1962
Cervando Martinez reports he is still employed at The University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio, seeing patients, doing research, and teaching, though he says he is winding down in preparation for retirement. He also keeps up with old friends, including ’Roos Raymond Capetillo, Ed Bondurant, Marshall Groce, Charles “Ace” Wright ’61, and others.
1963
Jerry Shaffer was inducted into the Fannin County (Texas) Sports Hall of Fame in 2019, having excelled in football, basketball, baseball, and track and field in high school, and football at Austin College. He became the Head Football Coach of the Wylie Pirates and coached his teams to a 126-48-2 record in 15 seasons, including a state championship. He later was Athletic Director for the Carrollton-Farmers Branch ISD and is now a Collin County Justice of the Peace.
1967
Mike Nurre was elected chair of the Greater East Dallas Chamber of Commerce in January 2019.
1969
John Gifford and Anne Baker Gifford have achieved a major travel accomplishment: they have visited all 50 states of the U.S. They didn’t start with that goal, and they don’t have a complicated system as to what “qualifies” as a visit. Sometimes it’s just passing over the border. Their favorite places to go are anywhere their son, a Lt. Colonel in the Army, is stationed. The Giffords have two sons and eight grandchildren between the ages of 6 and 15. They also have seen and photographed all 254 county courthouses in Texas. Anne finds the prettiest courthouse architecture in Goliad and Lockhart. Going a bit farther afield in summer 2019, they took a European river cruise on the Danube with fellow alumna Carol Wilson Scott.
1970
Gary Goodfriend has retired from the commercial banking industry after a 41-year career. He worked in senior-level positions with commercial banks in Houston, Dallas, and Austin, Texas, as well as with the FDIC and RTC during the Texas banking crisis in the 1980s. He now lives in Round Rock, Texas.
1972
Carol McDonald was elected chair of the Board of Trustees of Huston-Tillotson University in Austin, Texas, in April 2019. She has been a board member of that university—Austin’s oldest—since 2015. Carol also has begun her second three-year term as a member of the board at Schreiner University, a Presbyterian university in Kerrville, Texas, that will celebrate its centennial in 2023.
1973
Linda Whitworth Reed and David Reed ’74 are honorably retired Presbyterian ministers now living in Conway, Arkansas. David retired in 2012 from Mission Presbytery after serving since 1994, planting new congregations and serving various interim and transitional pastoral roles in churches throughout Texas and the South. Linda continued serving until February 2018. They are active at First Presbyterian Church of Conway, as well as The Presbytery of Arkansas, and supply-preach and fill other needs occasionally. Linda is a certified master gardener. David stays busy with woodworking, as well as arranging and recording music in his studio.
1974
John Moore was a teacher, coach, and principal for 29 years. Then, he retired to Marble Falls, Texas, and entered the car sales business. He and his wife of 42 years, Diane, moved to that area to take care of their parents. John and Diane have three sons and seven grandchildren.
Jane Kelly Sibley has been a docent at the Dallas Museum of Art for the past 12 years, giving tours of the permanent collection, as well as visiting exhibits, to K-12 students. She and her husband live in Richardson, where he has retired from his corporate job to teach Energy Management at The University of Texas at Dallas.
1975
Allen Wallace retired in August 2019 after almost 40 years in the field of juvenile justice/corrections in Texas. Throughout his career, he served in numerous capacities, including Regional Parole Supervisor for the North Texas region. He also served as Superintendent of a juvenile correctional facility in southeast Texas, a residential treatment center in Dallas, a juvenile detention center in Beaumont, and a juvenile re-entry halfway house in Fort Worth. At retirement, he was Senior Deputy Ombudsman in the Office of the Independent Ombudsman for the Texas Juvenile Justice Department in the Fort Worth District Office.
1979
Ty Cashion is an award-winning historian, author of six books, a member of the prestigious Institute of Texas Letters, an Austin College Distinguished Alumnus, and now—40 years after his graduation from Austin College—a member of Phi Beta Kappa. Austin College chartered its Phi Beta Kappa chapter in 2001, long after Ty graduated, but the chapter may induct an alumna/alumnus each spring, and he was the 2019 inductee. Ty is a Professor of History at Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, Texas.
1981
Anne Stapleton Skrabanek was one of 10 winners nationwide in the 2018 Monsanto America’s Farmers Mom-of-the-Year Program. She is actively involved in the family farm/ranch operation and volunteers in many activities in her community, including leading a weekly Library Story Time, serving as chair for the Rural Land Development Committee for the Blackland Income Growth Conference, and serving as Home Economics committee member for Falls County Youth Fair. Her favorite volunteer activity is serving as Club Manager for Otto 4-H Club. As a program winner, she was able to choose a nonprofit to receive the $1,000 award from Monsanto. She chose the Falls County 4-H program.
1982
Charla Glass Aldous received honors from several organizations last year for her work in the courtroom, including the 2019 Louise B. Raggio Award from the Dallas Women Lawyers Association. Named for the DWLA co-founder and the first female prosecutor in Dallas County history, the annual award recognizes someone who has demonstrated the highest levels of professionalism while making significant contributions to the advancement of women attorneys.
1983
Colleen Head Batchelor was named Interim CEO in April 2019 of The Resource Exchange in Colorado Springs, Colorado, a nonprofit that partners with individuals with intellectual or developmental disabilities to help them achieve the life they want. She had been Child and Family Services Director at TRE since 2009 and has more than 30 years of experience in early child
development, disability, and intervention.
1984
Roger Gregory-Allen and Viki Reeder moved into their motorhome in fall 2019 and look forward to travels around the U.S. They will chronicle their travels and reflections on www.ramblingroos.net and on Instagram @ramblingroos.
Rodney Moore was included in The Best Lawyers in America 2020. He is a partner in the Dallas-based offices of Weil, Gotshal & Manges, where he practices in the areas of corporate law, mergers, and acquisitions law.
Danny Henderson became the coach of the Maypearl High School boys basketball program in fall 2019. He has more than 30 years of coaching experience, including stints at Division I schools. He has coached teams to all levels of playoff victory, including four state titles, and been recognized several times in his coaching career, including as a finalist for the Naismith National High School Coach of the Year and selection as TABC Texas Coach of the Year, Texas Sportswriters Coach of the Year, and the Southwest United States Coach of the Year. Following his 25-year high school tenure, Henderson held assistant coaching roles at Boise State, Oklahoma State University, and Tulsa University.
1985
Jeff Burley joined East Texas-based Siebman, Forrest, Burg & Smith in the firm’s Sherman office in 2019. He has more than 30 years of experience in cases involving business litigation, employment disputes, personal injury, and wrongful death. A Life Fellow of the Texas Bar Foundation, he has been committed to his local community, including serving as Head of School for Texoma Christian School in Sherman and as a member of the Leadership Advisory Council for the Texas Association of Private and Parochial Schools.
1986
Fred Junkin has joined Phelps Dunbar’s Houston, Texas, office as partner, where he will focus his practice on energy, eminent domain, and litigation issues. He is an accomplished trial lawyer with nearly three decades of experience.
Heather Crawford McLaughlin began Stevenson University’s master’s degree program in Forensic Investigation in fall 2019. A Compliance Coordinator for the Maryland Board of Pharmacy, she earned Certified Fraud Examiner status in 2017 and serves on the ACFE MD Board. She was re-elected to the board of the National Association of Drug Diversion Investigators in October 2018.
1989
Nicole Ryan Corkery became a partner in Chartwell Law in January 2019 and works for the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, office, focusing on workers’ compensation defense. She has more than 20 years of experience in the field and appears regularly before the Pennsylvania Workers’ Compensation Court and Appeals Board. She was previously with Littler Mendelson, a global employment and labor law practice.
1990
Cliff Boucher is Dean for the School of Nursing & Health Sciences at Tyler Junior College and previously served as Dean of TJC North. A TJC alumnus, he went on to Austin College, then earned a doctorate at the University of Michigan and completed a postdoctoral research fellowship at Harvard Medical School. He has received many honors during his career, which has included teaching at UT Heath Science Center at San Antonio, the University of Michigan, Harvard University Medical School, and UT Tyler.
1991
Dale Trompler was inducted into the Fannin County (Texas) Sports Hall of Fame in 2019. He was a three-year starter at quarterback at Bonham High School, earning all-district and all-Texoma honors, and a standout in baseball, and track and field. He continued those three sports at Austin College, earning all-conference honors as quarterback. Dale became a football coach, leading successful teams at Wolfe City for eight years then coaching at Greenville, Whitewright, and Bonham. He is now an Offensive Coordinator and Track and Field Coach at Early High School.
Dawn McMellen Starostka was named Network Development Officer in 2019 for Feeding Texas, a nonprofit based in Austin and formerly known as the Texas Food Bank Network. Dawn says the position means a return to the great state of Texas.
1997
Rosemary Vega returned to campus in fall 2019 to speak at the “Reflections on Immigration” Symposium sponsored by the Center for Southwestern and Mexican Studies. An immigration attorney and clinical lecturer with the University of Houston Law Center’s Immigration Clinic, she began her interest in immigration law through the International Human Rights Clinic at St. Mary’s Law School and has advocated for immigrants since beginning her degree. Before taking on her current work, she served as the staff attorney at YMCA International Services, was a partner with Tausk & Vega, and was in private practice in her own firm. Rosemary is the current American Immigration Lawyers Association/ Executive Office for Immigration Review liaison for Houston.
1998
Brandy Baxter-Thompson moved to the law firm of Lan Smith Sosolik in Dallas, Texas, in 2019 as a partner practicing in estate, trust, and guardianship matters. In 2018, she was honored by the Dallas Volunteer Attorney Program (DVAP) with the 2018 Ken Fuller Outstanding Mentor Attorney Award, and the Dallas Bar Association Probate Section awarded her the 2019 Nikki DeShazo Pro Bono Award.
2001
Andrew French earned an MBA in Healthcare Administration from the University of Colorado Denver in 2019. He had completed his M.D. at University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston in 2006. He is now Chief Medical Officer at St. Anthony North Health Campus of Century Health in Westminster, Colorado. He previously was Chief Medical Officer of St. Anthony’s sister hospital, Castle Rock Adventist, and had served as Medical Director of the Emergency Department for Denver Health Medical Center.
Jeff Riordan was named Head Football Coach and Athletic Director at Chapel Hill High School in Tyler, Texas, in February 2019. He had been Head Coach and Athletic Director at Crosby High School for seven years, compiling a 66-18 record at the Class 5A school and leading his teams to six playoff appearances, four district championships, and a trip to the state semifinals. He and his wife have two children.
2002
Stephanie Allaire Flores MAT ’03 became Director of Intervention Services for the Coppell (Texas) ISD in July 2019. For the past four years, she had served as the Coordinator of Special Education for Carrollton-Farmers Branch ISD and previously had been an Educational Diagnostician in that district, serving as a resource teacher, special education team leader, and a fourth grade teacher. Stephanie and her husband, James, a firefighter for the City of Dallas, live in Carrollton and have three children, Avery, 12; Carly, 9; and Hudson, 6.
Rusty Hicks was elected chair of the California Democratic Party in June 2019. He is President of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor and previously served as its Executive Secretary-Treasurer and its Political Director. Rusty, who graduated from Loyola Law School, is also a decorated U.S. veteran who completed a one-year deployment in Afghanistan. He and his wife, Sandra, live in Pasadena.
Lindsay Williambrown is a founding director of Kanarys, a transparency driven consultancy in Dallas, Texas, that deals with inclusion, diversity, equity, and accessibility. She holds an MBA from Penn State University. She was a 2019 TEDxAustinCollege presenter.
2003
Cat Dodson Goodrich is Associate Pastor at First Presbyterian Church in Birmingham, Alabama. She was included in an article about several female pastors in a Birmingham magazine in 2019. A few years after graduating from Boston University School of Theology, Cat discerned a call to parish ministry, and she and her husband, Dary, moved to Atlanta. There she served three years as a Resident Pastor at Central Presbyterian Church through the Lilly Foundation’s Transition into Ministry program before taking her current position. Cat and Dary have two daughters.
Casie Fontaine Rivas opened Rivas Law in Sherman in May 2019. After more than 10 years of business and corporate law experience in Texas and Oklahoma, Casie is excited to practice in her hometown and support local business.
2006
John Bucy III was recognized by his peers as the Texas House Democratic Caucus Freshman of the Year in May 2019. Elected in 2018, John represents District 136 in the Texas House of Representatives. He said he is grateful for the support and mentorship he has received from his colleagues.
Katie Deeds-Holland is a Youth Services Librarian at the Prosper Community Library in Prosper, Texas. She plans and presents tween and teen programming, Homeschool Learn and Network, and story times for babies and preschoolers. Last fall, she presented “Story Time on the Road” at Prosper Fire Station #2, and she is working on a Harry Potterthemed escape room. Katie and her husband, Joseph, live in Denton, where he owns and operates Denton Bicycle Center.
Matt Ellington is a Pediatric Orthopedic Surgeon in Austin, Texas. He specializes in Pediatric Sports Medicine and takes call at Dell Children’s Hospital, a level-1 pediatric trauma center. He also is on the faculty at UT Dell Medical School, where he teaches orthopedic residents. Matt and his wife have two children, daughter Brynn, 5, and son Jack, 2.
Jake Shockley was inducted into the Fannin County Sports Hall of Fame in 2019. Jake was a standout baseball and football player at Bonham High School from 1998 to 2001, earning all-Texoma honors as a wide receiver in football and as a shortstop in baseball. He played baseball at North Lake College in Irving and then at Austin College, where he set numerous school records.
2007
Becca Harpham May, Vice President of Marketing for Nature Nate’s Honey Company, was selected to the 2019 Dallas Business Journal “40 Under 40” listing. Nature Nate’s Honey is headquartered in McKinney, Texas, and is recognized as the #1 honey brand in the United States and on Amazon. Becca says her family, including two young children, likes its honey best straight from the jar.
David Savage earned his M.D. and Ph.D. from the Medical Scientist Training Program at The University of Texas McGovern Medical School and the MD Anderson Cancer Center UT Health Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences in 2018. Dr. Savage is now an internal medicine resident physician at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio. He said he will forever be grateful to the late Dr. Jack Pierce and his Austin College faculty for helping him get into an M.D./Ph.D. program. He is pictured with his wife, Elizabeth Frost. They were married September 20, 2019.
John Warren is Editor of Fanbyte.com, the recently rebranded ZAM, which is a network of sites focusing on MMORPGS (massively multiplayer online role-playing games). He predicts more gaming production jobs that focus on low-budget, high production events. “My work so far on Fanbyte is some of the most rewarding of my career, which has gone from game development to startup consulting and now to media production. We’re expanding aggressively to Twitch streams and video this year, so stay tuned.”
2008
Carl Antonowicz accompanied his wife, graphic novelist Sophie Goldstein, on a visit to Austin College’s Art and Art History Department in April 2019, where she presented “The Alchemy of Inspiration: Graphic Novels in Development.” Sophie and Carl are pictured with Jeff Fontana of the Art Department faculty and a student 
reader.
Tamir Anver has completed his oral surgery residency, and he and his wife—his Austin College sweetheart Hailey (Cunningham)—now live in the Dallas area with their children, Zain, 2, and Sophia, 1. Tamir primarily works in Denton at Vickers & Associates Oral Surgery.
Laura Westerlage began serving as a part-time Pastoral Intern at First Presbyterian Church of Dallas in June 2019. She is also Director of Client Services at The Stewpot, an outreach center that provides casework assistance and enrichment programs to individuals and families experiencing homelessness. The center also offers children, youth, and family stabilization programs to at-risk children and their families. Laura attended Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary and UT School of Social Work, earning master’s degrees in Social Work and in Divinity in 2013. In 2016, she moved to Dallas to begin her “dream job” at The Stewpot and says she has a lifelong love of the church, having grown up a Presbyterian preacher’s kid.
2009
Maegan Fitzgerald spoke to Austin College students in April 2019, hosted by the Center for Environmental Studies. She shared her experiences as a doctoral student in Primatology and Wildlife Sciences at the Wildlife Research Center of Kyoto University, Japan, where she is conducting research on the behaviors of chimpanzees.
Aaron Flores is a real estate and communications professional in Houston, who served on Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner’s transition team on public health policy and quality of life. He also was an inaugural appointee to the mayor’s LGBTQ Advisory Board. He was a 2019 TEDxAustinCollege presenter.
Jessica Wescott became Chief Financial Officer for Fuzzy’s Taco Shop in September 2019. She had been Executive Vice President of Finance for the Baja-inspired franchise since January 2018, when she left her former role as Vice President of Development and Finance with MOOYAH Burgers, Fries & Shakes. Jessica began her career in wealth management and finds many similarities in working with franchises since she believes both fields are about relationships and helping partners succeed.
2011
Matthew Myers returned to campus in fall 2019 to speak in the “Reflections on Immigration” Symposium sponsored by the Center for Southwestern and Mexican Studies. He is an attorney with the Foster immigration law firm, focusing on employment and investor immigration. He also serves as Chair Elect of the Immigration & Nationality Section of the State Bar of Texas. Prior to joining Foster, Matthew clerked for U.S. Chief Judge Orlando Garcia for the Western District of Texas, as well as for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, Office of Chief Counsel.
2012
Ben Elberson received the Francis C. Jackson Award for outstanding performance in the surgical clerkship as he graduated from Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center in May 2019, completing his M.D./Ph.D. His wife, Jill Murphy Elberson ’13, completed her master’s degree in English at Texas Tech and recently published a joint piece in Spark: A 4C4Equality Journal with members of her class on African-American writings about race and injustice. Ben, Jill, and their 1-year-old son, Owen, have moved to Little Rock, where Ben began a seven-year residency in Neurosurgery at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in fall 2019.
Ayvaunn Penn (Marian Fields) is thrilled to be home in Texas and working as an adjunct instructor in the Theatre Department at Texas Christian University and as a theatre instructor for Junior Players in Dallas. She also recently served as a guest playwriting instructor at Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts in Dallas. Ayvaunn earned a master’s degree in Playwriting at Columbia University in 2018 and was the School of the Arts Dean’s Fellowship recipient. Read more about this director, lyricist, actor, and composer and her work to inspire and advance black excellence in art and education at ThePennSpeaks.com.
Katelyn Heath lived in Paris, France, for five years after graduation. Just prior to leaving the country, she worked as the English Community Manager in the International Promotion Department of the Galeries Lafayette Haussmann luxury department store. She devised and implemented outreach strategy to target American shoppers through social media and digital marketing. Since March 2018, she has been Senior Communications Associate at the French-American Chamber of Commerce in New York City, which has more than 1,000 individual and corporate members.
Michael Holcomb received a master’s degree in Physics in 2013 and a Ph.D. in Physics in 2019, both from Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas. In fall 2019, he began a tenure-track position as Assistant Professor of Physics at Angelo State University in San Angelo, Texas.
Chanel Rafie and partners have opened Rafie Douglas Abney Law in Dallas, Texas. They graduated from Texas A&M University School of Law together and now practice personal injury law and social security disability cases. Find them at TitansLegal.com.
2014
Austin Brewster was named District Co-Coach of the Year after his success as Girls Head Basketball Coach at Faith Family Academy in DeSoto, Texas. The coach had just completed his second year and his team’s overall record in district was a program best, leading to the girls’ first playoff berth in school history.
Brittnay Connor, a third-grade bilingual teacher with Dallas ISD, was selected as a Dallas County Campus Voices Fellow for 2019-2020, an outreach of Leadership ISD. The cohort focuses on making public education a strong and viable option for all students by activating community leaders to shape policy, lead strategically, and champion needed change. Brittnay teaches at Paul L. Dunbar Learning Center in Fair Park.
Victoria Flores earned an MBA from Texas A&M–Commerce in May 2019. In 2016, she began working for Baylor Scott & White Research Institute at Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas as Clinical Research Assistant and later, Research Analyst, working with financial forecasting, budget creation, and Medicare coverage analysis. She was promoted to Research Project Manager in September 2019.
Aryn Hays earned a master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering in 2016 and began working as a Process Development Engineer at Cree in the power and RF division dubbed as Wolfspeed. Cree Wolfspeed is a powerhouse semiconductor company focused on silicon carbide (SiC) materials, powerswitching devices, and RF devices targeted for applications such as electric vehicles, fast charging, inverters, power supplies, telecom, military, and aerospace. Her process and equipment specialties are wire bonding and bond testing, plasma cleaning, laser marking, and ultrasonic welding. Aryn lives in the Fayetteville, Arkansas, area, where she is a member of Ozark Volleyball Club and enjoys activities with her dog, June, a Catahoula-Lab mix.
2015
Libby Wise Janes and Jesse Janes moved to New York City during summer 2019 after Jesse completed his M.D. at Texas Tech University Health Science Center School of Medicine. He began his Pediatric residency at NYU School of Medicine—NYU Langone in June. Libby, who completed her master’s degree in Social Work at Texas Tech in 2018, began work in fall 2019 as a Licensed Master Social Worker at NYU Langone’s Cardiology Unit.
Kusha Mohammadi is a third-year Ph.D. student in the Department of Biostatistics and Data Science at The University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston. He is an intern at the Baylor College of Medicine and Memorial Hermann Trauma Center, providing statistical insight into cancer and patient care data analysis. He is also working on his dissertation in statistical inference on stochastic modeling with application in Alzheimer’s disease. He was a 2019 TEDxAustinCollege presenter.
2016
Joel Barrett is a fourth-year medical student at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center School of Medicine, expecting to complete his degree in May 2020. He is completing clinical rotations in Amarillo, Texas, and applying for residency training in Psychiatry to begin in July 2020.
Nicole Collier is a Research Associate and, as of September 2019, Interim Executive Director for the Nonprofit Academic Center Council at the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas. She earned a master’s degree in Nonprofit Management in 2018 from the Bush School.
Sarah Dillabough returned to El Paso after graduating and worked as a Legislative Intern in the district office of Texas Senator José Rodriguez. She then did a one-year AmeriCorps VISTA service assignment with the City of El Paso Resilience and Sustainability Department. Next, she worked at the El Pasoans Fighting Hunger Food Bank as the Food Donor Relations Manager and Director of Food Recovery. Today, she is Sustainability Specialist for a new urban planning and sustainability consulting firm in El Paso. She also is an independent contractor for an environmental nonprofit Eco El Paso and for a company in Sherman, doing translations from English to French. She and her husband have a 1-year-old daughter and continue to live in El Paso.
Mikayla Stocks completed a Master of Public Affairs degree at Indiana University’s O’Neil School in 2019. She returned to Texas and began work for the City of Austin as Grants Coordinator for the Public Health Department, overseeing contracts that specialize in homeless prevention, domestic violence, or intellectual and developmental disabilities services. Mikayla credits her Austin College professors with her success and says each line on her resume came from a direct connection made by one of her professors.
2017
Preston Glasscock has accepted a position to serve as Judicial Law Clerk at the Northern District of Texas from 2020 to 2021. He has already accepted a position to work as a Litigator for Norton Rose Fulbright in Dallas when the clerk position ends.
Blair Creedle Reynolds earned a master’s degree in Medical Science from the University of North Texas Health Science Center in May 2019 and was named Outstanding Graduate Student in the program. She has entered the Long School of Medicine at UT San Antonio Health Science Center with plans to complete her M.D. and a master’s degree in Public Health.
Rebecca Rogers earned a master’s degree in International Development from the London School of Economics in December 2018 and is working as an English teacher at a small English academy in South Korea. She enjoys the job and looks forward to all that country has to offer.
Sitara Weerakoon earned her master’s degree in Public Health from UT Health Science Center School of Public Health in May 2019, and in June, she began a Ph.D. program in Epidemiology with a minor in Biostatistics. A graduate research assistant, she was inducted into Delta Omega Honorary Society in Public Health in 2019.