Union College News

Union Announces Alumni Award Winners

Several Union College alumni will receive high honors this week as part of the college’s homecoming celebration. The honorees will be recognized during the Homecoming Banquet and Awards Ceremony on Sat., Oct. 23 at 6:00 p.m. in Robsion Arena.

To purchase banquet tickets, contact the alumni relations office at 606-546-1226 or alumni@unionky.edu.

Three individuals and two athletic teams will be inducted into the college’s Hall of Fame. This year’s inductees are Gregory Duncum, Melissa Evans, Sonya Jones, the 1969-1972 Union Bulldog golf teams and the 1955 Union Bulldog track team.

Gregory Duncum, a 1989 Union graduate, will be inducted into the Athletic Hall of Fame. He was an award-winning member of the college’s football team, participated in swimming and baseball, and was heavily involved as a leader with several groups and organizations on campus. In 1987-88, he was chosen as the inaugural recipient of the President Jack C. Phillips Award for leadership. Duncum is now a teacher and coach with the Corbin Independent School System.

Melissa Evans is the newest member of the Educators Hall of Fame. She earned both undergraduate and graduate degrees in education from Union. As a teacher with the Corbin Independent School System, she won numerous awards, including the 2009 Kentucky Middle School Teacher of the Year, the 2008 Kentucky Middle School Science Teacher of the Year, and a Presidential Award for Excellence in Math and Science Teaching. Evans recently joined the Knox County School System, where she works with teachers and students to improve classroom instruction.

Sonya Jones, Ph.D., a Somerset resident, will join Evans as an inductee into the Educators Hall of Fame. Jones has enjoyed a long and accomplished career as an educator, most recently with the University of Kentucky’s honors program. While a professor at Allegheny College in Pennsylvania, she earned attention for her expertise in the pedagogy of multicultural studies and founded “The Allegheny Review,” now in its twenty-seventh year of publication. Jones is also a successful journalist and editor, serves as president of The Jones Educational Foundation, and is the spiritual director for the foundation’s Slate Branch Retreat Center in Somerset.

The 1969-1972 Union Bulldog golf teams will join the Athletic Hall of Fame as a Team of Distinction. The teams were the first at Union to win four consecutive conference championships, a feat that was not repeated for nearly 40 years. Members of the teams include Tommy Bennett, Tom Card, Lou Carey, Sean Cavanaugh, Greg Grayson, John Hauser, Larry Inkster, Steve Jeffers and Chuck Reich. Coaches included Herman Bush, Billy Hill and Scott Pierce.

The 1955 Bulldog track team will also be inducted as a Team of Distinction. It became the first undefeated track team in the college’s history and won the Kentucky Intercollegiate Athletic Conference track championship. Its members set several school records and included James Burkhart, Hobart Creasy, Walter Dick, Franklin Dodge, Darrell Fleming, Erwin Forrest, John Foutch, Donald Holt, James Hoskins, Tommy Jordan, Wayne Mackey, Rodney Neely, W.C. Sergeant, Alvin Strom, Doyle Swanner, Gerald Swim, James Todd, Ernest Trosper, Carl Wynn and Richard “Dick” Thomas, who passed away in 2009. The team was coached by Charles Dugan.

The banquet will also feature three award presentations.

The Ferocious Few intramural basketball team will be presented with the inaugural Spirit of Soldiers and Sailors Award, named for the recently renovated Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Gymnasium. In the 1950s, the gym was home to the infamous Ferocious Few, who traveled around the region and state to play against league, college, high school and independent teams. Their winning ways and showmanship earned media coverage from eastern Kentucky to Louisville. They still have the best intramural record in Union history. Union students who played with the Ferocious Few include Jim Burkhart, Al Combs, Gene Combs, Walter Dick, Bill D. Edwards, Shirley Goodin, Bill Hurt, Don Hurt, Glen Lehew, Fred Marland, Rod Neely, Freddie Parsons, H.G. Pratt, Darrell Pursiful, Grant Reed, Dan Sullivan, Tracy Vann, Jim Walters, Rue Wesley and Larry Wooden.

Gerald Swim, a 1956 graduate, and his wife, Bonnye Swim, ’64, will receive the Distinguished Alumni Service Award. They are involved with the Pan-African Academy of Christian Surgeons (PAACS). The international organization works to relieve the shortage of surgeons in Africa by training future surgeons, recruiting surgeon trainers, and establishing programs at Christian hospitals on the continent. Gerald serves as an administrator with PAACS, while Bonnye plans programs for spouses of physicians in training. In 2000, the Swims won the Christian Medical and Dental Association’s President’s Heritage Award for their service. The couple lives in Louisville, Ky.

Clavia Ruth Wooten-Kee, Ph.D.,’96, is this year’s Rising Star Award winner for young alumni. She is a post-doctoral fellow with the Baylor College of Medicine’s Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology. Wooten-Kee currently conducts research through a research award from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Disease. She has published her research in journals, presented at national and international conferences, and is a member of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases. Wooten-Kee came to Union from Leslie County, Ky., and now lives in Houston, Texas.

For more information about the 2010 homecoming weekend and the awards banquet, visit www.unionky.edu or call the alumni relations office at 606-546-1226.
   

October 21, 2010

[Top]