal Bridges in NW Arkansas

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beautiful mountain range on a sunny day in September. Sorority sisters . . . AOT KD sista!!! SO VERY HAPPY TO SEE YOU, MARY!”

1982

Reporter: Margaret Fain mfain@sc.rr.com

the last six years of my career. It was very rewarding, but I am very glad to be retired. (See photo above) Taylor is holding a copy of the book he just published (yay!), Queen of the Clouds. It is a documentary about two women aviators in the 1960s who both circumnavigated the world. The Phillips Family is extremely proud of him.

Good thing I am retired because otherwise I would have missed work during the first week of school just so that I could be at the reunion! I look forward to more travel in the very near future.”

Sally Jones Heinz: “We knew it would be a real adventure when my husband, Brad, and I signed up for RAGBRAI 2023, The Registers Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa. Seven days of riding from Sioux City to Davenport with routes of 50 to 100 miles each day. We planned and we trained, but I don’t know if anything could have prepared us for the great big experience that RAGBRAI turned out to be. So many riders—29,000 registered!

So HOT. Temperatures in the 90s almost every day. Lines. Long lines for everything—food, water, bike pumps, and porta-potties. Hills. Yes, Iowa is hilly. But also—being part of a great big mass of cyclists with the joint goal of making it to the next town—amazing. Beautiful Iowa scenery, delightful small towns, fun food, and random encounters with friendly people along the way. In the end, we did not ride every day. The extreme heat per-

suaded us that four days of cycling was our limit. On the final day of riding, we dipped our tires in the Mississippi River.

As we thought, RAGBRAI was a great adventure.”

From Adrianne Alexander Hays: “Hiking in Teton National Forest around Jenny Lake today and I look over at a fellow hiker . . . vague recognition registers . . . so I ask, ‘Did you go to Southwestern?’

She responds ‘Adrianne?’ LOVED crossing paths with Mary Bryan Fortin ’82 today on the trail . . . middle of a

Mary Bryan Fortin ’82 and Adrianne Alexander Hays ’81

Stephanie “Dug” Bankston Adams reports that her husband, John Adams ’81, is the president of Conrad Pearson Clinic in Germantown, TN. “Our son, John R. Adams, III, got married to Sara Weddington on December 10, 2016. We have a granddaughter, born May 4, 2021.

Her name is Emory Catherine Adams.

Our daughter, Heather, got married March 12, 2023, to Michael Wascom, an electrical engineer, in Baton Rouge. We are blessed!”

Susan Haley Betts remarried in 2010 after being a single mother of two teens for 10 years. “I’m living in Little Rock, AR, with my husband Mark. I had been a corporate trust officer in the mid-80s to mid-90s, worked for a coffee distributor, security company, and an estate sale/auction house. I have lived in eight different states since 1982! My sons are grown and happy, and I have several grandchildren.

I was recently elected president of the Arkansas chapter of the National Society of Colonial Dames of America, an office I will hold for two years. I was sad to miss my 40th reunion last year at Rhodes—I had a scheduling conflict. I hope everyone is enjoying life as we all approach one of those milestone birthdays that ends in a 5 in the next 2 years.”

Mitchell Childress reports: “I’ve been working as an archaeologist for most of my career since majoring in Anthropology at Southwestern. My favorite and most influential professors were Pete (Cultural Anthropology) and Carol Ekstrom (Geology). Our spring semester class trip to the archaeological sites and geological features of the desert southwest was the highlight of my academic experience. I went on to do graduate studies at several schools including Washington State University, Memphis State University, and the University of Alabama. I’ve conducted

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Livy Brien: “My son, Peyton, graduated Class of ’23, and is a third-generation alum, after my father, Neal Brien, Class of ’40. Professionally, I am serving as president of the Tennessee Radiological Society. I was inducted as a fellow of the American College of Radiology at the annual meeting in Washington, DC.”

Mitchell Childress ’82

most of my fieldwork in the southeastern United States, the Caribbean, and northern California. I’m currently working as the archaeologist and historic preservation specialist for the U.S. Department of Energy-Southwestern Power Administration. I manage the cultural resource sites within our electrical transmission network in Arkansas, Missouri, and Oklahoma (above photo is of a day of fieldwork in the southern Boston Mountains of eastern Oklahoma, winter 2022). Although I have an office at our Jonesboro, AR, facility, I do most of my daily work from my Forest Avenue home office just a few blocks from Rhodes.

“My wonderful wife Sandy is a veteran pediatric nurse and the transplant coordinator at Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital.

We are members of St. John Orthodox Church on Tutwiler and focus most of our leisure and social activities on mid-town and the Evergreen neighborhood. I have four beautiful daughters, nine grandchildren, and a goddaughter in Tennessee, North Carolina, and New Jersey.”

Joe ’84 and Becky Butler Chickey have been together 41 years and married for 38. “We’ve had many adventures over the years, living in Chicago for a decade, and Nashville for the last 25 years. But we decided it was time for a new adventure, particularly now that our sons, Patrick (24) and Thomas (27), are ‘launched.’

So, we listened to the calling of the mountains and recently moved to Asheville. If you are curious as to why . . . simply check out the view! We both still love our work—Becky as the senior director of Behavioral Health for the American Hospital Association, and Joe as the senior vice president at the Sharpe Group. Asheville simply gives us more opportunities to enjoy a real work/life balance.”

1983

Reporter: Ted de Villafranca edevillafranca@gmail.com

1984 40th Reunion

Homecoming/Reunion Weekend November 1 – 2, 2024 Reporter: Linda Odom linda.odom@klgates.com

1985

Reporter: Ann Webb Betty 11webby@gmail.com I guess I can add that I have been an Election Official-Election Officer with the Davidson County Election commission— working every election starting with November 2020. It makes for a VERY long day but is a rewarding experience with the goal that everyone who walks in the door to vote on election day gets to vote.

Peggy Wood Townsend left her position as long-time Director of Public Art for the City of Chattanooga several years ago to focus full-time on her business. For the past 13 years, she and her husband, Stan, have owned and operated an independent art school, art materials store, and gallery in downtown Chattanooga called Townsend Atelier (www.townsendatelier. com). The atelier offers classes year-round in painting, drawing, sculpture, printmaking, and collage to beginners and seasoned artists. Professional artists from Chattanooga and from all over the world come to teach at the atelier. Peggy’s Bellingrath roommate during sophomore year, Ashley Richardson Sheridan ’86, traveled all the way from Wisconsin last year to take a three-day painting class and it was fantastic to reconnect with her and their third roommate in crime, Charlotte P. Sargent ’86, who also lives in Chattanooga. “Loads of laughs were had and we all agreed that there are no friends truer and better than college friends.”

Beth Baxter and Martha Hample have also been to Chattanooga to visit on numerous occasions where Martha fired up the guitar and can still harmonize to “California Dreaming” with Peggy. Peggy and Stan’s son, Samuel, is in his final year at UTK’s college of Architecture and Design and when he is not in class, he can be found rock climbing. This year, Peggy and her husband were recognized as 2023 recipients of the annual Ruth Holmberg Arts Leadership Award by Arts Build. The award recognizes individuals who have made significant contributions to the arts in Chattanooga and who are actively engaged in the cultural life of the community—“Arts Builders” who exemplify ArtsBuild’s mission to build a stronger community through the arts as demonstrated by their significant contributions to the arts and their leadership.

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Beth Baxter is busy with her private practice in psychiatry in Nashville and Hendersonville, a neighboring community of Nashville. She enjoys this, as well as baking, knitting, and being with cats, parents, and friends. She attends church at Hillsboro Presbyterian Church with Ann Webb Betty and stays in touch with Jeff and Nikki Wright, as well as Peggy Wood Townsend. She continues to speak in public about her struggles with and recovery from serious mental illness.

1986

Reporter: If you are interested in serving as the Class of ’86 reporter, please contact alumni@rhodes.edu.

health programs to protect the health and safety of our own healthcare workers, an activity that is always important but certainly was in the limelight in the pandemic. I’m also on the Board of Directors of the American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine. We’ve finally acclimated to the MN winters, where several feet of snow cover is the norm from January through March. This photo below was taken April 22, 2022, on a visit to St. Paul, and as you see by my down coat, the temperature was still frigid. That’s F. Scott Fitzgerald next to me, by the way, a Minnesota native. This fall my dear husband, John Stafford, and I celebrate our 33rd anniversary,

1987

Reporter: Mimi Swords Fondren mimifondren@outlook.com Laura McKinney recently joined Moses Tucker Partners, a commercial real estate and development firm in Little Rock, as Executive Vice President of Development. Her first projects include the extensive renovation of the historic Boyle Building in downtown Little Rock, which was built in 1909 as the State Bank Building, as well as development of schools for veterinary medicine and dental medicine for Lyon College on the Heifer International campus in the East Village neighborhood. And speaking of renovation, Laura’s house was a victim of the March 31 tornado in Little Rock, and as of the end of August she was still working on getting it repaired.

From Melanie Swift, MD, MPH: “I may have previously reported that in 2017 we moved to Rochester, MN, home of the Mayo Clinic. Since moving here, I got a Master’s of Public Health at the University of MN, and became board certified in Occupational Medicine in addition to Internal Medicine. My job at Mayo involves a variety of clinical, academic, and administrative roles, and I enjoy that variety. I provide medical direction for our Physician Health Center, caring for doctors from across the US with complex medical problems impacting their ability to practice. I also oversee occupational

Kitty Riley Scrip ’87 and daughter, Erin

having people of all ages out on the dance floor all evening. The happy couple lives in DC.

and our son will turn 30! All in all, life since Rhodes has been kind to me, and it seems to continually offer new avenues to explore. For any classmates wishing to stay in contact, my email is stafford. swift@gmail.com and I’m on LinkedIn. (I recently deleted Facebook on general principle. That felt liberating!)

Kitty Riley Scrip ’87 and Allan Bacon ’88 “celebrated the wedding of our oldest daughter, Erin, last May to Ethan Cohen.

It was a joyous occasion for all of the families as we celebrated these two wonderful people. The wedding was beautiful, as was the bride, and so much fun! The band that performed at the reception was great,

“My husband, Bill, and I also purchased our second home last winter in Alexandria, VA. This puts us close to Erin in DC and my daughter Meg, who lives in Richmond. It makes visits to see them much easier and more frequent. We love Alexandria! My other daughter, Kate, has just begun her senior year at UAH and will graduate in the spring with a major in psychology and a minor in art.”

1988

Reporter: Brooke Glover Emery brookegemery@gmail.com

1989 35th Reunion

Homecoming/Reunion Weekend November 1 – 2, 2024 Reporter: Julianne Johnson Paunescu jpaunescu@yahoo.com Several Class of 1989 colleagues are transitioning from a focus on career to taking what they’ve learned from Rhodes and

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their experiences since and serving others.

Chad Schultz has been taking time off from work to spend with family and was inspired to bring the healing power of music to Nashville’s Covenant School, where his five-year-old son Stephen attends, after the horrible shooting that happened there. Chad, a former executive at Warner Music Nashville, co-produced a back-to-school benefit at the Grand Ole Opry House to help the school raise needed funds for ongoing mental health counseling for both faculty and families, as well as equipping teachers in their new temporary classrooms and then back in the Burton Hills campus. He was able to recruit leading country and Christian talents like Jason Aldean, Morgan Wallen, and Wynona Judd to participate. Circle TV turned it into a TV special that aired several times over a week and streamed in over 100 countries. The concert, which sold out in about two hours, raised more than $500,000. If anyone has interest in donating, you can still help via https:// factsmgtadmin.com/give/appeal/rKu4cLiGd. Bob Coleman retired earlier this year after almost 34 years in public finance investment banking with Raymond James | Morgan Keegan. He is now serving as the chief operating officer of Second Presbyterian Church in Memphis, where he has been a member for over 40 years, having held leadership positions there for much of that time. Bob reports that he is “immensely grateful for the opportunities and relationships I’ve enjoyed during my tenure at Raymond James and am excited to have been called to a deeper level of service for the church that has been such a blessing to three generations of my family.”

Citing his past professors at Rhodes as examples of the importance of passing on knowledge, David Jones, a senior physician partner at the Bone and Joint Surgery Clinic in Raleigh, has started devoting more time to teaching and passing the torch (sometimes) to the newer orthopedists in the group. In addition, he has started on the Peer Review Board for a journal in the field known as the Blue Journal of Orthopedics. David has one

child working in IT in Denver and another finishing musical theater in Ithaca, NY. He and his wife Shawna recently celebrated “28 wonderful years” of marriage by wake surfing on Lake Gaston in North Carolina and plan to travel to New Zealand next spring, where they will run the Hobbiton half marathon—not for time, but for pints! He invites his classmates who are LOTR fans to come and join them.

1990

Reporter: Trish Puryear Crist nashvilletrish@gmail.com Kevin Collier, now the Manager of Campus Scheduling at Rhodes, has been named the Chair of the newly formed Rhodes Staff Advisory Council. The Council is charged with representing the voice of the staff at large to the President’s Office, the Senior Leadership Team, and the Board of Trustees.

After 13 years serving as the director of Creative and Visual Services at Middle Tennessee State University, Kara Hooper was named Senior Director of Marketing for MTSU. This is the result of the creative office and the marketing office merging for greater resource sharing and integration between the two areas.

A reminder from Trish Puryear Crist: “Any of you who aren’t in the Class of ’90 private Facebook group—and who want to be—search for “Rhodes Class of 1990.”

If you have trouble finding it, just let me know.”

Brad Shelton says: “To quote Mike Tyson, ‘Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face . . . ’ After preparing to relocate to Amsterdam this year, the project taking us there got killed in post-pandemic inflation woes. Instead, I spent last fall moving my parents from their home of 30 years in Tennessee into an assisted living facility five minutes from our house in Los Angeles (just two days after my wife and I had finally become empty-nesters). It’s been intense and disconcerting and lovely all at the same time and has reconfirmed for me how lucky I am to have married well, as most of the burden has fallen on my wife, Miki,

while I gallivant around the world for my job. Travels have taken me to Switzerland, Scotland, the Netherlands, Germany, Poland, the UAE, the UK, NYC, Washington, DC, Idaho, Utah, Kansas City, Austin, Nashville, and Las Vegas, and I should have some cool projects opening up in the next year or so with the Formula 1 track in Austin, with the Raiders in Vegas, and hopefully in Liverpool (and we just got awarded the U.S. Pavilion for the 2025 World Expo in Osaka!). We’ve also got a kid back in the house: Our son, who had hoped to take a gap year before going off to college but couldn’t due to post-COVID college restrictions, is back home for a year learning about the ways of the world as he works at Chick-fil-A during the day and navigates the wilds of Hollywood at night. If you’re coming to LA, please drop me a line—we love any and all visitors!”

Kirsten Williams Schwehm says, “Our daughter, Olivia Schwehm ’26, is now a sophomore at Rhodes! Last fall when she moved in, my freshman (and sophomore) roomie, Frances Buford Hays, and I were able to visit Bellingrath 312, our freshman dorm room!”

Robert Swords reports: “After 21 years, I retired from my private practice and went to work for the Bureau of Prisons as a physician and federal law enforcement officer. I was the oldest person in my class at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center but passed the physical performance requirements and firearms training. I have been at my new job for a little over a year now and am working with great people and learning something new every day.”

Jean Sulzby Jones has a book coming out. For Style That Endures: 30 Years of

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Jean Jones celebrates the 30th anniversary of her business. Jean began designing and sewing garments in grade school and worked as a production weaver after college, after first learning to weave in her Fiber Arts class at Rhodes! She launched her first label, Jean Jones Handwovens, when she was 25, and ultimately went on to develop her current independent fashion label, Jean Jones. You can find her online at jeanjones.com.

Megan Jones writes: “Greetings from the high desert of Santa Fe! After a couple of decades in Memphis, I moved to Oakland to start the next chapter of my life. There I explored a variety of interests and career options (produced a public radio documentary, worked for Al Jazeera Media to launch a podcast network, became EY’s first storyteller) and met my love, Les Stuck. I moved to Santa Fe with Les and our cat, Helliott, in August 2019, as we both were working for Meow Wolf (yep, that’s the real name of the company, IYKYK). The pandemic separated me from Meow Wolf, and so I created a couple of interactive art projects and then started remote work for a Swiss pharmaceutical company. One of the most enjoyable and sentimental outcomes of that time at home was reconnecting with dear fellow alums Dana Harmon Hunter, Carolyn Tatum Ray, Web Webster, and Michael James when we had our own virtual 30-year mini-reunion. Last year Les and I did the thing and bought a home in Santa Fe. Les still works at Meow Wolf, and September 2023 finds me enrolled in a New Mexico Master Naturalist program and starting a new job at Project ECHO with the University of New Mexico. There’s lots of reasons to come visit Santa Fe—get in touch with me and I’ll be happy to hang out and tell you all the best things to do and eat and see.”

1991

Reporter: If you are interested in serving as the Class of ’91 reporter, please contact alumni@rhodes.edu.

Keith Arnold has accepted a one-year appointment as Acting Director of Music and Arts at All Souls Church Unitarian in Washington, DC.

1992

Reporter: Sara Hawks Marecki saramarecki@sbcglobal.net Cris Champlain Howard just finished an epic adventure after she quit her executive job last March and hiked the entire Appalachian Trail from April to September!

The Rhodes Outdoor Club invited her back to campus to hear about her adventure.

1993

Reporter: Wendy Mullins wendy.mullins@yahoo.com

1994 30th Reunion

institutional development and previously spent more than 10 years at Columbus State as a faculty member and administrator. Stuart most recently served as USG’s interim executive vice chancellor for academic affairs and has been interim president of three USG institutions during her 17-year career with the university system.

“I’m thrilled to return to Columbus State University as its next president. With its deep ties to the Chattahoochee Valley community, including Fort Benning, Columbus State is the driver of the region’s workforce and is poised to lead and partner with other entities to meet the demands of an ever-changing economy,” Stuart said. “My family and I have called Columbus home for almost 20 years, and we look forward to supporting its future.

This role is personal for me. I know from experience how much hard work has gone into building this institution into what it is today, a destination in Georgia and beyond. As we look to the future, I am convinced Columbus State will continue to reflect the innovative spirit of the region and I’m eager to join them on that journey.”

1996

Reporter: Jennifer Larson larson_jennifer@yahoo.com

Homecoming/Reunion Weekend November 1 – 2, 2024 Reporter: Judy Brown judyporterbrown@gmail.com

1997

1995

1998

Reporter: Sarah Hall Stump sarahhallstump@icloud.com The Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia (USG) has named Dr. Stuart Rayfield president of Columbus State University, effective July 1, 2023. Stuart currently serves as USG’s vice chancellor for leadership and

Reporter: If you are interested in serving as the Class of ’97 reporter, please contact alumni@rhodes.edu.

Reporter: Susan Meredith Meyers susanmeyers26.2@gmail.com Jennie Wingad welcomed a new baby boy, Bobby Dean, on May 15, 2023!

Kimberly Pillsbury Eller, Jenny Clayton Schafer, Scarlett Caldwell Miles, and Roselle Lawson Bonnoitt (left) reunited to attend the must-see-event of the summer, Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour.

Kimberly reports that they even were the lucky recipients of upgraded seats.

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life in the only way they knew possible: with loads of love and laughter. The event was attended by too many Rhodes alumni to name, including her cherished Tri Delta sisters. Alison’s friends were delighted to finally gather post-COVID to share stories, remember the force of nature that she was, and raise a toast in her honor.

Her “tigers” remind everyone to LOVE BIG in her indelible memory.

For their annual girls’ trip, Susan Meredith Meyers, Molly Molina Crawford, Leslie Curry, Elizabeth Hood, Nadia Blakemore Hensley, Angie Wellford, and Maggie McDonald visited Portland, Maine, in July. They enjoyed beautiful weather, paddleboarding, shopping, and countless lobster rolls.

1999 25th Reunion

Homecoming/Reunion Weekend November 1 – 2, 2024 Reporter: Kathryn DeRossitt kathrynderossitt@yahoo.com Kevin Willoughby relocated to Los Angeles in late 2021 to work as a corporate sales representative for Delta Air Lines. Kevin’s 10-year career in the airline industry has seen him work at three major U.S. airlines and one airline data/analytics company in Dallas/Fort Worth; Portland, OR; and now, Los Angeles.

Hunter Still lives in Fort Lauderdale, FL, where he moved in 1999 after graduation.

Still is a commercial real estate broker, a business he has enjoyed since starting his career. He and his wife planned a big wedding for 2020 but were forced to have a COVID beach wedding with just the two of them and the pastor—a change they ended up enjoying. Still’s wife works in real estate, too, and they have since grown their family with two sweet and smart children, daughter Ottilie “Tillie” Grace and Still Mason.

Kate O’Leary Snow recently made partner physician at Midwest Fertility Specialists. Her husband, Peter Snow ’98, is now a deputy prosecuting attorney in the Major Felony Division of Hamilton County, Indiana.

Matt Beck resides in Denver, CO, where he is president and owner of Power

Equipment Specialists, Inc. Matt was recently awarded the Denver 7 News Everyday Hero Award for his 15 years of philanthropy with the Boys and Girls Clubs of Metro Denver.

Jane Nigra Gallina lives in Montreal, Canada, with her husband and two daughters, enjoying the flexibility of being a day trader. The best blessing of this is the freedom to take her office anywhere in the world!

Alan Barrett lives in Florence, SC, with his wife of 21 years. They have three children (18, 14, and 11). His oldest child, Hailey, just started college at the University of South Carolina. His boys are in 9th and 6th grade and play travel soccer. Alan is a physician assistant for a federally qualified health center, Hope Health, and is a lieutenant colonel in the South Carolina National Guard. Alan and his wife travel frequently, and among their most fun were trips to China, Korea, Japan, The Netherlands, Spain, and Cuba.

William and Julie Decker Hendrick celebrated their 20th wedding anniversary in June 2022. They live in Collierville with sons Will, 15, and Frank, 13, and three cats and two crazy dogs. William is an IT manager at International Paper, and Julie is a school psychologist with Memphis Scholars/Achievement School District. They spend most of their time shuttling truckloads of boys to school, soccer, baseball, tennis, scouts, and youth group.

After leaving Rhodes, Christy Boles McAllister set a goal of traveling to all 50 states and six major continents by the end of her third decade. Having accomplished this goal, she kept going and met her future husband in Antarctica and moved to Europe. Starting a family, their new goal was to visit all the Disney parks in the world by the end of the fourth decade!

Following a hiatus due to COVID, the goal for the next decade is to instill a love of history, culture, and travel into her two sons, ages 6 and 10, who have already visited 21 countries and counting! Christie currently lives in Northern Ireland with her family and works as a Global Clinical Trial Manager, runs the Ulster American Women’s Club, and volunteers with the PTA. Brigitta von Messling currently heads the regional office in Cúcuta, Colombia, of the United Nations Verification Mission in Colombia. Her agency accompanies and verifies the implementation of the peace agreement signed between the FARC-EP and the government.

2000

Reporter: Nicki North Baxley nickinp@gmail.com

Jason Javarone: “Having worked in various sectors from finance to oil and gas recovery optimization, including involvement with a couple of start-ups, my career has seen a few twists and turns.

The most significant change, Madison Moore Agee writes however, kicked off two that on Sept. 24, 2022, dozens years ago when my son’s of friends and loved ones of school found itself in urgent Alison Barnwell ’99 gathered need of a math teacher. in her adopted city of Austin, I stepped in, thinking it TX, to celebrate her too short Jason Javarone ’00

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would be a brief stint, but those weeks turned into years, and I’m still there. Over the past year, I’ve had the unique opportunity to teach pre-algebra to a bright group of 4th graders. With the help of some generous donors, I set up a makerspace lab at the school, which has become a springboard for a series of after-school programs. These include activities like coding, robotics, CAD design, and 3D printing. As the new academic year rolls in, I’ve decided to dive in headfirst. I’ll be officially joining the faculty at two schools, continuing to teach advanced 4th and 5th grade math, and starting a computer science program for middle school students. I’m also going to teach an AP Statistics class at a local high school—a subject that holds a special place in my heart. It’s been an unexpected ride, but one that’s been truly rewarding.”

John Marshall: “I spent a great week in Fort Worth with Jeff Bigonjiari ’00 (above) back in March. It was my first time in Texas and he showed me around.

I really loved the BBQ!”

2001 Reporter: Katy Minten Gray mkminten@hotmail.com

2002 Reporter: Shannon Cian shannoncian@gmail.com

2003 Reporter: Scott Holmes holmes.scott@gmail.com Lauren Sefton serves as the Director of International Admission for Rhodes

College, and while serving her alma mater she’ll be traveling to Asia, the Middle East, and Europe to recruit future Lynx!

2004 20th Reunion

Homecoming/Reunion Weekend November 1 – 2, 2024 Reporter: C. Kyle Russ ckyleruss@yahoo.com Mega-million kudos for Michael Lamb, whose Program for Leadership and Character at Wake Forest University has received a $30 million grant from the Lilly Endowment to expand its work at Wake Forest and support a network of colleges and universities focused on educating character. “I am excited about the ways in which the grant will enable us to build a diverse community of faculty, staff, and students who are committed to developing the virtues needed to serve humanity,” he writes.

Palmer Snodgrass is still LARPing with the Marines in North Carolina, though he’s starting to think about what he actually wants to be when he grows up (kinda happens after you turn 40). But he’s on the right track— he’s “pursuing an MBA at UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School and trying to remember all the business stuff I learned at Rhodes almost 20 years ago . . . so far, it’s slowly coming back to me.”

Shelley Williams is also turning over a new page, “After 17 years at The Boston Consulting Group, I have moved into a Global Operations role at AlixPartners, a global consulting firm that thankfully allows me to work from home.” A break from the office allowed her and her family to visit Alaska this summer where they saw a humpback whale and several bald eagles! “When not working or vacationing, I enjoy spending time with fellow Atlanta Rhodents Rebecca Crawford Reynolds ’97, 2004 alumni Caitlin Goodrich Jones, Bridgette Lacher and Matt Teague, and bumping into Meg Sizemore Clark ’07 and Taylor Driskill Pafford ’05 around town.”

Now a tale of two roommates: Jason Brink got married during the pandemic in a small ceremony in his hometown of Lawrenceburg, TN, and in April 2021 “we welcomed our first daughter Laurel. We have relocated from Memphis to Tampa, FL, with my work.” His old roomy, Matt Hoffberg (below), is not a new parent, but a new GRANDparent. The grandbaby whom he babysits during the weekdays is 16 months and freaking adorable.

On the more adventurous side, Jenny McCarthy recently moved from Mexico, where she lived for the past 18 years, to Cairo, GA, so her 13-year-old son can train full time on dirt bikes, racing competitively in motocross and Supercross. “Nothing like picking up your whole life to follow your child’s passion. It is definitely a culture shock being back, but I missed the South for sure!”

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Left to right: Kelly White Bryant, Katherine Brooks Goldman, Elisa Duval Davis, Emily Hoermann McMurray, Elizabeth Townsend Ecker, Maude Westerman Pampel, Claire Dowler Rouse, and Joanie McEnery Huger

Jenny Vaughn gave up city life in 2006 and is now a full-time milkmaid. She runs a micro-dairy outside of Louisville, KY, managing a lively crew of jersey cows at Pink Elephant Farm. Her daughter finally gets a break, since she started kindergarten this fall! If you’re passing through, please reach out and stop by! Since the cows don’t take a day off, neither can she, and visitors of the human species are most welcome. Ducks, geese, chickens and too many cats round out the daily activities there.

Daniel Head is still loving life in Chapel Hill, NC, with Darek and kids. “Darby and Darwin just started Kindergarten and we also just got a brand new puppy, Duncan Donut!”

reminiscing. They look forward to seeing everyone at our 20th college reunion in 2024!

Lori Beth Dunn Schaefer writes: “Not much to report . . . we added a pet (golden doodle) to our family and named her after a city in Egypt (like Memphis)— Zagazig “Ziggy” Egypt Schaefer. I will also be transitioning my outpatient therapy position to a grant-funded position (with the same agency) in one of the Shelby County Schools to work with at-risk students, crisis intervention, and to provide some assistance to teachers to help manage some of the chaos that’s going on in the classes. I’m slightly nervous, but mostly excited to take on this challenge.”

Kelly Bryant and friends from the Class of 2004 met in the Texas Hill Country town of Fredericksburg in March 2023 for wine tasting and Daniel Head ’04 and kids

And for me, all is well in Washington, DC. We had a second child (pandemic baby) and have been taking advantage of the

under-two fly free on the airlines. So far this year we’ve made it to LA, ACK, NYC, NOLA, LDN and CDMX. And if you haven’t been to Mexico City, GO!

2005

Reporters: Brandon Couillard (last names: A-M) brandon.couillard@gmail.com Molly Fitzpatrick (last names: N-Z) mhfitz11@hotmail.com Danny Heine is now a partner at East Cobb Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine in Marietta, GA. He still lives in Sandy Springs with his wife Poneh, son Liam, and daughter Mila.

Several alumni traveled from across the Southeast in September to celebrate James Ray’s 40th birthday at his home and farm in Lebanon, TN, where he and his wife Eileen have spent the past 11 years raising goats and making soaps as “Little Seed Farm.” The business, which has primarily grown through word-of-mouth, is thriving and recently completed the build-out of a new 75,000 sq. ft. facility and soap shack on the property. Rhodes alumni on-hand included Frank Byrd ’90, Mike Roach ’04,

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Amy Moore Cresswell writes that she and husband Jamey are pleased to announce the birth of their son James Lamar Cresswell III on June 28, 2023, at 12:51 pm, weighing 3 lbs. 12 oz., and 16 inches long. James arrived 10 weeks early, and after a two-month NICU stay, Dad, Mom, and big sister Catherine (age two) are thrilled to have baby brother James at home.

Rhodes alumni at James Ray’s 40th birthday included Frank Byrd ’90, Mike Roach ’04, Stephanie Roach ’02, James Ray ’05 and his wife Eileen Ray, Katharine Etchen ’05, Brandon Couillard ’05, and Austin Lutz ’04.

Stephanie Roach ’02, James and his wife Eileen Ray, Katharine Etchen, Brandon Couillard and Austin Lutz ’04.

2007

2006

Here’s my update: I recently began my role as the director of admissions at St. Aloysius Catholic School in Baton Rouge.

In addition to my role with admissions, I also assist with development and the school’s Annual Appeal. I am loving the job and being on campus with our three boys, Max (10), Andy (6), and Sam (5).

In 2022

Reporter: Caroline King Willson Caroline.king.Willson@gmail.com

Reporter: Mollie Briskman Montelaro mollie.montelaro@gmail.com

John Jennison (left) and his wife Christine relocated to Austin. John and Christine welcomed their first child, Jay, in August of 2023.

Semmes Humphreys Vaughn writes that she and Stewart Vaughn married in the fall of 2022. They recently welcomed a baby girl, Eleanor “Ellie” Semmes Louise Vaughn, in the spring of 2023.

John Jennison ’07 and family

In December 2022 Krystal White took a library assistant position in Collection Management with the University of Memphis Ned R. McWherter Library. In August of 2023 she began her Master’s in Information Science with UT Knoxville.

The stories of both James’ and Catherine’s births are tied to Memphis. Amy and Jamey live in Amy’s hometown of Dyersburg, TN, and Amy planned to deliver both children in nearby Jackson, TN. However, both babies were born unexpectedly while Amy happened to be in Memphis! Catherine arrived seven weeks early when Amy’s water broke at The Peabody Hotel, which is also the location of the couple’s wedding reception. (Amy was in town for her baby shower, of which several Rhodes alumnae were hostesses.

Needless to say, the shower didn’t happen as planned!) Not to be outdone by big sister, James arrived 10 weeks early when Amy’s water broke at The Orpheum Theatre while she and her mother were supposed to be attending Frozen the Musical.

I think a pun on the song “Let it Go” is in order—ha ha! Obviously, Catherine and James love iconic and historic Memphis locations as much as Amy and Jamey do and wanted to make a grand entrance!

The family is so happy that everyone is now at home and settling as a family of four.

Lauren Bartling Pearce and her husband welcomed their second son, Mitchell Swing Pearce (right), on Aug. 24. He is settling in well with big brother Sammy.

After putting his illustrious acting and music career on hold, John Jester has had a resurgence of sorts with the premiere of The Blue Rose starring Olivia Scott Welch in London later this year.

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He co-produced and cameoed in the film noir-inspired mystery by Jay Van Hoy (THE LIGHTHOUSE). The last time John was in front of the camera (or the stage) was the 2013 world premiere of “Plays in the Park’’ at the Santa Monica Playhouse.

In 2020, John began executive producing live-action content for global brands and major record labels under his newly founded production company, Boy Blue Media. In 2022, John became head of production and executive producer for Recess Studios, a creative agency and studio where he directs commercials for brands such as Nike, Jordan, and the NBA. He continues to work closely with talent agencies and other writers/directors in the development and production of independent films. Should you or your company/brand be in need of social or broadcast content, be sure to email john@ recessworld.com. Lastly, in a full-circle continuation of his love of music, John will be playing a monthly residency beginning in October 2023 at the legendary Culver Hotel in Culver City, Los Angeles.

Be sure to drop by!

2008

Reporter: Madoline Markham Koonce madolinemarkham@gmail.com In 2023 Brynn Dickie Bowyer graduated with a master’s in Charlotte Mason Educational Philosophy and also co-authored a book that got published. The book is part of the Charlotte Mason Centenary Series published by the Charlotte Mason Institute and is called A Feast of Ideas in a World of Bytes: Welcoming Charlotte Mason into the Digital Age. “So it’s been a fun year for me professionally!” she writes.

Samantha Hurt Buckley married Quinton Buckley on March 21, 2020. They met in Chinese class at their hometown university when Samantha was doing post-bac coursework and have been talking each other’s ears off ever since.

They are living in Tallahassee now, and Samantha recently accepted a position as a program manager at the Center for Global Engagement at Florida State University, working with international scholars and

Back row: Haynes Kleimeyer Halbrooks, Megan Thompson Fooshee, Katie Henderson Archer, and Bethany Lindaman ’07. Front row: Kendra McColloch Carr, Colleen Armstrong Portnoy, Madoline & Jeff Koonce, and Ellie Hahn McBroom. Not pictured: Lindsey Mull Newton ’07

cultural exchange visitors to the university.

This was a career move intended to be in line with her degree in anthropology and sociology from Rhodes, along with her master’s degree in Chinese studies from the University of Michigan, and she is excited to see where it takes her.

she was delighted to reconnect with Jenny Phillips ’09 (below). This reunion brought the Rhodes community into the

Madoline Markham’s marriage to Jeff Koonce on June 17, 2023, in Birmingham doubled as a reunion for her Rhodes friends, who travelled from everywhere from Washington, DC, to Washington state for the celebration, plus a Facetime call from Marian Pernell in Tel Aviv.

Ellie McBroom read in the ceremony just as Madoline did for Ellie’s wedding 14 years earlier—a Williford potluck roommate match still going strong.

Speaking of Ellie McBroom, she recently relocated to Auckland, New Zealand, with her partner, Charlie, and their three children. In her early days in Auckland,

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first days of her New Zealand experience, as they attended the U.S. Women’s World Cup match against Vietnam.

2009 15th Reunion

Homecoming/Reunion Weekend November 1 – 2, 2024 Reporter: Kelsey Griffith kelsey.dean.griffith@gmail.com Chris Davis works at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia as a pediatric radiologist and was awarded Teacher of the Year for the academic year of 2022-2023 by the pediatric radiology fellowship class. He also got married this past February in Mexico.

In July, Rebecca Bates, Michael Gossett ’10, and their daughter, Mathilde Bates-Gossett (below), moved back to New York City after three years of living in Colorado, their outpost during COVID. They now reside in the Cobble

initiatives and planning at the Mellon Foundation, the nation’s largest funder of the arts and humanities, where he has worked for 10 years.

in Blérancourt, France, working in the Musée Franco-Américain du Château de Blérancourt’s collection of World War I sketches.

Jim Kingman has relocated to Saipan, in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, a United States Territory in the Western Pacific. He was appointed Special Prosecutor in a pending criminal case against the former Governor and was originally supposed to be on the island for just a few months. He is now also leading the Commonwealth’s efforts fighting corruption and financial crime. Since he has been on the islands, he has taken up scuba diving and has adopted one of the 30,000 stray dogs that roam the jungle and beaches. Says Jim, “Micronesia is the most interesting and beautiful place in the world—you should all come visit, especially the alums who did the Coral Reef Ecology Maymester. You can follow my writings about Saipan at jimbobkingman.substack.com.”

From Austin and Mandi Waits Freeman: Austin has been appointed to a fulltime tenure-track position as chair of the Department of Apologetics at Houston Christian University. His book Tolkien Dogmatics continues to do well, and a co-edited volume on Theology, Fantasy, and the Imagination was also just released. Mandi continues her work as a director of operations in the nonprofit sector and is looking for a new role in Houston. Alfie remains a good boy, while ducks Philip and George operate on a case-by-case basis.

2010

Reporter: If you are interested in serving as the Class of ’10 reporter, please contact alumni@rhodes.edu.

2011

Reporter: Grace Weil gracem.weil@gmail.com

Hill neighborhood of Brooklyn. In November 2022, Rebecca’s role at Meta was a casualty of the mass layoffs that have hit the tech industry in the last year. She now leads social media creative strategy at Andreessen Horowitz (also often referred to as a16z), the largest venture capital firm in the country. Michael spent a year as a fellow at NEW INC, a cultural incubator for creatives working at the intersection of art and technology. He manages strategic

At Homecoming 2023, Sara Bowen was inducted into the Rhodes Athletic Hall of Fame. She continues living and working in DC as a Curator at the National Museum of the United States Army. In June, she did professional development

Sandy Henin Phillips and her husband, Nate (above), spent a month abroad doing a cultural tour of Europe. Nate has also started as a professor in the computer science department at Rhodes. They are excited for this new role . . . and looking forward to welcoming a new baby Phillips to the Rhodes family soon!!!

2012

Reporter: Kelly Parry kparry1211@gmail.com

2013

Reporter: If you are interested in serving as the Class of ’13 reporter, please contact alumni@rhodes.edu.

Sara Bowen photo from Blérancourt, France

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2014 10th Reunion

Homecoming/Reunion Weekend November 1 – 2, 2024 Reporter: Matt Washnock washnockm@gmail.com

2015

Reporter: Caroline Ponseti caroline.ponseti@gmail.com

2016

Reporter: Tina Tran tinatran.tm@gmail.com Regan Adolph and husband Brooks Lamb ’17 moved back to Memphis in the fall of 2022. Regan was recently promoted to associate director of development for the Southeast Region of Facing History and Ourselves. They enjoy searching for their dream farm and hosting neighbors and friends for backyard fires and game nights.

Ellery Ammons is starting a Master’s in Urban and Regional Planning at Georgetown University this fall, while continuing to work for the development advisory firm, Brailsford & Dunlavey, in Washington, DC. Josh Bill married Anahita Rahimi-Saber ’13 and graduated from American

University Washington College of Law this past May. They are planning on traveling in Europe this upcoming summer to celebrate their many milestones.

March surrounded by friends and family.

They both moved to Atlanta, where Madhuri is completing a two-year fellowship in Pediatric Hospital Medicine at Emory.

Chandler Bryant currently lives in the Nashville area and is an optometrist. He is engaged to Ms. Stephanie Motta and their wedding will take place October 2023.

Congratulations to the both of them!

Jason Johnson recently married Sofia Cortes (a UC Berkeley ’16 graduate) in an oceanside ceremony, celebrating with family, friends, and other Rhodes alumni in Rosarito, Mexico. He continues to serve as the communications director for Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-AZ) and is a communications advisor for the House Natural Resources Committee Democrats. Jason and Sofia reside in Washington, DC, with their Memphis rescue dog, Cooper.

Quentin Buck recently moved to Boston (and loves it) to start his fellowship in Pediatric Gastroenterology at Boston Children’s. In his free time, he is loving on his adorable nephews.

Alex Dileo lives in Atlanta with her partner and senior dog. After 7+ years with the nonprofit consulting firm Coxe Curry & Associates, she recently started a new role with the climate leadership development organization The All We Can Save Project. Alex highly recommends you check them out, beginning with the anthology “All We Can Save” of women writers on the climate.

Pauline Dinh is working in the cardiovascular intensive care unit at Methodist Hospital in Germantown and is planning on becoming a nurse anesthetist (CRNA).

Saving lives and rocking it along the way!

Bryton Herlong and Madhuri Prasad married in a beautiful ceremony this past

2017

Reporter: Mason Brown marymason.brown910@gmail.com

2018

Reporter: If you are interested in serving as the Class of ’18 reporter, please contact alumni@rhodes.edu.

Ruth Scott Yaklin is now living in Pace, FL: “I got married June 9, 2018, and had my first child, a daughter, Harlow Yaklin, January 4, 2023.”

2019

Reporter: Junior Walters jeffreywalters2@gmail.com

2020

Reporter: Ben Griffith bengriffith3@yahoo.com

Rhodes friends, classmates, and “uncles” came from far and wide to Auburn, AL, to celebrate the marriage of Carolyn Starks ’16 and Thomas Munson on June 10, 2023. Friends of Carolyn’s late father Virgil Starks ’85 each took a turn to dance with the bride.

Lightfoot, Franklin & White LLC was pleased to welcome Nicholas Langford (right) as a first-year associate, based in the firm’s Birmingham office. Nick, a former Lightfoot summer associate in both the 2021 and 2022 classes, worked with the firm’s attorneys on various high-stakes product liability, NCAA, and civil procedure matters. He holds a law degree from Duke University School of Law, where he also served as the articles editor for Duke’s Law & Contemporary Problems journal and worked as a research assistant.

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Christopher ’18 and Madeline Kellas Harris ’18 were married on August 1, 2023. They had quite a contingent of Rhodes alumni to help them celebrate their nuptials. Front row (left to right): Jessica Brown Harris ’14, Patrick Harris ’14, Christopher Harris ’18, Madeline Kellas Harris ’18, Corrie Kuehn ’19, Laurie Lynn Tinnell ’79, Scott Hamel ’15, Alec Davis ’18, and Grant Ramey ’18. Back row (left to right): Morgan Hill ’19, Kennedy Dalton ’18, Gabbi Serrato Bowen ’18, Colin Welsh ’19, Victoria Norris ’18, Liz Dial ’18, Hunter Bremer ’19, Madison Tucker Field ’18, Davis Field ’18, and Carter Connelly ’18.

2022

Reporter: If you are interested in serving as the Class of ’22 reporter, please contact alumni@rhodes.edu.

2023

Reporter: Kofi Whitehead kofi.whitehead12@gmail.com

Nicholas Langford ’20

2021

Reporter: If you are interested in serving as the Class of ’21 reporter, please contact alumni@rhodes.edu.

Hello all, my name is Kofi Whitehead, and it is a pleasure to introduce myself as the Class of 2023’s class reporter! It has been a busy summer, as we begin to enter a new stage in our lives. Although we are sad to leave Rhodes, the summer has afforded us many new opportunities, and I am thrilled to share them with you all.

recorded a few songs on my album that we should be finishing this year, and I put out my first song on Spotify, Exotic Love, a couple of weeks ago!”

Lina Beach writes: “This summer, I became the newest member and guitar player of Al Green’s band, The Hi Rhythm Section, and went on tour with them to Germany and London! They also

Guadalupe Calderone writes: “I have started the first semester of my Ph.D. Program in Medical Sciences at the Institute of Biosciences and Technology of Texas A&M’s Health Science Center.”

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in memoriam ’45 Mary Frances Lynch Walker of Gaithersburg, MD, April 3, 2023. She was a member of Tri Delta Fraternity.

’51 Deliesseline “Dee” Birchett Adams of Memphis, TN, Aug. 7, 2023. She was a member of Kappa Delta Sorority.

’45 Ruth A. Bryant of Saint Louis, MO, April 21, 2023. She was the recipient of the Sophomore Seidman Economics Award and the Alpha Theta Phi Medal.

’51 June Beasley Mann of Memphis, TN June 22, 2023. She was a member of Chi Omega Fraternity and Pi Intersorority and served as president of the Women’s athletic Association. She leaves behind her sister, Rebecca Beasley Burr ’54.

’48 William E. Long of Memphis, TN, September 12, 2023. He graduated with honors in Biology and was a member of the Chi Beta Phi Science Fraternity, Alpha Theta Phi Scholastic Honor Society, Phil Circle of Omicron Delta Kappa National Honorary Fraternity, and Sigma Alpha Epsilon Fraternity. ’49 Joy Upshaw Murphy of Miami, FL, July 12, 2023. She was a member of Alpha Omicron Pi Fraternity. ’49 Marjorie Leak Brennan of Wartburg, TN, May 6, 2023. She was a member of Zeta Tau Alpha Fraternity and the Student Publications Staff. ’49 Margaret “Peggy” Marshall Crutcher of Ripley, TN, Sept. 3, 2023. She was a member of Alpha Omicron Pi Fraternity and the lead soprano of the Southwestern Singers.

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’51 Norma Maddox Bell of Nashville, TN, Oct. 3, 2023. She was a member of the Southwestern Singers, YWCA, and the International Relations Club. ’52 Ellen Fitts Stegall of Hattiesburg, MS, June 14, 2023. She was a member of Chi Omega Fraternity. ’52 Peggy S. Freund of Dyersburg, TN, March 17, 2023. She was a member of Chi Omega Fraternity, the Southwestern Singers and the staffs of The Sou’wester and the Lynx. ’53 Ann Turner Whitsitt of Memphis, TN, March 24, 2023. She was a member of Chi Omega Fraternity. She is survived by her sons Allen Whitsitt ’76 (Elizabeth ’76) and Bob Whitsett ’79.

To view full obituaries, please visit https://news.rhodes.edu/memoriam or scan this QR code. ’53 Mary Frances Libassi of Bloomfield, CT, Feb. 7, 2023. She was a member of Mortar Board, Zeta Tau Alpha Fraternity, and Southwestern Singers. She was also a member of the Volleyball and Women’s Basketball teams. ’53 Dr. William Cleage Bill Threlkeld of Memphis, Sept. 8, 2023. He was a member of Sigma Nu and was the 2006 Rhodes College Distinguished Alumnus. He is survived by his wife, Jo ’54, son, Robert ’82, and nephews Michael ’79 and Stephen ’86. ’53 Zoe Theodore Futris of Memphis, May 9, 2023. She was a member of Alpha Omicron Pi Fraternity. ’54 Arlie Chandler Warren Jr. of Los Angeles, CA, Aug. 14, 2023. He served as president of Kappa Alpha Order and the Senior Class, was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa, tapped by ODK, and selected for the Student Hall of Fame.

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IN MEMORIAM ’54 Eugenia M. Moore of Jackson, TN, April 25, 2023. She was a member of Alpha Omicron Pi Fraternity and the Southwestern Singers. ’54 Patricia Ann Riegle Morehead of Memphis, Sept. 13, 2023. She was a member of Kappa Delta Sorority, the Sweetheart of Sigma Nu Fraternity, Commissioner of Publications, and Pi Intersorority. She is survived by daughters Tricia Morehead Kilgore ’79 and Elizabeth Morehead Hilton ’83, and son Robert Morehead ’82 (Catherine ’82). ’55 The Rev. Kathleen Hardison Hodgson of Memphis, March 5, 2023. She was a member of Tri Delta Fraternity. ’57 Marilu Whiteside Boutwell of Senatobia, MS, June 20, 2023. She was a member of Tri Delta Fraternity. ’58 Katherine Curry Leverette of Memphis, Nov. 15, 2022. She was a member of Kappa Delta Sorority. ’58 James Donald Don Jones of Tulsa, OK, Aug. 21, 2023. He was a member of Pi Kappa Alpha Fraternity. He is survived by his wife, Martha Jane Wilkins Jones ’58. ’58 Jeanne Scott Varnell of Germantown, TN, Feb. 26, 2021. She was a member of Chi Omega Fraternity, Southwestern Singers, and Eta Sigma Phi, and recipient of the Spencer Greek Prize. ’58 Suzanne Sue Williams Winslow of Tulsa, OK, July 4, 2023. She is survived by Dr. James E. Winslow, Jr. ’57. ’59 Judith Gaines Cox of Georgetown, IN, April 16, 2021. She was a member of Chi Omega Fraternity. ’60 Carolyn Mann Ronk of Alamo, TN, Oct. 31, 2021. She was a member of Alpha Omicron Pi Fraternity. ’60 Dr. John “Jack” L. Streete of Memphis, October 6, 2023. He was a member of Kappa Alpha Order, Omicron Delta Kappa, and the Men’s Track Team. He taught physics at Rhodes from 1966 until 2003. He is survived by his wife, Prof. Emerita Gail Street, and daughter Elizabeth M. Streete ’84.

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’60 JoLynn Palmer Allen of Memphis, May 18, 2023. She was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa.

’64 Franklin M. Hurst of Hot Springs, AR, Aug. 8th, 2023. He was a member of Alpha Tau Omega Fraternity.

’60 Nelly Galloway Shearer of Memphis, Aug. 10, 2023. She was a president of Zeta Tau Alpha Fraternity.

’64 John R. Poolman of Lenexa, KS, August 2, 2023. He was a member of the Sigma Nu Fraternity and the Cross Country Team.

’61 David F. Gillison, Jr. of Little Rock, AR, Oct. 1, 2023. He was a member of Sigma Alpha Epsilon Fraternity. ’61 Jerald “Jerry” M. Duncan of Memphis, Sept. 5, 2023. He was a member of Sigma Alpha Epsilon Fraternity, the Student Hall of Fame, and the Rhodes Football Team.

He was a former member of the Alumni Association Executive Board. He is survived by his brother Joe Duncan ’63 (Lee ’73). ’61 Rev. Robert “Bob” Strickland of Collierville, TN, Sept. 27, 2023. He was a member of Alpha Tau Omega Fraternity. ’62 David S. Minter of Austin, TX, April 26, 2023. He was a member of Sigma Alpha Epsilon Fraternity. ’63 Clark “Bill” Pennington Jr. of Memphis, Aug. 2, 2023. ’63 Dr. Harvey Stanford Sanders of Chattanooga, TN, March 30, 2023. He was a member of Kappa Sigma Fraternity. He is survived by his daughter Kelley Sanders Cannon ’89 and son Christopher Sanders ’90. ’63 Kaye McKnight Beavers of Little Rock, AR, July 25, 2023. She was a member of Alpha Omicron Pi Fraternity. She is survived

by Paige Beavers Miller ’87. ’63 Mary Elizabeth “Libby” Davis of Texarkana, TX, July 21, 2023. She was a member of Zeta Tau Alpha Fraternity. ’63 Susan L. Fullilove of West Monroe, LA, Aug. 13, 2021. She was a member of Chi Omega Fraternity. ’64 Emily Holloway Walker of Collierville, TN, July 25, 2023. She was a member of Tri Delta Fraternity and the Student Publications Staff. She is survived by her daughter Emily Walker Koelsch ’04.

’64 Lewis M. Guess of Memphis, July 25, 2023. He was a member of Psy Honorary Psychology Fraternity and the Stylus Literary Fraternity. ’65 Cecile Gregory Buehring of Memphis, March 15, 2023. She was a member of Tri Delta Fraternity. ’65 Jane Stanley Dunn Petropoulos of Brentwood, TN, Feb. 7, 2018. She was a member of Zeta Tau Alpha Fraternity. ’65 Robbie Walker McQuiston of Memphis, May 15, 2023. She was a member of Chi Omega Fraternity. She is survived by her husband John W. McQuiston II ’65 and daughter Katherine McQuiston Bush ’97. ’65 Suzanne Smith Henley of Memphis, June 6, 2023. She was a member of Tri Delta Fraternity. She is survived by her husband James P. Cole ’67. ’66 Vern E. McCarty of Atlanta, GA, Sept. 29, 2023. He was a member of Sigma Nu Fraternity, served as Commissioner of Religious Activities and Commissioner of Athletics, played on the Football team, and was tapped for membership in ODK. ’67 Mary Jane McCreary of Dickson, TN, March 10, 2023. She was a member of Tri Delta Fraternity. ’68 Michael S. McLean of Virginia Beach, VA, Aug. 23, 2023. ’72 Dr. Carl G. Dury II of Franklin, TN, July 16, 2023. He was a member of Pi Kappa Alpha Fraternity and the Lynx. ’72 Martha Nance Howell of Seattle, WA, June 23, 2023. She was a member of Chi Omega Fraternity, Kinney Program volunteer, and co-chaired Dilemma. ’78 Linda Edsall Mayfield of Columbia, SC, April 25, 2023.

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IN MEMORIAM

Adrienne McMillan Burns Memorial Labyrinth

’79 Martha Ruth McAfee Cassin, of Memphis, TN, March 1, 2023. She was a member of Alpha Omicron Pi Fraternity and performed in theatre productions. ’82 Jane Dewey Deaton, of Memphis, TN,Oct. 20, 2023. She was a member of Chi Omega Fraternity. She is survived by her brother Tucker Dewey ’84. ’89 William H. Pope of Vicksburg, MS, May 15, 2023. He was a Senior Class Representative and the mascot for the Rhodes Cheerleading Team. ’93 Barbara Jean Fraser Jones of Brevard, NC, Aug. 7, 2023. ’09 William Todd Cummings of Memphis, TN, June 23, 2023.

FACULTY Carolyn Poling Schriber (faculty – former) of Germantown, TN, June 9, 2023. Professor Emerita of History, taught from 1988 2003. She advised the Phi Alpha Theta Honorary Society.

Glen Davis (staff – former) of Millington, TN, June 11, 2023. Technical Associate in the Department of Physics from 1998 to 2019 and then served as an adjunct faculty member at Rhodes.

FRIENDS STAFF Elizabeth “Libby” Gay Daughdrill of Memphis, July 22, 2023. She was the First Lady of Rhodes from 1973 - 1999. Recipient of the Algernon Sydney Sullivan Award for Outstanding Service to the College.

In 1998, the Board of Trustees at Rhodes established and permanently endowed the Elizabeth G. Daughdrill Chair of Fine Arts, in recognition of her 26 years as First Lady of Rhodes. She is survived by her children James Harold “Hal” Daughdrill III ’77, Risha Daughdrill Hoover ’79 (David ’79), and Gay Daughdrill Boyd ’90.

Ronald “Ron” A. Terry of Memphis, March 6, 2023. He served on the Board of Trustees of Rhodes College.

Bennett Wood of Memphis, Sept. 3, 2023.

He acted with and directed the Center Players and created musical revue benefits that raised funds for the college’s McCoy Theatre. Bennett later taught musical theater at Rhodes, and in 1998 he was the author of Rhodes 150, a book celebrating the college’s 150th anniversary.

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CELEBR AT I NG HIS TORIC ALLY BL ACK SOR ORITI ES AND FR ATER NITIES

Hassell Hall

Paul Barret Jr. Library

Campus Site Location

Plaza Detail

Bryan Campus Life Center

Mallory & Hyde Gymnasiums

THE NATIONAL PAN-HELLENIC COUNCIL PL AZ A AT RHODES

BUILDING A CULTURE OF BELONGING Rhodes College is committed to inclusive excellence and a culture of belonging.

Building and sustaining a diverse, equitable, and inclusive community requires community-wide commitment. It calls on us to reflect on the past, be aware of the present, and imagine the future.

To that end, Rhodes is raising funds to build a National Pan-Hellenic Council (NPHC) Plaza, a physical site on campus where the impact and importance of historically black fraternities and sororities will be recognized and celebrated. We are excited to share our plans with the wider community and invite you to consider joining this effort.

For more information about this important project, please contact Mike Palazzolo ’86, Senior Development Officer, at palazzolom@rhodes.edu

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2000 NORTH PARKWAY MEMPHIS, TENNESSEE 38112

MARK YOUR CALENDAR FOR THESE IMPORTANT DATES Rhodes SpringFest March 22 - 24, 2024

Annual Alumni Easter Egg Hunt March 24, 2024

Family Weekend September 20 - 22, 2024

Rhodes Black Students and Alumni Family Reunion March 22 - 24, 2024

Commencement Exercises for the Class of 2024 May 11, 2024

CajunFest October 3, 2024 Homecoming/ Reunion Weekend November 1 - 2, 2024

Rhodes students, alumni, faculty, and staff volunteered to man hydration stations at miles 17 and 20 during the annual St. Jude Memphis Marathon, the single largest fundraiser benefiting St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

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