Class Notes 2016 - Coastal Carolina University

CCU Class Notes from 2016

January 2016

2014
Russel Kanner recently graduated from U.S. Air Force Basic Training as an Airman 1st Class.

2015
Rachel McMillan works as an operations analyst for Wells Fargo in Charlotte, N.C.
Lauren Colombi plans to pursue a master’s degree in inpatient/outpatient psychology at Baruch College in Manhattan, N.Y.

February 2016

2006
Travis Dannelly has been promoted to development officer and assistant vice president with CresCom Bank.

2009
Angela Nordeen is obtaining a master's on a dual track of school and clinical counseling at Lenoir-Rhyne University. She plans to return to the Myrtle Beach area in summer 2017 to complete internships in both areas.

2010
Kathryn Callahan was recently named the marketing coordinator for Zodiac Nautic North America, based in Summerville, S.C. She handles marketing, social media, press conferences and serves as the parts and accessories sales coordinator.

2014
Lillian Carroll is a special educator at Myrtle Beach Primary. She is also attending CCU to obtain a master's degree in educational leadership.
Christopher Seger has joined Vanacore, DeBenedictus, DiGovanni & Weddell as an associate accountant, working out of Newburgh, N.Y. He earned a master’s degree in accounting with a focus in tax.
Justin Portillo, a third-year midfielder, has rejoined the Charlotte Battery soccer club for the 2016 season.

March 2016

1995
Michele L. Olds, the first female president of CCU’s Student Government Association, will be a panelist in two panels and a panel moderator at the largest capital markets conference in the world.
Rodney J. Summers was named the first head football coach at May River High School in Bluffton, S.C. He previously served as head coach at Westwood High School in Blythewood, S.C., guiding the team to the state playoffs in three of his four seasons, including an 11-2 finish in 2014 that earned him Coach of the Year honors from the S.C. Football Coaches Association. Summers was also honored in 2014 as the South Carolina Strength and Conditioning Coach of the Year and the Fellowship of Christian Athletes Art Baker State Coach of the Year.

2002
Boris G. Menier, marketing manager for the Florida Marlins, and his wife welcomed their daughter, Lua Gabriella Menier, on Dec. 29, 2015.

2005
Steven M. Toniolo is engaged to Caroline Willis Jones. Their wedding is scheduled for April 30 at First Presbyterian Church in Florence. The co-owner of Tubb’s Shrimp and Fish Company in Florence, Toniolo earned an MBA from Francis Marion University.

2007
Lauren K. Taylor and Peter Degnan welcomed their daughter, Mary Grace, on Feb. 1, 2016, in Milford, Conn.

2013
Blake C. Collins was recently named the manager of communication for Martinsville Speedway, a part of the International Speedway Corporation. Martinsville hosts two NASCAR Sprint Cup Races a year, two NASCAR Camping World Truck Series Races and a Late Model Stock Race in October.

2015
Christopher T. McCormack recently started a travel blog, Been There Done That, to chronicle his upcoming two-month trip to China.

April 2016

1979
H. Delan Stevens will be inducted into the 2016 Conway High School Hall of Fame as an Outstanding Alumnus on April 14. He is also a member of the CCU Board of Tustees.

1993
Leslie C. Moore is the editor for Strand Media Group. She is a 25-year resident of Pawleys Island.

1998
Jonathan Hyman is a candidate for Horry County Treasurer. For the past 17 years, Hyman has been appraising residential and commercial property and is a candidate for MAI designation from the Appraisal Institute. He manages his own appraisal firm.

2007
John D. Morrell, of Wenham, Mass., was named vice president, retail market manager, for TD Bank’s North Shore region. He is responsible for overseeing business development, sales management and employee development at 19 TD Bank locations.

2009
Brentley Broughton was recently named web design manager at Coastal Carolina University. He and his wife, Victoria, a fellow CCU graduate, live in Conway with their 2-year-old daughter, Aubrey.

2010
Eugene Bellamy, and his wife, Raven, welcomed their daughter, Madison Aaliyan Bellamy, on Dec. 11, 2015.

2011
Leigha Peterson is Coastal Carolina University’s first Ph.D. student in coastal and marine systems science. She recently passed the first Ph.D. comprehensive exam given at CCU. Peterson has participated in several extended research cruises to Antarctica, the Gulf of Mexico and elsewhere in pursuit of her studies. She is now focusing on her dissertation. Peterson earned a master’s degree in coastal marine and wetland studies from CCU in 2014.
Roslyn Sakowitz was promoted to sales representative at Kingston Resorts in Myrtle Beach. She is responsible for developing new business and leads for the sales team.

2012
Joey Trail has been named a finalist for South Carolina Teacher of the Year. One of five finalists, Trail is an English teacher at Forestbrook Middle School in the Socastee School District.

2015
Trevor Tarleton has been named the first research assistant for the new Grant Center for Real Estate and Economic Development at Coastal Carolina University. His background includes multiple certifications in forestry and land management techniques. Prior to returning to CCU to pursue an MBA, he was employed with AlphaEMC, where he provided consulting work for large land developers and builders in the coastal region.

May 2016

2000
Jennifer Creque-Blackburn teaches early childhood education and English as a second language at Hocking College in Nelsonville, Ohio. She is the only full-time faculty member in the early childhood education department, where she is working to create a department resource room. Blackburn and her husband, Keller, have one son.

2001
Kelly (Sloan) Adams married Chris Adams in June 2015.

2006
Craig Face recently moved with his wife and two children from Wakefield to Prince George's County in Maryland after being named a market leader IV at BB&T Bank. He also served the Rotary Club of Franklin as a board member and project manager.

2008
Ann Sue Lee is enrolled in an RN to BSN online nursing program at Liberty University.

2012
Kira Carter has recently been hired as the assistant women's basketball coach at Missouri University of Science and Technology in Rolla, Mo. For the past two years, Carter served as the assistant coach at Wabash Valley College. She also coached for one year at Thomas College. Prior to coaching, Carter played a season of professional basketball in the Czech Republic league in 2012-13. She earned a master's degree in sports leadership from Duquesne University in 2015.

2013
Chandler Hilley has been accepted to the Ph.D. program in family and human development at Arizona State University. He will be working on adolescent and young adult research related to health and education. Hilley plans to obtain a faculty or research role upon completion of the doctoral degree.

2014
Cory Shaw is a web developer at Fuel, a Myrtle Beach full-service online marketing agency specializing in e-commerce solutions for the travel and hospitality industry. As a student at CCU, he worked as a web programmer and was nominated for Grand Strand Technology Council's Student Innovator of the Year Award in 2013. He also independently developed CCU's outdoor recreation rental and reservation system.

June 2016

1987
Darryl Morhardt was recently hired as a pitching coach for the Newport Gulls. From 2008-14, he was the manager of the Holyoke (later known as Valley) Blue Sox, and was the pitching coach for the Torrington Twisters from 1997 to 2006. He has coached in various roles for the University of Hartford, Gateway Community College, Western Connecticut State, Marietta College, George Washington University and Fairleigh Dickinson University. Morhardt played professionally from 1985-87, including a season with the Atlanta Braves Class A affiliate. He also worked with the New York Mets as an associate scout from 1997-2002.

2000
Emily Owens is a lieutenant commander and environmental health officer in the U.S. Navy. She is also a Navy Medicine Training Support Center preventive medicine instructor at the Medical Education and Training Campus at Joint Base San Antonio - Fort Sam Houston. She holds a master's in public health with a certificate in environmental health from Florida International University, and an MBA with a concentration in organizational change and behavior from Hawaii Pacific University. In addition, she graduated from the Marine Corps Command and Staff College. Owens is pursuing a master's degree in adult education from Auburn University.

2005
Jen Pierce has been teaching digital photography and art at Myrtle Beach High School for the past two years. She previously taught art and digital media at Loris High School after earning a master's degree from CCU. She is also an artist of various mediums including paint and mixed media.

2008
Rachel Graves Sadowski, of Far Hills, N.J., works for the United States Golf Association as director of championships for the U.S. Women's Mid-Amateur and the U.S. Women’s Amateur Four-Ball. The 2017 Four-Ball Championship is scheduled for May 27-31 at The Dunes Golf & Beach Club in Myrtle Beach.

2013
Ashton Lee was named the Georgetown School District Teacher of the Year. She teaches social studies at Waccamaw Middle School. Lee also is pursuing a master's degree.

July 2016

1969
Keith Hinson, owner and founder of Waccamaw Land & Timber Company, has been confirmed by the South Carolina Senate to serve on the Department of Natural Resources board. He has also served as chairman of CCU’s E. Craig Wall Sr. College of Business Administration board of visitors and as a member of the Carolina First Bank board of directors.

1996
Patricia Apone has taken a new job with the Louisville Regional Airport Authority. She previously served as the director of the Myrtle Beach International Airport for several years.

2000
Karen Sanders has been promoted to senior environmental health specialist with the Arkansas Department of Health and is the hospital food services program coordinator for the entire state.

2004
Jared Owen and his wife Lovae welcomed their son Jaxton Brandford Owen late last year.

2006
Arthur Jashienski is the new offensive coordinator at Stratford High School in Goose Greek, S.C. He and his wife Mallory live in Crowfield with their three children.

2007
Barrett Maners has joined Richard Odom & Associates as a licensed apprentice appraiser. He is a practicing affiliate of the Appraisal Institute and is a licensed as a real estate broker in North and South Carolina. Maners earned a master’s of real estate development from Clemson University.

Steven Schuster came in 14^th place at the 100th Annual Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest Main Event in Coney Island, N.Y. He made it to the main event after eating 21.5 hotdogs in 10 minutes at a qualifying event in Charlotte earlier this year.

2009
Amanda Floyd and her husband Bobby welcomed Skylar Leigh Floyd in early spring.

James Galloway has been promoted three times in his seven years with CIOX Health, most recently to regional manager of operations for the Charleston-Savannah area. For the past few years, he and his wife Kristina have been living in the Tampa area.

2012
Lindsay Osborne and Phillip Pampani were married April 24, 2016, in Pawleys Island, S.C. She works as a special events administrator for the American Heart Association in Myrtle Beach.

2014
Nick Baldino has been promoted by Cisco to a position in San Francisco, where he works with web accounts such as Facebook. For the past two years, he also served as a fill-in radio play-by-play announcer for CCU athletics.

Erica Norwood and Zack Niemann married in July 2016. She teaches first grade at Sunset Park Elementary in Rock Hill, and he is a water loss technician at Paul Davis Restoration.

2016
Bailey Cocca won the 87th New York State Women’s Amateur Golf Championship on July 15. The Latham, N.Y., native concluded her Coastal Carolina University playing career ranked fifth on the school’s career list with a 75.76 scoring average.

August 2016

1995
Michele Olds is the senior vice president of Nationstar Mortgage, where she manages the Master Servicing Division. She serves treasurer on the Structured Finance Industry Group (SFIG) Board of Directors and is on the SFIG Executive Committee.

2003
Richard McGonnigal was appointed as director of sales and marketing, overseeing sales, catering, public relations and reservations of the 291-room Four Seasons Hotel in Austin, Texas. He leaves behind an 11-year career hotel with Hyatt Hotels, spanning six properties and a number of roles. He is a member of the American Society of Association Executives, Meeting Planners International and the Professional Convention Management Association.

2010
Maranie Staab, an independent photographer/journalist, recently spent five weeks in the Middle East taking photos of Syrian refugees in Jordan and refugees in Iraq. In June, several of her photos from the Zaatari Refugee Camp, which is jointly administered by the Jordanian government and the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, were on display during a public art installation at the 2016 Dollar Bank Three Rivers Arts Festival in Pittsburgh, Pa.

2011
Roosevelt Corbett has been named program director and professional development coordinator at WINGS for Kids, an Atlanta-based education program that teaches kids how to behave well, make good decisions and build healthy relationships.

2015
Joseph Beattie graduated into the Fleet of the U.S. Coast Guard in July. He will utilize his marine science degree during his assignment on the fast patrol cutter Sea Horse out of Portsmouth, Va.

2016
Kaitlin Eriksen was named a 2016 National Club Softball Association first team All-American as an outfielder. This fall, she will be teaching physical education at Johnsonville (S.C.) Middle School. She has also been named the Johnsonville High School junior varsity softball coach.

September 2016

1984
John Gardner has been elected mayor of Aynor, S.C. He is the chief financial officer for Horry County Schools.

1994
Sarah Loudin Thomas, who oversees fundraising and communications for a Christian children’s home in Black Mountain, N.C., has written her third novel, A Tapestry of Secrets. Her previous novels are Miracle in a Dry Season and Until the Harvest. She also has written for Mountain Homes Southern Style, Now & Then magazine and The Asheville Citizen-Times.

1997
Regina Treadwell-Pertell has been appointed the new principal at Conway Middle School.

2005
Lucas Bohn is gaining much notoriety for his one-man comedy show, Lesson Plans to Late Night, which is about his transition from elementary school teacher to national touring comedian. He has shared the stage with Dave Chappelle, Jimmy Fallon and Kevin Hart. In 2013, Bohn was nominated “Comedian of the Year” by Campus Activities Magazine.

2006
Jessica Howle is engaged to be married to Ryan West in October 2016. She is a teacher at Bishopville Primary School.

2008
Stephanie Kozikowski is a third-grade teacher in her hometown at Shelburne (Vt.) Community School.

2011
David Duran was recently named youth pastor at Christ United Methodist Church in Myrtle Beach and oversees both the middle school and high school programs.

2011
Anthony Raffa has signed a professional basketball contract with Acea Virtus Roman of the Italian Serie A2 League. He has also played on professional teams in France, Iran and Qatar.

2012
Kathryn Mann has joined the English department faculty at Francis Marion University.
Alyson Boltz is engaged to be married to Erich Iberle in May 2017. She works for NCGS Corporation.
Andrae Jacobs is in his second year as a business, finance and information technology education instructor at Richmond Senior High School in Rockingham, N.C., where he also is the linebackers coach and special teams coordinator for the football team.

2013
Jessica Dennison is a physical therapist assistant at Emerge Ortho of Raleigh, N.C.
Spencer Lange has been named coach of Endicott College’s new women’s track and field program, which will officially begin as a varsity sport in the Fall 2017. Lange has been the head coach of Endicott’s cross country program the past two years.

2015
Austin Kerr has signed to play professional baseball with the Schaumburg (Ill.) Boomers of the Independent Frontier League.

October 2016

1978
Tim Hardee has been named the president and executive director of the South Carolina Technical College System, which includes 16 schools located all over the state and two other statewide programs. He is a graduated of Leadership South Carolina and the South Carolina Economic Developers Program. Hardee also serves on the South Carolina Workforce Development Board.

2001
Kathy Grannis Allen was named the managing director, airline industry public relations and communication for Airlines for America, an industry trade organization for the leading U.S. airlines. She previously served as the senior director for media relations.

2006
Brian Dowis is a full-time faculty member at Georgia Southern University, where he teaches taxation. He previously taught accounting and taxation at Southeastern University in Lakeland, Fla., and worked for Ernst & Young in Charlotte, N.C. Dowis earned a master’s degree from Clemson University and a doctorate from Louisiana Tech University.

2008
Frances Farrar is engaged to Frank Fields Jr. of Graniteville, S.C. A graduate of the Clown Conservatory in San Francisco, she is a drama and speech educator and company member with the Columbia Children’s Theatre and the S.C. Shakespeare Company. A December wedding is planned

2009
Andrew Thompson graduated summa cum laude from Northwestern University, where he earned a master’s degree in global studies and international affairs.

2011
Amy Haggard was recently named administrative specialist in the Office of Alumni Relations at Coastal Carolina University. She is pursuing a master’s degree in student affairs in higher education from Colorado State University. Haggard was a goalkeeper for CCU’s women’s soccer team from 2007-10 and earned a bachelor’s degree in recreation and sport management.

2014
Deborah Tollison is engaged to Brad Yarborough. She is a life enrichment leader at Brightwater, a continuing care retirement community in Myrtle Beach. An April wedding is planned.

2016
Angelica Mourges is a teacher at Maison des Enfant de Dieu, an orphanage in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.

November 2016

1992
Sachin Gupta is the co-founder, president and CEO of Apptio, a leading provider of cloud-based technology business management software for managing information technology.

1998
Brent Whalen was promoted to the logistics branch manager for the Navy’s Submarine Combat Control Systems.

2012
Jason Flanagan and Santuan Stanley ’13 have started n.W.o. (new weight room order), a human performance training company in Murrells Inlet, S.C.

2015
Joan Medvar and Jim Swanton plan to marry in May 2017. Medvar is employed at Cornell Medclaim in Millburn, N.J., and Swanton is a financial adviser for Edward Jones in Bridgewater, N.J.

December 2016

1988
John Faidley, head golf professinal the last 16 years at Forsyth Country Club in Winston-Salem, N.C., was named the golf professional of the year by the Carolinas PGA.

1994
David Maningding has joined SunTrust Mortgage as a producing sales manager for the Charleston region. He has 19 years of mortgage industry experience.

1997
Bill Langfitt was promoted to senior vice president of CresCom Bank and will continue to serve as a commercial loan officer in the Myrtle Beach market.

2002
Brandi Wyatt Biehl is the co-executive officer of Sea Turtle Recovery, where she provides long-term care for aquatic amphibians.

2004
Charles Johns IV was recently named the Carolinas PGA section merchandiser of the year. He is the general manager of sports turf and golf course operations at The Hackler Course at CCU.

2006
Colin Stevens has been made the head boys basketball coach at Christian Academy of North Myrtle Beach.

2008
Frances Farrar and Frank Fields Jr. were married on December 3 at North United Methodist Church in North, S.C. She works with the Columbia Children's Theatre and the S.C. Shakespeare Company as an educator and company member.

2011
Josh Norman, a cornerback with the Washington Redskins, became the first former CCU football player to have his number honored during a ceremony on November 4. A plaque bearing his name and No. 24 is displayed in Brooks Stadium.
Meredith Kirk was recently named to Golf Digest's 2017 list of "Best Young Teachers" in America. She is the lead instructor at the Dustin Johnson Golf School in Myrtle Beach as well as the Myrtle Beach golf ambassador with Founders Group International.
Cyprian Hedrick has been signed by San Antonio FC as a defender for the 2017 USL season.

2012
Emily Brockway plays Mary Poppins in the Syracuse Stage/Department of Drama coproduction of "Mary Poppins". Now based in New York City, she has worked for Disney Cruise Lines and at theaters around the country.

2015
LeAna Norman is pursuing a certificate in clinical psychology at Fielding Graduate University. She has been invited to present her research results at a forensic psychology conference in San Diego, Calif., in April.
Geordan Miller was recently named a junior syndicated analyst at CresCom Bank's 48th Avenue office in North Myrtle Beach.
Aaron Aiken recently signed as quarterback with the Arizona Rattlers of the Indoor Football League.