Categories
Uncategorized

1970-79

Mark your calendars now: 2009 is a Reunion year for the classes of 1974 and 1979.

70

Rhett G. Campbell is an insolvency and restructuring attorney in the Houston office of Thompson & Knight LLP. He was named to the Who’s Who Legal: Texas 2008 list from Law Business Research Limited.

Fletcher Freeman (J.D. ’73) is an ordained minister with the Universal Life Church in Ely, MN.

71

Jana Cole Bertrand wrote Beware the Red Flag Man: What Mothers Wish Their Daughters Could Know (Brown Books Publishing Group, 2008). She is a kindergarten teacher and single mother of seven daughters and three sons, one of whom attends SMU.

Elizabeth (Betty) Underwood is a real estate agent with Tom Gilchrist Co. in Dallas. She recently was elected a deacon at Highland Park Presbyterian Church.

72

The Rev. James (Jim) Dorff is the new bishop of the Southwest Texas Conference of The United Methodist Church, based in San Antonio. He was associate pastor at Highland Park UMC from 1972-89 and served other Texas churches in Gainesville and McKinney.

Jack W. Lunsford was named one of 50 Powerful People in metropolitan Phoenix for 2007 by Phoenix Business Journal and one of 24 Movers & Shakers for 2008 by West Valley Magazine. He appeared in 1,000 People to Know in Real Estate for 2008 in AZRE Magazine.

Marsha Ann (Shan) Pickard Rankin (M.B.A. ’82) was honored last April by the Zonta Club of West Hidalgo County (TX) at the 2008 Shining Stars event for her professional contributions to the community as executive director of the Museum of South Texas History. She lives in McAllen with her husband, Davis, and two sons, Marshall and Duncan.

Dr. John R. Richmond taught family medicine for 12 years at UT Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas and then established a primary care practice at Health Care Clinic in Dallas. He was honored as the 2007 Texas Family Physician of the Year by the Texas Academy of Family Physicians and in 2007 received the Silver Beaver Award from the Dallas Circle Ten Council of the Boy Scouts of America. He and his wife of 31 years, Carol, have six children and four granddaughters.

73

Jay Garrett is a Texas Super Lawyer, a Top Attorney in Fort Worth, Texas magazine and one of the Best Lawyers in America 2008 for real estate law. He is managing partner of Law, Snakard & Gambill in Fort Worth.

James C. Morriss III practices environmental law in the Austin office of Thompson & Knight LLP. He was named to the Who”s Who Legal: Texas 2008 list published by Law Business Research Limited.

Robert L. (Bob) Phillips is president and CEO of Phillips Productions Inc. in Dallas. Better known as the Texas Country Reporter, he has spent more than 35 years on the back roads of Texas and has been on every paved road in the state. His half-hour television programs total more than 2,000, and plans for a national show are in the works. He and his wife live in Beaumont, TX.

Glen Pourciau is the author of Invite (University of Iowa Press, 2008), a collection of stories that received the 2008 Iowa Short Fiction Award. He lives in Plano, TX.

Howard I. Zusman is a commercial lending expert with more than 30 years of experience. He has joined CNLBank in Miami-Dade County (FL) as senior vice president and commercial relationship manager.

74

Reunion chairs: Steve Morton, Robert G. White Jr. and Brenda Beach White


Ralph H. Duggins was appointed by Texas Gov. Rick Perry to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission for a five-year term beginning February 2008. He is a senior partner at Cantey Hanger LLP and serves on the Texas Supreme Court Advisory Committee. He lives in Fort Worth.

Kathy LaTour (M.A. ’83) is a 21-year breast cancer survivor and editor-at-large for Heal, a magazine for cancer survivors. She performed a one-woman show, One Mutant Cell, in Arkansas and Oklahoma last summer to celebrate National Cancer Survivors Day.

Barry Ross (M.B.A. ’79) started a full-service CPA firm in 2005 in Richardson, TX. Patrick Yack made a presentation on open government at the National Autonomous University of Mexico in Mexico City.

Air Force Lt. Gen. Craig McKinley became the first four-star general in the 372-year history of the National Guard in November. He is chief of the nation’s National Guard Bureau, overseeing 468,000 citizen-soldiers and airmen in Guard units in each state and territory. As the nation’s senior Guardsman, he also serves as principal adviser on National Guard matters to the Defense Secretary through the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. After completing ROTC at SMU, McKinley earned an Air Force commission. Rated as a command pilot, he has more than 4,000 flying hours in F-106, F-16 and F-15 fighters, and has been a command pilot in C-131 and C-130 aircraft.

75

Roger D. Aksamit, a corporate tax attorney in the Houston office of Thompson & Knight LLP, has been selected for the Who’s Who Legal: Texas 2008 list published by Law Business Research Limited.

James B. (Jim) Harris practices environmental law at Thompson & Knight LLP in Dallas. He joins 19 peers named to the Who’s Who Legal: Texas 2008 list.

Frank Kanelos is a home health care speech and language pathologist. He is on the board of directors of the Miss Alabama pageant and poet laureate emeritus for Birmingham.

Gary L. Malone is a Texas Monthly super doctor for the fifth year in a row. He is medical director and chief of psychiatry at Baylor All Saints Medical Center in Fort Worth and a faculty member at the Dallas Psychoanalytic Institute at UT Southwestern Medical Center. He has been married for 30 years and has two children.

James W. McKellar is one of 20 Thompson & Knight LLP attorneys named to the Who’s Who Legal: Texas 2008 list published by Law Business Research Limited. He is in banking law at the firm’s Dallas office.

Nancie Nieman Wagner is the 2008-09 president of the Junior League of Dallas Sustainers and a member of the Dallas Women’s Club. She and Alden E. Wagner Jr. have four children, two of whom attend SMU.

76

The Rev. Mike Lowry has been elected bishop of the Fort Worth-based Central Texas Conference of The United Methodist Church. He served Texas churches in Kerrville, Harlingen, Corpus Christi, Austin and San Antonio.

Dr. Timothy S. Mescon was named president of Columbus State University by the Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia. Since 1990 he had been dean of the Coles College of Business at Kennesaw State University in Georgia.

77

O. Paul Corley Jr. is an attorney in the Dallas office of Thompson & Knight LLP named to D magazine’s Best Lawyers in Dallas for 2008.

Curtis Dretsch has been a teacher, designer and administrator at Muhlenberg College in Allentown, PA, for almost 30 years. Primarily a professor of theater arts and director of design and technical theater in the Department of Theater and Dance, he received a Lifetime Achievement Henry Award in April 2002 for his contributions to the Muhlenberg College community.

The Rev. Dr. C. Robert Hasley Jr. (D. Min. ’78) has been elected to the Methodist Health System corporate board of directors. He was associate pastor of Highland Park United Methodist Church in Dallas from 1978-86 before becoming organizing pastor at St. Andrew UMC of Plano, where he is senior pastor.

78

Rip Hale was recently named one of Barron’s magazine’s “Top 1000 Advisors” for 2009. He is a senior institutional consultant with Smith Barney in Dayton, Ohio.

Cindy Funkhouser MacIlvaine and Rod MacIlvaine live in Bartlesville, OK, where he is senior pastor of Grace Community Church and she leads adult ministries. Their church recently assisted in forming a school in Cuba.

Les Weisbrod is the 2008-09 president of the American Association for Justice, formerly the Association of Trial Lawyers of America. He is a partner in the Dallas law firm Miller, Curtis & Weisbrod, representing cases involving serious injury or death as a result of negligence or product defect.

79

Reunion chairs: Patrick F. Hammer, Kevin Meeks and Laura Green Meeks


The Rev. James E. Large completed 10 years as director of connectional ministries for the New Mexico Annual Conference and now serves as senior pastor at St. Paul’s United Methodist Church in Las Cruces.

2 replies on “1970-79”

Great reunion party!!
Terrible seating at the football game. We were scattered about; no one sitting together.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *