Class Notes – Find out the latest news about your fellow alumni!

40s
Peggy Carson Cheezem ’47 of Greenwood, SC, writes that her granddaughter, Sarah Henderson, is graduating with a master’s degree in hospital administration from the Medical University of South Carolina. Peggy has another granddaughter, Sylvia Abney, who is studying international relations at the University of Tokyo in Japan.

60s
Anthony Herberton ’66 of Naples, FL, will be cruising to Canada in August and touring Montreal.

The Rev. Frank Kinney ’66 has retired as a clergyman with the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and is currently living in Winter Park, FL, and North Sandwich, NH. His first wife, the Rev. Roberta U. Kinney, passed away in 2006. He married his current wife, Sallie, in 2008. He has two daughters, the Rev. Elizabeth Palmer and Dr. Sarah J. Kinney, DVM. His daughter Elizabeth is married to the Rev. David Palmer and they have a son, Ethan Joseph.

90s
Mark Field ’96 of Corryton, TN, has been named to the Leadership Knoxville Class of 2011. Leadership Knoxville is a 10-month program that has its goal to serve as a catalyst for positive change in the greater Knoxville, TN, area. While becoming more acquainted with community issues and opportunities, the class of 2011 will focus on servant leadership principles. Field is vice president of membership at the Knoxville Chamber of Commerce. Active in the community, Field serves on the Parks Foundation board of directors, CareSpark Regional Health Information Exchange board of directors, Innovation Valley Health Information board of directors and on the Tennessee Small Business Development Centers state advisory board. He is a member of the Tusculum College Knoxville President’s Advisory Council. He has served as past chair of Knox County Parks and Recreation Advisory Board. He is chair of the administrative team and is a deacon at Corryton Church.

00s
Kathrn Whartenby ’05 began her duties as assistant strength and conditioning coach at the University of Denver (CO) in mid-June. Prior to the University of Denver, Whartenby served as assistant for the Yale University strength and conditioning staff. She joined the staff in 2007 and worked with the men’s and women’s basketball teams as well as the men’s soccer, women’s lacrosse, women’s swimming, women’s golf and women’s cross country programs. Whartenby served as an assistant at the University of Florida from 2005 until 2007 while she was earning her master’s degree in applied physiology and kinesiology. She worked with the university’s women’s basketball, soccer and gymnastics teams, taught classes for the Sports and Fitness Program and developed a fitness program for the Florida Department of Corrections.

Brian Lovett ’06 has been named as the head baseball coach at Central High School in Knoxville, TN. Lovett is looking to revive a once-proud program for which he played and that won state titles in 1973 and 1990. He served as an assistant coach at Central from 2006-2009 and as an assistant at Bearden this past season.  Lovett is also now currently enrolled as a student in the Graduate and Professional Studies program.

Erica Barenbaum ’08 of Chuckey, TN, has been accepted into veterinary school at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville and will begin the program in the fall.

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Carrie R. Miller ’06 and Joshua J. Ealy ’07 were married May 22, 2010, at Central Baptist Church in Johnson City. Following a honeymoon trip to St. Maarten of the Netherlands Antilles, the couple is living in Newport, TN. Carrie is a veterinarian at Appalachian Veterinary Hospital in Newport. Josh is an assistant basketball coach at Carson-Newman College.

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Ryan Munson ’04 and his wife, Courtney, of Ogden, UT, celebrated the birth of their first child, Reese Aubrey, on April 30, 2010. She weighed 6 lbs. and was 19.5 inches long.

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Dr. Samuel E. Miller ’35 H’98 of Abingdon, VA, passed away June 3, 2010. Dr. Miller was a long-time supporter of his Alma Mater, particularly the Arts Outreach program, and was presented the Distinguished Service Award by the College in 2009. A native of Greene County, he grew up on a farm not far from the Tusculum College campus. After graduating from Tusculum, he joined the military and rose to the rank of major in the horse cavalry. He was later assigned to investigate and test equipment for the motorized cavalry. He was discharged from the military after suffering an injury and during his rehabilitation, graduated with a master’s degree in chemistry from the University of Cincinnati. Dr. Miller then worked as a chemist with the Food and Drug Administration until 1941 when he wed the late Mary Agnes Ault, whom he had met at Tusculum where she had served as a dorm mother. He then attended and taught at New York University and Columbia University and also at the Virginia Military Institute while completing pre-med courses at Washington and Lee University. He continued his studies at the University of Virginia (UVA) Medical School, earning his medical degree in 1950. Dr. Miller practiced medicine in Abingdon from 1952 until 1971, when he returned to UVA and was co-founder of the Medical Family Practice Unit after becoming concerned about the decreasing number of general physicians entering the family practice field. He was the only doctor at UVA to have dual appointments in family practice and internal medicine. After teaching at the medical school, he returned to Abingdon in 1994 and began an intense study of writing. He later published a book of poetry, which includes poems about his days at Tusculum and growing up in Greene County. He was active with local writers and poets groups in Abingdon.  His support of the arts included his initiation of Arts Outreach’s Acts, Arts, Academia annual performance and lecture series, and attendance at Theatre-at-Tusculum performances as his health allowed. He was also a patron of the Virginia Highlands Festival, the Barter Theatre, the William King Regional Arts Center and the Arts Depot, all located in Abingdon. Dr. Miller taught and attended classes at the Southwest Virginia Higher Education Center for older adults. He was a trustee of the Library Foundation Board. Dr. Miller was an avid sports car fan, a successful racer and president emeritus of the Sports Car Club of America. He was a member of Sinking Spring Presbyterian Church. His survivors include son and Tusculum alumnus Raymond A. Miller ’62.

Peter J. Rossi ’42 of Richmond, IN, passed away on June 18, 2009. Mr. Rossi was a retired assistant vice president from Star Bank. His survivors include wife and Tusculum alumna, Jean Thomas Rossi ’44.

Friends
Former Tusculum College head football coach Tom Bryant passed away suddenly June 3, 2010. Bryant, a special education teacher and assistant football coach at Armuchee High School in Rome, GA, collapsed at around 7 p.m. at the school during a spring football practice. Bryant served as Tusculum’s head football coach from 1991-94, orchestrating the reinstatement of the sport at the College after a 41-year absence. After his first team went winless in the 1991 season, Bryant’s Pioneers rebounded by going 15-14 in his final three seasons combined, including a 6-3 record in 1994. He had a 15-24 record during his four seasons at Tusculum. While at Tusculum, Bryant mentored 16 NAIA All-District 24 squad players, while 56 of his players earned All Mid-South Conference honors. He also coached two All-Americans.  Upon learning of his passing, Tusculum Director of Athletics and Head Football Coach Frankie DeBusk said, “This is a sad day for all Pioneer fans. Coach Bryant led our College football program during a time of great transition at the Pioneers searched for a playing identity. He was a true ambassador of the game of football and will be greatly missed.”

Mary Jane Coleman of Greeneville, TN, who initiated the Sinking Creek Independent Film Festival which was initially held on the Tusculum College campus, passed away June 19, 2010. Coleman was a leading figure in the arts both locally and in Tennessee as a whole for three decades. Coleman founded the Sinking Creek Film Celebration in 1969 after becoming interested in the field of independent film-making, which was at the time a little-recognized area of the fine arts. She served as the film festival’s executive director and artistic director for more than 20 years. Under her leadership, the festival became nationally known and highly respected in its field, with substantial growth in entries. In the first four years of the actual competition, it was held on the Tusculum campus. The College and the Greeneville Arts Guild were the original co-sponsors of the event. Because of its growth, the festival moved to Nashville in 1972. Coleman continued to serve as the event’s artistic director until the early 1990s and retired from involvement in 1997. The festival is now known as the Nashville Film Festival. Coleman’s work with the film festival garnered her several honors including the Governor’s Award in the Arts. Tusculum faculty members, such as Clem Allison and the late Dave Behan. Helped Coleman in facilitating arrangements for the film festival-related events in the first few years. Allison, a longtime leader in the Greeneville Arts Guild/Council that Coleman almost single-handedly established, also worked with her over a period of more than 20 years, including some of the “Film Flam” gals during the 1970s and 1980s that were held to maintain a strong local connection with the film festival and raise funds to support it. Marilyn duBrisk, artist-in-residence and director of Tusculum College Arts Outreach, and her husband, Wess, who is retired from Tusculum as an associate professor mass communications, met Coleman soon after their arrival in Greeneville. The duBrisks participated in the “Film Flam” fundraisers as well as organizing the judging of films at Tusculum. Wess duBrisk served as technical assistant for the week-long Sinking Creek Film Festival and Marilyn duBrisk assisted with the judging period in Nashville in a variety of ways related to hospitality and overall facilitation of what had by then become a lengthy, multi-faceted event. Coleman served as artistic director of the “Video Tusculum” independent film festival for young film-makers that Wess duBrisk started in the 1990s.