ALUMNI AWARD WINNERS Alumni profile
Hall of Distinguished Alumni Award
Distinguished Service Award
Young Alumni Award
Brent Barton ’78 ‘86
State Senator Jared Carpenter ‘00
Kelly Thorne Gore ‘04
Dr. Paul Motley ’63 ’68 ‘69
Paul Laslo ‘79
John Wilson ‘05
Michael W. Poehlitz ‘85
Janie Miller ‘77
Rick Roberts, ’81 Rick Roberts, ’81, of Paintsville, Kentucky, was an EKU student when a friend and spelunking enthusiast convinced him and a few others to enter Adams Cave near Richmond. One member of the group got stuck, if only for a few minutes. With three people in front of him and three behind him, Roberts couldn’t go anywhere, triggering his claustrophobia. How ironic, then, that almost 35 years later, Roberts found himself acting in “The Death of Floyd Collins,” a film about the days when Collins was trapped in Sand Cave, now part of Mammoth Cave National Park. Roberts portrayed Henry St. George Tucker Carmichael, general superintendent of the Kentucky Rock Asphalt Co. and an engineer who wanted to construct a shaft to retrieve Collins. “It brought back (post-traumatic stress disorder) memories for me when reading ‘Trapped,’” a book that served as a key source for the film, Roberts said. The film, a mixture of reenactments, interviews and narration accompanying photos and video footage, was five years in the making. It premiered at the Cave City Convention Center in April 2015.
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www.alumni.eku.edu Dr. Donald Whitaker ‘62