Alumni Day on Calendar for April 4

Central Methodist University’s 2020 Spring Alumni Day is just around the corner. Alumni Day events and the annual Alumni Awards Dinner are scheduled for Saturday, April 4.

Events for the day will begin with 9 a.m. registration for the Alumni Choir in Linn Memorial Church. Cost will be $15 per person. Later in the day, the Alumni Choir concert will take place at 7 p.m. in the church. Cydnee Gilmore, ’01, will be the guest director for the event, which is free to the public.

Also scheduled for Alumni Day is the alumni lunch at Inman Plaza. A barbeque lunch will be served from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Cost of the meal will be $5 per person; children ages two and under may eat free.

Track and field alumni will be recognized at noon during the CMU Invite. Alumni are asked to meet with Alumni Office staff at the front entrance of the stadium at 11:30 a.m. Baseball alumni will also be recognized prior to the 1 p.m. game against MidAmerica Nazarene. Alumni will need to meet office staff at the front entrance of the baseball stadium at 12:15 p.m. to be recognized at 12:45.

Visitors are also invited to explore the current exhibition at the Ashby-Hodge Gallery of American Art: “Afro-American Images in Art” and “Fleeting Moments.” The exhibition includes selections from several collections and the works of Missouri artist Erin Price. The Gallery will be open from 1 to 4 p.m.

And finally, the 74 ^th Annual Alumni Awards Dinner will be held at 5 p.m. on the fourth floor of the Inman Student and Community Center. The reception will begin at 4:15, and admission/meal is priced at $25 per person.

Since 1946, the CMU Alumni Association has annually honored alumni whose lives of service and achievement, character, and accomplishments represent the very best of Central. They are nominated by other alumni, voted on by the Alumni Association’s Board of Directors, and presented each spring at the Alumni Awards Dinner.

This year’s Distinguished Alumni Award Recipients include Chris Lincoln, ’72; Mark Harbison, ’76; Greg Thurmon, ’77; and Mark Dempsey, ’85. Brandon Ousley, ’11, is the 2020 recipient of the Young Alumni Award. Dempsey (1997) and Thurman (1988) are past winners of the Young Alumni Award.

Chris Lincoln is a sports director, play-by-play announcer, and network television entrepreneur with almost five decades of experience in covering sports. Since graduating in 1972 with a Bachelor of Arts, Lincoln has written about sports for a variety of publications including local and national newspapers, magazines, and online. His love for sports led him to radio and television, and even secured him production credit for a number of Emmy Award winning documentaries. He will be inducted into the Oklahoma Association of Broadcasters Hall of Fame on April 3. He has been married to his wife, Becky, since 1999. They have three children and four grandchildren.

Mark Harbison has been an active member of the Fayette community for more than 40 years. He has overseen and managed Commercial Trust Company, where he currently serves as its Chief Executive Officer and member of the Board of Directors. He has held many offices in the Fayette community, including president of the Fayette Optimist Club and Fayette Round Table Club. Harbison was a member of one of the first soccer teams at CMU, an active member of Sigma Alpha Chi, and recipient of a Bachelor of Arts degree in Business Administration. He and his wife, Rebecca, have lived in Fayette for 43 years and have two grown children.

Greg Thurmon graduated from Central in 1977 after majoring in biology and education. As a CMU professor of marine biology, he was named the Carolyn and Tad Perry Fellow Award winner for the 2011-12 school year. Among his many other state, regional, and national awards, Thurmon was presented with the Presidential Award for Excellence in Teaching Science by President George Bush in 1989. He and his wife, Barb, have two sons and reside in Fayette.

Mark Dempsey is a 1986 graduate of Central who has spent his career in sports medicine and athletic training. He served as the athletic trainer for Central athletes while attending college, and later returned to Central after earning his Master’s degree. After being promoted to Director of Sports Medicine in Columbia, he hired Central’s next athletic trainer and has continued to support the program financially. He and his wife, Kathy, are proud sponsors of the Outstanding Student Athletic Trainer Award and have three children, Kale, Tate, and Kadee (co-captain of Envy dance program at CMU).

Brandon Ousley earned a bachelor’s degree in computer science from CMU in 2011 and has since focused on giving back to the community though public service and coaching youth soccer. Along with his work in the information technology field, where he leads a team of 30 developers and project managers for the State of Missouri, Ousley is a member of the State Technical College Computer Science Advisory Council and the NASPO ValuePoint National Cloud Committee. He has recently been selected to be a member of the next Missouri Governor’s Leadership Academy and was a 2017 finalist for the Missouri Youth Soccer Association Club Soccer Coach of the Year Award.