CCU honors supporters, alumni at annual Founders Day event
Harold Stowe and the late Gen. James F. Hackler Jr. will be named honorary founders of the university. Sally Z. Hare, Joyce B. Parker and John M. Vaught III will receive the University Medallion, created in 2012 to recognize individuals who have contributed to CCU in the areas of service, entrepreneurship, philanthropy and/or scholarship.
Also, a new feature of Founders Day this year is the recognition of the 2013 Alumni of the Year honorees, chosen by the CCU Alumni Association. Alexander D. Klaus is the Alumnus of the Year, and Amy McAllister-Skinner is the Young Alumnus of the Year.
Honorary Founders
Harold Stowe was president and chief executive officer of Canal Industries Inc. from 1997 to 2005. Stowe served as interim dean of CCU's E. Craig Wall Sr. College of Business Administration from May 2006 to February 2007. He has also served as an executive-in-residence for the Wall College and is a longtime member of the Wall College's Board of Visitors. Active in civic affairs, he was chairman of the Myrtle Beach Air Base Redevelopment Authority and a member of the South Carolina Commission on Higher Education Business Advisory Board. Stowe received the honorary degree, Doctor of Public Service, from CCU in 2008.
Gen. James F. Hackler Jr. (1920-2007) was major general in the U.S. Air Force and a pioneer of the Grand Strand's golf industry. He was a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in 1943 and attended the NATO Defense College and U.S. National War College in 1960. Earning many decorations, he served as a fighter pilot in World War II and was the first Operational Group Commander of the newly formed 354th Tactical Fighter Wing at the Myrtle Beach Air Force Base in 1956. For many years he served as president and chairman of the board of Caro-Strand Corp., Possum Trot Inc., Indian Wells Golf Club and Heather Glen Inc. He was actively involved in civic affairs, serving as commissioner of the Horry County Airport Commission, chair of the Jetport Terminal Building Planning Committee and a member of the Board of Visitors for CCU's Wall College of Business.
University Medallion Recipients
Sally Z. Hare served Coastal Carolina University in a variety of capacities in the College of Education from 1974 until 2005. She served as dean of Graduate and Continuing Education for more than a decade. In 1993, she was named the Grant and Elizabeth Singleton Endowed Professor and created the Center for Education and Community, which she served as director until her retirement. During her career at CCU, Hare was a Kellogg National Leadership Fellow and a Fetzer National Teaching Fellow, and she won a national award for community development from the National Continuing Education Association. Under her guidance, the Center for Education and Community sponsored a number of innovative programs linking the university and the community, including Calling All Colors, Jump for the Sun and America Reads. Hare was CCU's 2001 Distinguished Teacher-Scholar Lecturer award recipient. For the past 12 years, she has worked as an international facilitator of The Courage to Teach program.
Joyce B. Parker was a CCU faculty member in the Department of English from 1965 to 1998. She was the first chair of the Department of English, serving from 1965 to 1974, and she was the University's senior faculty member from 1991 until her retirement in 1998. In her academic career, Parker fused her love of literature, particularly children's literature, with her love of music. She was an advocate for community literacy and an accomplished musician. She organized Coastal Carolina's first student chorus in the late 1960s and directed and performed in many community and CCU theatre productions. She was also secretary of the Faculty Senate for all the regional campuses when Coastal Carolina was part of the USC system. In 1971, Parker received Coastal Carolina's Distinguished Teacher Award. She was named one of the Outstanding Young Women in America in 1972.
Johnny Vaught is vice chairman of the Horry County Higher Education Commission and has been a member of the organization since 1997, serving on the Atlantic Center ad hoc committee since 2000, as well as numerous other HCHEC committees. Vaught was head of the Department of Electronics Engineering Technology at Horry Georgetown Technical College from 1983 to 2012. In civic affairs, Vaught has been very active with the Waccamaw Sertoma Club, having served in every office of the organization from board member to president. He has also served as president of the Conway Area Chamber of Commerce and the South Carolina Technical Education Association. He is a member of the First United Methodist Church in Conway. For five years, he was a licensed competition driver in the Sports Car Club of America.
Alumni of the Year
Alexander D. Klaus graduated, cum laude, from CCU in 2005 with a double major in finance and management. A native of Germany, he transferred to CCU after receiving an intermediate diploma in tourism management from the International University of Applied Sciences Bad Honnef in Bonn, Germany, with which CCU has a longstanding cooperative exchange program. After graduating from CCU, Klaus worked from 2006 to 2007 as an investment analyst with Chanticleer Holdings in Charlotte. In 2007, he started his own company, Addisco Value LLC, a capital management firm based in Huntersville, N.C. The company owns several business franchises including two Massage Envy clinics in Columbia and three The Joint chiropractic locations in Charlotte. Klaus maintains a close relationship with the Wall College of Business. He is vice president of the Beta Gamma Sigma alumni chapter in Charlotte, serves on the college's Finance Advisory Board, and mentored last year's Business Plan Competition. Klaus has also, through his connections with Berkshire Hathaway, arranged for a group of CCU students to travel to Omaha, Neb., to meet the billionaire investor Warren Buffett as part of the legendary philanthropist's series of Friday meetings with college students. The event, a first for CCU, is scheduled to take place in November.
Young Alumnus of the Year
Amy McAllister-Skinner earned a master's degree in literacy from Coastal Carolina University's Spadoni College of Education in May 2012. She was named South Carolina's 2012-2013 Teacher of the Year by the S.C. Department of Education. As part of the honor, McAllister-Skinner received a sabbatical from regular classroom teaching so that she could spend the academic year visiting schools across the state to network with K-12 students and faculty. During the year, she spoke at many teacher forums and led teacher cadet classes, and learned about education policy and advocacy. For travel purposes, she was provided with a BMW X3, and she received a $25,000 cash gift. One of the highlights of her Teacher of the Year experience was attending a White House ceremony with the Teachers of the Year from the other 49 states, where she met with President Barack Obama and U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. McAllister-Skinner is a teacher at J. Paul Truluck Middle School in her hometown, Lake City.