COVER STORY
While owners, coaches and players have come and gone since 1981, one person has been a constant on “America’s team.” When young Robert Blackwell ’76 arrived at SFA, he didn’t have a specific career goal in mind. He had taken a journalism class as an elective at the junior college he previously attended, and photography caught his attention.
Several sudden flashes appear to momentarily light the sky on fire. Safe behind glass windows, cozy in his living room, Michael Tidwell ’00 watches the storm build past the distant hills near his San Antonio home. He patiently waits for morning, when he will walk outside on his back deck, collect his camera equipment and discover if he’s captured any bolts of lightning with his long exposures.
With 90 seconds to spare, Kim Wier ’85 places headphones atop her head and draws the microphone near. She has done this hundreds of times, but when the recording light turns on, she still feels excited. For more than a decade, Wier has been a radio host and is currently hosting and producing Sunday Night Live!, a weekly two-hour interactive radio show on KSBJ-FM in Houston — the largest Christian radio station in the country.
If you want to see the world’s most impressive collection of Dr Pepper memorabilia, you’ll need to travel to the Dr Pepper Museum in Waco. Or, you can save yourself the trip and visit the office of Dr. Jim Towns, SFA professor of communication.
A lot can happen in 80 years, and the Stone Fort Museum is a clear example. Standing sentinel on the SFA campus since 1936, the museum has played host to many exhibits, speakers and touring groups, while the tide of progress altered the campus that surrounds it.
The SFA Alumni Association annually bestows its highest honors on individuals who have made outstanding contributions to their professions and community, committed themselves to advancing the values and goals of SFA, and ensured a better quality of life for future generations.
VISTA VIEWPOINT
I grew up a Lumberjack. My parents and most of my aunts and uncles are SFA alums. Additionally, my grandfather was a professor in the agriculture department for approximately three decades. As a native of Nacogdoches, my childhood was filled with attending SFA events such as Homecoming parades, sporting events and summer camps.
FACULTY ADVISING
I've always been intrigued with light. While perched on the roof of my two-story childhood home in Dallas, I would watch and photograph approaching lightning storms. Many years later, the thrill of photography remains.
'JACKS OF ALL TRADES
It is said that a blank canvas provides limitless possibilities. Judith Carter ’82 created and built her business around this belief. Carter is the owner of Needleworks, an independent, specialty retail establishment just outside downtown Birmingham, Alabama, that sells hand-dyed threads, needlework accessories and hand-painted needlepoint designs made by hundreds of designers.
If you haven't visited SFA recently — either in person or online — you will notice some exciting changes the next time you arrive on campus or “click” on our website.
My term as president of the SFA Alumni Association Board of Directors concludes at the end of 2016, and this is my final Sawdust letter.
The bowling team is ranked second in the nation, Thomas Walkup signs with the Chicago Bulls D-League team and Hunter Dozier earns a spot on the Kansas City Royals major league roster.
A freshman journalism student is the first recipient of the Pat Spence Scholarship for The Pine Log.
News and notes from Lumberjack alumni
Lumberjacks whom we recently lost