They Also Walked The Halls
Arthur E. “Gene” Abney B.S. 1946 College of Education and Human Services
With more than 60 years of outstanding service to
his alma mater, the State of Illinois, and the aviation
industry, Arthur E. "Gene" Abney is a former
director of aeronautics for the State of Illinois and
director of public affairs (Central U.S.) for American
Airlines. As a student at Southern, he was the founding
commander of the "Flying Egyptians," a group of 35
students, including Abney, who learned to fly under
SIU's Civilian Pilot Training Program at the Marion airport.
The group entered the Navy flight program as a unit in
June 1942. After interrupting his education to serve as a naval patrol pilot during World War II, Abney returned to complete his degree at Southern. He also earned a law degree from the Lincoln College of Law in Springfield. Soon thereafter, he joined the Department of Aeronautics as a pilot and safety inspector. In short order, Abney was promoted to assistant director of aeronautics (by Gov. Adlai Stevenson) and then to director (by Gov. William Stratton.) He served as director from 1954 to 1961, before joining American Airlines, where he worked from 1961 to 1982. His distinguished aviation career culminated in being selected for the Illinois Aviation Hall of Fame in 1990. His outstanding support of the SIU aviation program began in 1980 when he was appointed to the Aviation Management Advisory Committee and was hired as a part-time visiting assistant professor to teach legal aspects of aviation management. Abney taught at SIU from 1980 to 1988, and provided outstanding service on the advisory committee. He died in September of 2008.
Rox Bailey B.S. 1970 Marketing
Rox Bailey is chairman and CEO of Classic Coffee
Concepts Inc., located in Charlotte, N.C. Classic
Coffee Concepts (originally Mr. Coffee) is a multifaceted
niche marketer that engages in design, development,
manufacture, international sales, and distribution of
commercial coffee makers, coffee products, and directly
related allied products. Bailey led the management team
buyout of the Joint Venture Investors Sunbeam Inc., and S&D Coffee Inc. He was inducted into the College of Business and Administration Hall of Fame in 1989. He has served on the college's external advisory board since 1998. He's a native of Benton, Ill.
Donald L. Beggs BS ’63 Mathematics
M.S.Ed. ’64 Educational Psychology
Growing up in nearby Harrisburg, Donald Beggs
followed his maternal family tradition -- a grandmother
who attended Southern in the late 1880s and his
mother, the first in the family to complete a degree.
Today the man who earned degrees in mathematics
and educational psychology at SIUC is the 12th president
of Wichita (Kan.) State University, a position he accepted in 1998 after serving two years as SIUC chancellor. Beggs’ 40-year association with SIUC began in 1959, when he arrived on campus as a student. After receiving his doctorate at the University of Iowa in 1966, Beggs returned to Southern as an assistant professor in the College of Education. He eventually became dean of the College of Education, a post he held from 1981 to 1996. He and his wife, Shirley ’64, M.S. Ed. ’68, are parents of Brent Beggs ’91 and Pamela Jarvis ’92. Don and Shirley are life members of the SIU Alumni Association.
Richard W. “Dick” Blaudow B.S. 1970 Engineering Technology
Dick Blaudow is cofounder, chairman, and CEO
of Advanced Technology Services Inc., a Peoria-based
company that provides managed services for production
equipment maintenance, industrial parts repair, and IT
infrastructure support for manufacturers. Begun as a
spin-off from Caterpillar, ATS has grown into a leading
supplier of services that help leaders in automotive,
consumer durables, heavy equipment, government,
health care, finance, and aerospace industries increase productivity.
Blaudow began his career at Caterpillar in 1969 in the plant operations training program and later assumed the position of staff engineer in Plant Engineering in the East Peoria facility. The electronic repair department became the startup group of ATS in 1996 when Blaudow and others purchased the remaining outstanding share of ATS from Caterpillar. ATS now employs more than 1,500 people, has five branch offices, and has more than 150 customer site locations in the United States and Mexico.
Larry "Moose" Calufetti B.S. '76 Physical Education
This Harrisburg, Ill., native was a catcher on the
SIU baseball team from 1970 to 1973, helping the
Salukis win 141 games in four seasons, highlighted
by a second-place finish in the 1971 College World
Series. Calufetti received all-tournament honors, leading
all hitters with a .533 batting average. Following a stint
as a player and coach in the New York Mets organization,
he moved to Fort Lauderdale, Fla., where he began his own
contract cleaning business. As president/CEO, Calufetti
has built Sunshine Cleaning Systems into one of the largest
contract cleaning businesses in the state. His customer list includes international airports, arenas, stadiums, convention centers, hospitals, and schools.
Robert L. Coover Ex ’53
Celebrated for his wild, innovative, pioneering fiction,
Robert Coover, winner of the William Faulkner Award
for best first novel (The Origin of the Brunists) in 1966,
has written more than 20 books, 10 plays, and several
screenplays. As a professor of English at Brown University
in Providence, R.I., Coover teaches electronic and
experimental writing. A native of Herrin, Ill., Coover
graduated from Herrin High School in 1949 and attended Southern for about two years, writing for the student newspaper and serving as class president his sophomore year, before going to Indiana University, where he earned a degree in Slavic studies. His latest honor is the Dugannon Foundation’s REA award for his lifetime contribution to the short story.
Ted Cunningham B.S. '68 Management
After a nearly 40-year career in the automotive industry,
Ted Cunningham is now director of sales and marketing
for Bankers Integration Group (BIG), a finance and
insurance technology company. The firm provides
Internet-based automated lending systems for auto
dealerships. It matches prospective buyers with loan
programs based on information from loan applications.
Deals are negotiated in real time and made final in seconds.
Cunningham was formerly executive vice president of
global sales and marketing for Daimler/Chrysler.
Larry DeJarnett B.S. '62 Management
M.S. '63 Business
Working on his fifth career, Larry DeJarnett is a
founder and managing director of The LAMAR Group,
which provides personal advisory services to both
for-profit and nonprofit organizations. He is a board
advisor or director for two private technology-based
companies, is vice chair of the board of trustees for
Goodwill Industries in Long Beach and South Bay,
and is a member of the board of trustees and the
president's advisory council for the Claremont School
of Theology. Until his early retirement in July 1999, DeJarnett was CEO of Enterprise Solutions, a global joint venture of EDS and A.T. Kearney. As a senior vice president at A.T. Kearney, DeJarnett specialized in business restructuring, technology strategy, and deployment. Previously he served as a managing partner of the JIA Management Group and was corporate vice president and chief technology officer for Lear Siegler Inc. He has held various financial, logistics, and systems positions with Ford Motor Co. After finishing his two degrees at Southern, DeJarnett helped establish the University’s first systems and computer services organization, and taught management and technology courses as part of the College of Business faculty.
Jim Fornear B.S. '60 Elementary Education
M.S. '60 Rehabilitation Counseling
After working early in his career as a Job Corps
center director, James R. Fornear founded Res-Care
Development Company Inc., which now, more than
30 years later, is one of the largest providers of home
care to the elderly and people with disabilities. It also
offers residential and support services to people with
intellectual and developmental disabilities and provides
education, vocational training, and job placement for
people of all ages and skill levels. Based in
Louisville, Ky., ResCare and its 42,000 dedicated employees serve daily more than 65,000 people in 37 states, Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico, and a growing number of international locations.
Kathleen Fralish Ph.D. '77 Communication Disorders and Sciences
Kathleen B. Fralish is the retired founder and
president of the Center for Comprehensive Services
in Carbondale. Established in 1977, it was the first dedicated
after-hospital rehabilitation program in the country for persons
with acquired back injury. Today the center is a unique
blended partnership of programs serving persons with
acquired brain injury through the ABI (Acquired Brain Injury) Network.
Bob Gower B.A. '58 Chemistry
M.A. '60 Chemistry
Bob G. Gower, former president and CEO of
Carbon Nanotechnologies Inc., has more than 40
years of experience in the chemical industry, 30 of
which were in operational and managerial roles for
such companies as Atlantic Richfield, ARCO Chemical,
and Lyondell Petrochemical Company. Gower became
president of Lyondell when it was formed in 1985 and
led its transformation from an unprofitable company to one recognized as one of the 100 best manufacturing companies in the world when he retired in late 1996. His post-retirement plan was to buy some small companies and improve their operations on a small scale. Instead, he now finds himself on the leading edge of what the National Science Foundation predicts will be a $1 trillion global marketplace by 2015.
J. Ray Hancock B.S. ’62 English
M.S.Ed. ’68 Recreation
Ph.D. ’83 Health Education
Ray Hancock heads the Illinois Community College
Foundation. He retired as president of John A. Logan
College in 2000 after 11 years at the helm as top
administrator, having been a staff member there since
1974. Before that, he taught for 12 years at Marion High
School. Along the way he’s been honored repeatedly for
his public education and community involvement, as well
as for the success and growth he brought to John A.
Logan College. Hancock is a life member of the SIU Alumni Association.
Carole Jacoby M.A. ’68 Psychology
Ph.D. ’70 Psychology
Carole Jacoby is the president of LifeVisions, an
achievement-oriented coaching company that
powerfully and effectively connects people and
their organizations to their future goals. As a personal
and business master coach, Carole empowers people
to fulfill their potential. She coaches individuals,
teams, executives and managers within organizations.
In addition to coaching more than 100 personal clients,
Carole leads workshops, trainings and retreats and has provided services to coaching-related services organizations. Carole is a member of The International Coach Federation and has been awarded the credential of Master Certified Coach by this national organization. She is a graduate of The Coaches Training Institute (CTI) and has completed advanced courses at Corporate Coach University. Prior to coaching, Carole was a teacher, a counselor, the coordinator of prevention programs at The Consultation Center of the Department of Psychiatry at Yale University, and the executive director of a nonprofit agency. She has written curriculum as well as co-authored several published articles.
Larry L. Jacoby M.A. '68 Psychology
Ph.D. '70 Psychology
Larry Jacoby , a professor of psychology at
Washington University in St. Louis, with expertise
in memory, conscious, aging, social psychology,
memory rehabilitation and neural, focuses his research on the distinction between consciously controlled and automatic processes. The distinction is useful for better understanding age-related differences in memory performance, and for improved diagnosis and treatment of memory deficits. Other research extends the conscious/automatic distinction to issues in the domain of social psychology and seeks to identify brain-based differences for the types of processes. Interest in subjective experience has led to investigations of memory illusions (e.g., why memory can make a room seem less noisy). A goal of his research is to develop procedures for rehabilitating memory. He is also interested in various problems in social psychology. Jacoby's research is supported by funding from the National Institute of Aging.
Roger Alan Long B.S. ’61 Theater
An Illinois native, Roger Long became an eminent
director and actor who also had a passion for
Indonesian wayang kulit (Javanese shadow puppetry).
Long was an a professor of Southeast Asian Theatre,
director of the Southeast Asian Studies program, and
chairman of the department of theatre and dance at the
University of Hawaii before retiring in 2005. He lived,
studied, researched, and worked in Indonesia, where he was widely known because of his teaching and stage credentials in Malaysia and Java. He died in 2007.
Donald McHenry MS ’59 Speech Communication
Donald McHenry, a distinguished professor in the
practice of diplomacy at Georgetown University’s
Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service and
president of IRC Group, an international consulting
firm, has a lot of practice for what he preaches. He
was ambassador and U.S. permanent representative
to the United Nations from 1979 to 1981. He served
as a member of President Jimmy Carter’s cabinet and
as ambassador and U.S. deputy representative to the U.N. Security Council. He has studied, taught, and worked in the fields of foreign policy and international law and organizations. He is author of Micronesia: Trust Betrayed (1975, Carnegie Endowment) and numerous articles published in professional journals and newspapers.
Mr. McHenry has been a distinguished professor of diplomacy at Georgetown University since 1981. He also is president of the IRC Group LLC and a director of The Coca-Cola Company and the Institute for International Economics. He served as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations from 1979-1981.
Mr. McHenry, born October 13, 1936, has been a director since April 14, 1981
J. Michael Norsworthy BM ’99 Music
Michael Norsworthy, an acclaimed soloist, widely
sought-after chamber music collaborator, and
clarinetist, emerged as one of the most gifted artists
of his generation. Norsworthy’s performances have
taken him to distinguished concert venues throughout
the U.S. and Europe, with recent seasons including
world premieres of works written for him. His
artist-in-residence stints include seasons at Harvard,
the Boston Conservatory, and Columbia University.
As a user of Buffet Clarinets, Norsworthy is a performing
artist for Buffet Crampon, the Parisian firm that is the
world’s oldest and most
distinguished clarinet maker.
L. Eudora Pettigrew MA ’64 Rehabilitation and Administrative Services
PhD ’66 Education
Students from the early 1960s may remember her as
a resident counselor at Thompson Point; others
remember her as president of State University of
New York at Old Westbury, a post she held for
12 years before retiring. In both positions, she was
the first African American to hold the job. As
university president, Pettigrew was a highly respected
administrator in the nation’s largest university system,
leading an undergraduate college of 3,600 students at
the campus, located on the north shore of Long Island. As an international ambassador for higher education, she led a delegation of public institutions to China. Pettigrew also broke ground for African Americans serving in high administrative positions at the University of Bridgeport, Michigan State University, and the University of Delaware, She has received awards from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the Negro Women’s Business and Professional Organization.
Darryl Phinnessee B.M. ’79 Music
The words that will always resonate with fans
of the television show “Frasier,” are the creation
of lyricist Darryl Phinnessee ’79, who came up with
the words to the show’s theme,
“Tossed Salad and Scrambled Eggs.” With music by
Bruce Miller and performed by Frasier himself, Kelsey Grammer, the song is essentially a bluesy take on Frasier’s job as a radio psychiatrist, although aficionados of the show tried to read other meanings into it. Phinnessee’s lyrics won him BMI TV music awards for “Frasier” from 1994 to 2004. He’s a musician, writer, and singer himself and his list of credits includes working with such artists as Michael Jackson, Anita Baker George Duke, Lou Gramm, Don Henley, Aaron Neville, Rod Stewart, Jimmy Vaughn, Stevie Wonder, and Bruce Willis.
Curtis Price BM ’67
Sir Curtis Price, an honorary knight commander
of the British Empire in recognition of his services
to music, is the principal of the Royal Academy
of Music and a professor of music at the University
of London. Price moved to the United Kingdom in
1981 to teach at King’s College London. He’s been
principal of the Royal Academy of Music since 1995,
and became a University of London professor in 2000.
The Royal Academy is a constituent college of the University of London and one of the world’s leading music institutions. During his tenure, the institution has maintained and enhanced its excellent international reputation, expanded its curriculum, and continued to attract the finest students and teachers from around the world. Price has announced his attention to retire in September 2008.
James M. Rosser B.A. 1962 Microbiology
M.A. 1963 Microbiology
Ph.D. 1969 Education
James M. Rosser has served as president of California
State University, Los Angeles, since 1979, where he also
holds academic appointment as a professor of health care
management. Previously he was vice chancellor and acting
chancellor of the New Jersey Department of Higher Education
and associate vice chancellor for academic affairs and a tenured faculty member at the University of Kansas. Earlier in his career, Rosser held academic and administrative positions at Southern Illinois University and was a researcher at the Eli Lilly and Co. Research Laboratories in Indianapolis. A native of East St. Louis, Ill., Rosser, with his extensive background in the fields of health care delivery and higher education administration, serves on a member or consultant to a large number of entities, such as the National Institutes of Health's National Heart and Lung Institute, the New Jersey Board of Medical Examiners, the American Association of State Colleges and Universities, and the National Health Foundation. In the community, he is a board member of the Los Angeles Urban League, the Los Angeles Annenberg Metropolitan Project, and a past president of the Los Angeles Area Boy Scouts of America, to name only a few.