HOMECOMING AWARDS
UMNAA Celebrates Award Winners at Homecoming Luncheon The UM National Alumni Association recognized its 2023 Homecoming award winners at their annual luncheon Feb. 11 in Anna Irvin Dining Hall. Hon. Beth Chapman ’84 received the 2023 Distinguished Alumni Award, which is the UMNAA’s highest annual honor. Cindy Clark Greer ’88 received the 2023 Nathalie Molton Gibbons Alumni Achievement Award, which is given annually to an alum age 35 or older whose career and community contributions have refected positively at the local, state or national level. Heather Buckner ’14 is the recipient of the 2023 Nathalie Molton Gibbons Young Achiever’s Award, which is given annually to an alum age 35 or younger based on the same criteria as the Alumni Achievement Award. Hon. Beth Chapman Chapman, a native of Greenville, and a Hoover resident, is a member of the University’s Board of Trustees and served two terms as the state of Alabama’s 51st secretary of state upon her election in 2006. “Truly I belonged (at the University of Montevallo),” Chapman said, “and I’m so grateful that I still do. Te University of Montevallo equipped, enabled and empow-
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ered me to be able to live what we know as ‘Te American Dream.’” Chapman was the frst woman in the state to serve as a cabinet member, as appointments secretary for a governor and later as press secretary for a lieutenant governor. She was elected state auditor in January 2002. As secretary of state, Chapman received more votes than any constitutional ofcer in state history. She helped create online business flings, the ofce’s frst voter fraud task force and the development of electronic military voting. One of Chapman’s many nominators for the award said she is highly regarded for her skill in leading and working with others to make a diference. “Beth advocates for Montevallo at every opportunity and is one of the University’s most well-known ambassadors,” a nominator wrote. Chapman received her bachelor’s degree in communication from UM and earned a master’s degree in education from Te University of Alabama at Birmingham in 1990. She is a 1996 graduate of Princeton University’s Women Executives in State Government Management Institute and a 2013 graduate
of Harvard University’s Senior Executives in State and Local Government. Chapman retired from public ofce in 2013 and owns and operates Beth Chapman & Associates, LLC, a political and public relations consulting frm. Chapman was the frst recipient of the UMNAA Nathalie Molton Gibbons Young Achiever’s Award in 1997.
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Cindy Clark Greer Greer, a Montevallo resident, served as the former executive director of Owens House, Shelby County’s child advocacy center, from 2009 to 2021 at the end of a three-decade career in social work. “Tis University helped to grow my passion for the world and give me the things that I needed to be able to minister in the world and reach out to people who were diferent than me and to be able to hopefully impact their lives,” Greer said. Greer, who graduated from UM with a bachelor’s degree in sociology, served as a child abuse and neglect social worker at the Shelby County Department of Human Resources for nine years. She became the Shelby County Department of Human Resources child abuse and neglect unit supervisor in
1 As the recipient of the Distinguished Alumni Award, the Hon. Beth Chapman ’84 receives a commemorative Standard Chair of Gardner and UM photo plaque; 2 Stephanie Baugh Shaw ’93 presents Cindy Clark Greer ’88 with the Nathalie Molton Gibbons Alumni Achievement Award; 3 Junior Board President Clark Maxwell ’13 presents Heather Elaine Buckner ’14 with the Nathalie Molton Gibbons Young Achiever’s Award.