All photos, Cliff Hollis
Coffield talks about her Access Scholarship at go.ecu.edu/79e6ffa1.
Gail Herring
Kelsey Coffield
Women’s Roundtable supports vital scholarships Kelsey Coffield ’15, a graduate student at East Carolina University, wants to be a licensed mental health and substance abuse counselor. However, she says she never would have made it to this point had it not been for the Access Scholarship she received as an undergraduate.
would not have that opportunity,” said Gail Herring ’80, a senior vice president with First Citizens Bank in southeastern North Carolina and chair of the Women’s Roundtable.
“I received the letter (Access Scholarship Award), literally had a freak-out in my car and called my mom,” she recalled recently. “We were both really emotional. It was a huge weight lifted off of our shoulders…. It made my dream of going to college a reality.”
“Any young female graduating from East Carolina, really any student, could look to any of these women in what they have accomplished and see them as a role model,” Herring said.
To help students such as Coffield, the Women’s Roundtable at ECU is hosting the fifth edition of its Incredible ECU Women series. The event honors 11 women who went to ECU and serves as a fundraiser for the WRT’s Access and Honors College endowments. The Honors Scholarship is awarded to academically talented students with strong character, and the Access Scholarship is awarded to North Carolina residents who are in financial need, have excellent academics and show community leadership.
Karen Evans ’80 came to ECU to be a nurse. Now she is an attorney and partner in a law firm. She still helps patients but in a different way: by representing victims of medical malpractice.
“The end cause is that we’re raising money for scholarships and creating a better life and an opportunity for someone to get a college education that otherwise
The WRT helps its scholarship recipients network and be mentored by its members.
Here are this year’s honorees:
Cathy Thomas ’79 ’86 has spent her career getting people to eat right and exercise. One of her projects, “Color Me Healthy,” has become an international model for teaching young children how to eat properly and be physically active. Mary Chatman ’90 ’96 ’12 started working as a nursing assistant while she went to ECU to become a nurse. She now has her doctorate and is an executive with Memorial Health System in Savannah, Georgia.
Charlene Bregier ’82 is an artist whose work has been shown all over the state. She says she hopes to inspire students to realize their greatest potential.
business partners. She also started the Business Woman’s Network for Duke Energy Employees with eight chapters across the U.S. and Canada.
Angela Allen ’81 graduated from ECU with a computer science degree and went on to work for and become an executive at IBM. She has a master’s degree from Harvard Business School.
Jamie Sigler ’01 and Sarah Evans ’01 formed a successful public relations company that has three U.S. offices and one in London to serve clients from around the world. Their company, J Public Relations, was named 2015 Small PR Firm of the Year by PR News.
Alta Andrews ’74 was a mother while going to school to get her master’s as well as her doctorate. She’s helped educate thousands of young nurses. Paulina Hill ’04 was the captain of the tennis team while at ECU and a quadruple major in biochemistry, neuroscience, biology and chemistry. She graduated magna cum laude. and did her postdoctoral fellowship in the chemical engineering department at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Annette Peery ’96 logs hundreds of hours a year as a volunteer. She is the associate dean of the undergraduate programs in the College of Nursing. Linda Thomas ’81 spent more than 33 years with Duke Energy. By volunteering to move into a new position, she landed on a management path, retiring as director of human resources
The Women’s Roundtable 2016 Incredible Women Series event will be Oct. 13 at the Greenville Convention Center. The impact of scholarships as told through student stories will highlight the luncheon, which begins at 11 a.m. “We’re looking for investors; people who want to invest in other people’s lives to give them an opportunity for an education and an opportunity to be successful in life,” Herring said. “Even if you can just give a little bit, when we all put it together, it’s going to grow our fund.” Tickets are on sale now for the event. Individual tickets cost $100, and sponsorship opportunities are still available. Ticket information and more are at www.ecu.edu/ incrediblewomen. —Rich Klindworth
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