ALUMNI ADIEU
Homecoming at 泫圖弝けapp will have a different feel this fall, as
the individual who helped organize one of the biggest campus events for the past 19
years will no longer be serving as master of ceremonies. Marty Ramsey 85, WCUs director
of alumni engagement, retired Oct. 1 after a career spanning more than 28 years at
his alma mater.
Ramsey literally grew up on the universitys campus. His family moved to Cullowhee
in 1964 when his father, Harry Ramsey 59, who later directed WCUs programs in Asheville,
accepted a faculty position. His mother, Sue Ramsey, worked as a dorm mother in
Robertson Hall, where he and his sister, Gina, lived during much of their childhood.
Ramsey worked in corporate sales and management for nine years with Roadway Services,
a transportation and logistics company. He returned to WCU in 1994 to become director
of the Catamount Club. In 2004, he was appointed director of alumni affairs, now called
alumni engagement. WCUs longest serving alumni director, Ramsey held the dual role
of director of alumni affairs and the Catamount Club in 2003 and 2004.
Having spent more than 50 years of his life intimately associated with WCU, Ramsey
possesses a vast pool of institutional knowledge that will be difficult to replace,
said Jamie T. Raynor, vice chancellor for advancement. The impact of Marty Ramsey
and his familys legacy on this university cannot be overstated, Raynor said. From
a youngster who made the WCU campus his childhood playground to the man who has been
the go-to guy for thousands of members of the Catamount family, Marty has helped
dramatically increase the involvement of alumni in the life of their alma mater over
the past few decades. We are grateful for his leadership and celebrate his accomplishments.
Class Notes
Fall 2022
1954
Chantilly, Virginia, resident Peggy Anne Pettit 54 celebrated her 90th birthday in May 2022.
1966
A retired teacher and counselor from Gainesville, Georgia, Bob Folsom 66 MAEd 68 stepped down from his part-time role in WCUs Office of Undergraduate Admissions on May 30, 2021. Folsom had worked with prospective students from the metro Atlanta area since 1998.
1969
John Helgeson 69 has published a science fiction/fantasy novel, Magique: The Otherland Chronicles.
Ludy Wilkie 69 won the Cherryville Little Theatre playwriting contest for his script Lum and Abner,
based on a radio series that ran from the 1930s through the 1950s. The Hendersonville
Theatre did a staged reading of his play The Last Radio Drama last October.
1972
Donald S. Brady 72 has been awarded the Rotary International Paul Harris Fellow Award in recognition of his work to eradicate polio around the world. Through Brady's efforts, American-based pharmaceutical companies have donated polio vaccines used in more than 25 developing countries. He currently serves as interim department chair for the Health Care Administration Program in the College of Health Sciences at Methodist University in Fayetteville.
1973
The Junior League of Greensboro has named Rebecca Schlosser 73 among the recipients of its Women of Distinction Award for the years 2020-22. Schlosser has served as president of the JLG Sustainers and was a founding member of Women to Women, Greensboros first permanent community grantmaking endowment for women and children. She is a member of the WCU Board of Trustees and has served on the universitys Board of Visitors and Foundation Board of Directors.
1982
Margaret Jill King 82 MAEd 85 is serving as campus chaplain at Trinity Oaks senior living center in Salisbury.
1983
The WCU Foundation Board of Directors welcomed three new members to terms beginning
July 1, including Lisa Hill, co-owner with husband David Hill 83 of Southern Hill Farms, a berry and agrotourism business in Apopka, Florida. Also
newly named to the board are Asheville resident Michael A. Crawford 87, chief operating officer at Forvis (formerly Dixon Hughes Goodman) since 2016, and
Highlands resident Gayle Watkins, retired U.S. Army officer and co-owner of a Highlands-based
golden retriever training and kennel company. 
Sgt. Susan Stephen Pender 83 retired from the Montgomery County Sheriffs Office in Clarksville, Tennessee, after
22 years of service.
1985
Margaret Arrington Studenc 85 MAEd 90 retired Jan. 1, 2022, after 30 years as an educator in North Carolina, including teaching English and literature at Haywood Community College, where she also managed the Learning Support Services program.
1987
Neal Andrews 87 retired from the Guilford County School System in January 2022. During his 32-year tenure in the classroom, Andrews was awarded the school systems Rookie Teacher of the Year and Teacher of the Year and was a finalist for North Carolina Teacher of the Year.
1988
Waynesville resident Audrey Arrington Sanders 88 was named business manager for the Americas in the Enka division of Freudenberg Performance Materials in February 2022, with responsibility for business operations in North, Central and South America.
Attorney Steven Sizemore 88, a partner with the Asheville law firm Roberts & Stevens, has been recognized in the North Carolina Lawyers Weekly Power List for excellence in workers compensation law.
Weaverville resident Chuck Tucker 88 began a new position as associate vice president of academic affairs and scholarship with the North Carolina division of the HCA Healthcare Center for Clinical Advancement.
1989
A former student equipment manager for the Catamount athletics program who now serves
as senior assistant athletics director at Indiana University, Marty Clark 89 received a lifetime achievement award in June 2022 from the Athletic Equipment Managers
Association. Clark is battling stage 4 glioblastoma. In February 2022, members of
AEMA voted for Clark to receive the Tony Anderson Memorial Award. He also received
an Honorary I from the Indiana athletics department, the highest award for a non-letter
winner in the Hoosiers program, in December 2021.
1990
Mike Cochran 90 was named town manager of Abingdon, Virginia, after serving as town manager of Hanahan, South Carolina.
1991
Asheville attorney and author William D. Auman MPA 91 wrote a novel titled If Trees Could Testify色 The book is based on the true story of Madison Countys infamous Gahagan murders in which Auman was the principal defense attorney in the actual case. The book is available in both print and e-book format from various retail and online outlets, including Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books-A-Million and Walmart.
Former Catamount baseball player Grant Brittain 91 has been inducted into the Catawba County Sports Hall of Fame.
Irene Hamrick 91 graduated from ELAM, a prestigious Executive Leadership in Academic Medicine fellowship.
Hamrick is chief of geriatrics at the University of Cincinnati and the Cincinnati
VA
1992
Catrin Berry Giles 92 retired from the Winston-Salem Police Department as a sergeant-in-patrol after working in law enforcement for more than 28 years. She and husband James Alan Giles Jr. 92 have started camping once a month.
1993
Kerri Massey 93 is the new chief executive officer of Holy Angels, a private nonprofit corporation
in Belmont that provides residential services and innovative programs for children
and adults with intellectual developmental disabilities and delicate medical conditions.
1994
Nick Roberts 94 was recently promoted to deputy chief information officer at Davidson College, where he has worked since 2015.
1995
The Moore County Board of Education named Tim Locklair 95 as the new superintendent of Moore County Schools. Locklair had been serving as interim superintendent and was chosen after a nationwide search. He has a career in public education that spans nearly 30 years in North Carolina. Prior to being named superintendent, he was the chief officer for academics and student support services for Moore County Schools.
1997
After 20 years in admissions and enrollment management at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Kacy Seay McAdoo 97 became director
of admissions at Wake Tech Community College in 2019. McAdoo was recently promoted
to associate dean of admissions and outreach at Wake Tech.
1998
Linda Venturo 98 MPA 00 received the 2022 Liberty University Award for Excellence in Teaching. Venturo is an assistant professor in Libertys Helms School of Government.
Gary Redwine 98 was named partner at HunterMaclean, a business law firm with offices in Savannah and St. Simons Island, Georgia. Redwines practice focuses on commercial real estate and structured finance.
1999
Scott D. Martin 99 recently became senior vice president of Coterie Advisory Group in Phoenix.
Kimberly Mercy Myers 99 was awarded second place for bathroom design in the 2021 Excellence in Design Awards by the Carolinas Chapter of the American Society of Interior Designers.
2000
Valerie Dobson 00 MHS 07 is the new dean of curriculum programs at McDowell Technical Community College. Dobson
began teaching at McDowell Tech in 2001 as a faculty member in health information
technology and was named program director/coordinator of health information technology
in 2005, a role she held until her recent appointment, effective June 1.
Laura Alexander Page 00 was recently promoted to assistant dean of the Graduate School at the University of
Missouri. 
Michael Taylor 00 joined the music faculty at the South Carolina Governors School for the Arts and
Humanities in Greenville. Taylor also serves on the faculty at Anderson University,
Lenoir-Rhyne University and North Greenville University, teaching tuba, euphonium, chamber ensembles and brass methods. He has served as principal
tuba with the Hendersonville Symphony Orchestra since 2002.
2001
Laura Collier Darnell 01 of Greer, South Carolina, celebrated nine months in remission in June 2022 after battling stage 4 breast cancer.
Kelly Williams Hogan 01 relocated her business, My Zero Carb Life, to Sylva, after husband James Hogan 03, formerly vice president for advancement at Mitchell Community College in Statesville, accepted the position of assistant vice chancellor for engagement at WCU.
After nearly 18 years in case management at the Mecklenburg County Department of Social Services, Monica Bass King 01 transitioned to the position of family partner coordinator for Alliance Health of Mecklenburg County in December 2021.
Kam A. McDonald 01 of Wadesboro was promoted to lead school social worker for Anson County Schools in December 2021.
2002
After teaching Spanish for 17 years and English as a second language for two years in North Carolina, Alison Yount 02 recently completed her first year teaching English to speakers of other languages at Fairforest Middle School in Spartanburg, South Carolina.
2003
A first sergeant at Womack Army Medical Center in Fort Bragg, Joshua W. Ginn 03 received the Armed Forces Service Medal for contributions to COVID-19 operations and response for COVID-19 testing and vaccination roll-out.
2004
Summerfield resident Lynette Bohn Wellons 04 was recently promoted to assistant director at the Alamance County Department of Social Services.
2005
Allison Bass-Riccio 05, English Department chair and writing center coordinator at Cheshire Academy in Cheshire,
Connecticut, was invited to speak at the Ferguson Library in Stamford, Connecticut, on Toni Morrisons book Beloved. Bass- Riccio wrote her
masters thesis on the book. Her presentation was titled Healing from Trauma Exploring
the Personal Grief Process Through the Lens of Toni Morrisons Beloved. 
Aloysius Krieger 05 was named the 2021-22 Ashbrook High School Teacher of the Year in Gastonia. Krieger
recently received his masters degree in special education from UNC Charlotte. 
Drew Lancaster 05 is assistant baseball coach at Heath High School, which won the Texas 6A state championship
in 2021 and headed to the state tournament in 2022, bowing out in the semifinals.
Riccardo McClendon 05 MA 07 was named assistant vice president for student affairs and dean of students at New
Yorks Stony Brook University in July 2021. In September 2021, McClendon was appointed to the Sigma Chi International Fraternitys
chapter and membership accountability committee leading a restorative justice program
focused on harm repair and rebuilding community. 
Brandon Robinson 05 MA 10 of Durham is recipient of the 2022 North Carolina Bar Associations William Thorp
Pro Bono Attorney of the Year Service Award. Robinson began a two-year term as president
of the Conservation Trust for North Carolina the state's largest statewide land
trust starting Jan. 1. He also was recently elected president of the Durham County
Bar Association and 16th Judicial Bar for the 2022-23 term, and in 2022 will conclude
three years of service on the boards of the North Carolina Bar Association and North
Carolina Bar Foundation.
2006
Meredith Berger Franklin 06 was recently promoted to supervisor of home/hospital services for Guilford County Schools, the third largest school district in North Carolina and among the 50 largest in the U.S.
Kelly Taylor Herr 06 is marketing manager for ECU Health Bertie Hospital in Windsor and ECU Health Chowan Hospital in Edenton.
2007
It was baby makes five for Gordon, Georgia, residents Matt Brigner 07 MAEd 09 and Claire Gilland Brigner 09 when their third child, Charlotte Grace, was born Nov. 17, 2021.
Russell Conover 07 MA 09 has been employed as advancement records specialist at WCU since September 2021.
Now living in Merced, California, Tanisha McClain 07 is owner of Quichey Creations, a farm-to-fork bakery business.
Brian Wood 07 is working in the intensive care unit at Harris Regional Hospital in Sylva as he continues studying toward his masters degree in nursing.
2008
Winston-Salem resident Carla Catalan Day 08 won the Democratic primary for N.C. House District 74 in May. If elected in November, she will be the first Hispanic woman to serve in the N.C. General Assembly, said Chris Cooper, WCUs Madison Distinguished Professor of Political Science and Public Affairs.
William Sult 08 was part of the Charlotte Rugby Club that won the Division 2 Men's Club Rugby National Championship in May 2022, placing first out of more than 600 teams in the nation competing for the title.
Joe Wheeless 08 MEd 10 began a new job as director of fraternity and sorority life at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond in October 2021. Wheeless is working toward a doctorate in higher education from the College of William & Mary with a dissertation focused on the impact of the NC Promise tuition reduction program on student loans.
2009
Mike Corelli 09 was elected national president of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity. 
Preston Jacobsen 09 has been named executive director for Haywood Waterways Association. Jacobsen, of
Waynesville, was known as the guy behind Local Yokel Weather, a meteorology site that
aggregates and analyzes hyperlocal weather data.
Maria Aponte Zimmer 09 recently made a total career change and started a new job with Hummingbird Insurance in Asheville.
2010
Ashley Freeberg 10 was awarded the Roane County Chamber of Commerce Paul E. Goldberg Young Professional
of the Year Award for her volunteerism and leadership
in Roane County, Tennessee. After getting her degree in criminal justice from WCU,
Freeberg moved to Kingston, Tennessee, where she currently works with the Roane County
Anti-Drug Coalition as a prevention coordinator.
Outdoor Gear Builders, the first outdoor industry association of
its kind, appointed Matt Godfrey MBA 10 as its full-time executive director. Godfrey developed the Waypoint Accelerator, an
outdoor entrepreneurship and innovation accelerator program for early-stage outdoor-focused
companies, and he will continue to manage that program in his new role.
Katelan Suzanne Price 10 MAcc 12 of Brookhaven, Georgia,
was promoted to system and organization controls audit supervisor at Smith + Howard,
a certified public accounting firm in Atlanta.
Candler resident Anthony Michael Rendon 10 was named operations manager at Advanced Composting Technologies in January 2021. In that role, Rendon managed the U.S. Department of Agriculture composting side of the massive avian influenza outbreak in 2022 that affected more than 20 million chickens nationwide.
2011
Kevin A. Williams 11 began a new position as SOARs director of North Carolina programs in April 2022.
2012
Associate director of residential education for living learning programs and academic
initiatives at Dartmouth College, Abi Aparajithan France-Kelly MEd 12 earned her doctorate in educational policy and leadership studies with a concentration
in higher education and student affairs administration from the University of Iowa
in 2022.
Stacy Green Van Buskirk 12 recently completed her first year of teaching secondary English language arts at Murphy High School, her alma mater. Van Buskirk previously worked as a writer for the Cherokee Scout and Andrews Journal newspapers. She lives in Brasstown with her husband and three children.
2013
Asheville resident Daniel Baker 13 recently accepted his new dream job as a customer success manager at Corporate Traveler.
The Greater Asheville Regional Airport Authority named Angela Wagner MS 12 as its director of administration and human resources. Wagner is a senior certified professional of the Society for Human Resource Management
2014
Jazmyne Baylor 14 has returned to Cullowhee as the new education liaison for research and instruction services at Hunter Library.
Waynesville resident Heath Brown 14 is working as convention services manager at Harrahs Cherokee Casino Resort.
Ashley Berk Curry 14 launched Down to Earth Services, a group mental health private practice, in early 2020 in Knoxville, Tennessee.
Associate dean of academic affairs for student success at Brevard College, Joshua Wilkey 14 MA 16 recently earned his doctorate in higher education administration from the University of Alabama. Wilkey also is assistant professor of business and organizational leadership at Brevard.
2016
Alexander resident Jake Barfield 16 recently launched his own business, Asheville Capital Management.
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation promoted Nicholas Goldy 16 to technical leader of the chemistry section of the crime lab at GBI Headquarters.
Goldy is responsible for the training of scientist trainees and the continued training
of current scientists to keep them up to date in what is going on in vthe chemistry field. He began his career with GBI in 2017 as a scientist trainee.
Charlotte resident Ryan Hall 16 is director of percussion and assistant band director at Clover High School in South
Carolina. Halls indoor drumline won a Winter Guard International championship in
April 2022, making South Carolina history as the first scholastic group from the state
to take top honors at the competition. Spouse Kaitlyn Hall 16 served as choreographer for the groups championship performance.
Amanda Arrington Penland MBA 16 and husband Jacob Penland celebrated the birth of their first son, Jeremiah James, on Dec. 31, 2021.
The past several months has been filled with life changes for Logan Morrison 16, who got married in October 2021, became assistant director of Greek Life at the University of Georgia in January 2022 and earned his masters degree in education in May 2022 from the University of Missouri.
2017
Rachel Nicole Leichssenring 17 welcomed her first son, Alexander Lane, on Sept. 1, 2021. She and husband Tristan Leichssenring, who serves in the U.S. Air Force, live in Lakewood, Washington.
William Coble Mauney 17 was named deputy director of Alamance County Emergency Medical Services. Mauney has been with Alamance EMS for 15 years.
Casey Gerringer Nelson 17 earned a promotion to senior digital marketing strategist at Vision Point Marketing,
where she works with colleges and universities
from all over the country. Nelson lives in Yadkinville with husband Joshua Nelson 15 and newborn daughter Abigail.
2018
Daisy Rodriguez 18 of Denver, Colorado, credits her time in Cullowhee for showing her how amazing the outdoors can be and helping her land a new position with the U.S. Forest Service.
Heather Stanley 18 MHS 20,
who began her career in emergency medical services, recently transitioned into a new
role with HonorBridge, an organ procurement organization that covers 77 counties of
North Carolina. Stanley now works to educate EMS agencies across the state about tissue
and eye donation.
2019
Pete Acosta 19 was named police chief for the town of Morrisville. Prior to that, he was a captain in the department. Acosta started his law enforcement career in Graham.
2020
Michaela Sue Ashe 20 was promoted to account executive with the NHLs Columbus Blue Jackets in April 2022.
Ashe resides in Columbus, Ohio, where she has worked with the Blue Jackets for a year.
Cassie Kirkpatrick Maynor 20, of Waynesville, is celebrating her one-year work anniversary with Progressive Insurance.
Spencer McCoy 20 began a managerial training program at Harrahs Cherokee Casino Resort in April 2022.
Erin M. Pittman 20, of Winterville, began a position in 2021 as a research and development scientist in the analytical development area of the ThermoFisher Scientific pharmaceutical services group.
After completing a first full year
of teaching, Morgan Williams 20 received the Beginning Teacher
of the Year Award at Stoney Point Elementary in Cumberland County.
Mike Cochran 90 was named town manager of Abingdon, Virginia, after serving as town manager of Hanahan, South Carolina.
2021
Holland Currie 21 is working toward a masters degree in social work at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke and completed the first year of the program in the spring.
A resident of Harrisburg, Dawson Aro Haywood 21 is marketing director for Transit and Level Clinic Inc., an engineering, land surveying, construction, large format and public safety supply company. Haywood also has launched his own sports and entertainment website, Oklistenhere.com, which recently became a profitable business.
Formerly manager of communications, annual giving and special events at Brevard College, Tanner Norman 21 began working at WCU as a communications specialist in the Division of Advancement in June 2022. He and wife Kaitlyn Norman 21 live in Sylva with their German shepherd puppy, Athena.
Madi Rose 21 is the new visitor services coordinator in the WCU Fine Art Museum at Bardo Fine and Performing Arts Center.
Crediting Westerns amazing
education program, Cameron Sanders 21 is recipient of Concord High Schools First-Year Teacher of the Year Award for the 2021-22 academic year.
2022
Not long after graduating, Greenville resident Latisha Rodman Gorham 22 moved up to the position of quality enhancement specialist for Martin- Pitt Partnership for Children. In the new role, Gorham offers technical assistance to licensed child care facilities and family child care homes and helps them maintain or achieve higher ratings.
Whittier resident Madelyn Price 22 obtained her license and certification in recreational therapy and recently began her first job as a recreational therapist at Asheville- based Mission Health.
Despite losing her mother to COVID-19 in February 2022 following the passing of her father when she was only 14, Waynesville resident Nikki Sutton 22 was determined to make it to Mays commencement ceremony.
Abigail Waters 22 is working in the entomology department at NC State University.
Wilson resident Gracyn Webb 22 is working as a regional recruiting director for Chick-fil-A.
