Creating a name in design is Hadley LeSourd Binion ’02 of Mobile, AL. Her company, Hadley Binion Designs, won two ADDY Awards at the AAF Mobile Bay Advertising ADDY Awards event, one for a print brochure and one for a television commercial. Hillary Hammond ’03 is a small animal veterinarian in Las Vegas, having graduated in 2012 from the UT College of Veterinary Medicine with a DVM and master’s in public health. Hillary says that a number of other GPS graduates were in her class pursuing a DVM. Allyson Heard ’04 is pursuing a master’s in nursing anesthesia in Pittsburgh. Nancy McCarty Iannios ’82, a partner at the Core PR Group in Los Angeles, sent GPS a press release about alumna Katie Johnson ’04, pictured at left. Katie stars in a brand new “anti-commercial” ad campaign for Swedish designer “Happy Socks” in which she, in bright pink hair and fashion designed by Katy Perry’s stylist, puts on her Scandinavian socks and becomes possessed with an irresistible urge to dance. Her performance has received praise from New York Magazine, Indiewire, and Huffington Post. Elizabeth Kennedy ’05 has taken a position as the Integrated Media Planning Supervisor of Sony Mobile and Sony Playstation at the San Francisco office of her employer, Carat. Still a food photographer in Nashville, Hannah Messinger ’05 returns to her hometown and her family’s restaurant, Mount Vernon, at least once a month to host the Washington Supper Club. As she described her new venture to a local reporter, “The point of the dinners is to be a place for locals to come and meet one another, learn about, and support Tennessee products.” For more information on days and prices, check out www.washingtonsupperclub.squarespace.com If you’ve ever wanted to enjoy vicariously a thru-hike on the Appalachia Trail, check out a blog being kept by Katherine Vance ’05 and her boyfriend. They started in mid-March and have successfully survived the Smokies, including a threat of hypothermia during a torrential rainstorm. Beautiful photos and lovely anecdotes from the trail make this blog worth your time: www.nicedayforahike.wordpress.com Kelsey Williams ’05 is a certified Cicerone®. This is a professional certification in beer expertise similar to the sommelier certification. Beth Yetter ’05 graduated from Duke last year with a degree of master of environmental management from the Nicholas School of the Environment and is now residing in Salt Lake City, Utah.
Mary Helen Miller
The Young Alumnae Council met on campus in February to connect with one another, experience current classroom practices, and hear firsthand from current students about their experiences at GPS. On the front row from left are Shelton Swafford Chambers ’00, Eleanor Decosimo ’05, Julia Schaffeld ’02, Lauren Waters Rice ’03, Stacey McCord Sartoris ’01, Alice Smith ’03, and Ashley Moore Palmer ’99. Standing are Sallie Gray Strang Clayton ’98, Larkin Ade McMillan ’99, Dori Thornton Waller ’99, Rikki Bost Craven ’01, Betsey Evans Kates ’97, Anne Campeau ’05, Raz Mines Dumitru ’99, and Rachel Monroe Cohen ’96.
For someone who, in her words, “is kind of surprised to be spending my 20’s in Chattanooga,” Mary Helen Miller ’06 has nevertheless made a name for herself in her hometown. Miller and three colleagues from the Chattanooga Times Free Press were notified in April that their three-part investigation into the ‘witness problem’ regarding crime in Chattanooga was a finalist (one of three) for a Pulitzer Prize. “I love storytelling,” she says, “and using the [newspaper’s] website and all its tools as a medium for that.” Indeed, she crafted the online presence for the series, creating extra pieces to complement the main story. But she also conducted interviews and recorded audio segments for sidebar portraits that told the story online visually and with sound.
A graduate of Bowdoin College in Maine, where she completed an interdisciplinary major of art and art history, she was editor of the school newspaper, presaging perhaps her current work. After two internships, one at the Chronicle of Higher Education in Washington, D.C., and another in Boston at the Christian Science Monitor, she switched from print media and completed a seven-week course to learn about radio. After a year at Chattanooga’s NPR station, during which she produced a documentary on the Melungeon people of East Tennessee, she moved to the newspaper where she thinks her “artistic sensibilities are finding a home in multi-media projects.” Not one to rest on the Pulitzer laurels, she’s organized a local Women’s Coding Group to address the need for women to be involved in the IT world. She’s also reached out to learn from the New York Times’ Amy O’Leary, whose multi-media work Miller admires. Another leading radio personality she respects is Chana Joffewalt, who reports for “Project Money” on National Public Radio. With a new glittering entry on her resume, Mary Helen Miller may not spend her 30’s or 40’s in Chattanooga; she might be working on projects for a larger journalism enterprise or national radio station!