Southeast honors alumni, faculty at Copper Dome event

Four Southeast Missouri State University alumni and a faculty member received Merit Awards presented by the Southeast Alumni Association on Oct. 29 at the virtual Copper Dome Celebration event.

The 2020 Alumni Merit Award recipients are:

• Debra Reid of Dearborn, Michigan, (B.S. ’82) curator of agriculture and the environment at The Henry Ford Museum;
• David Blakemore of Campbell, Missouri, (B.S. ’10, MBA ’15) president of Blakemore Cotton & Grain LLC;
• Mirza Nadeem Zafar of Chicago, (B.S. ’99, BS ’02) division president for Chartwells at Compass Group USA;
• and Roy Thomas of St. Matthews, South Carolina, (B.S. ’61) celebrated comic book writer for Marvel and DC Comics.

Michelle Lyn Brune, (B.S. ’94, M.S. ’98) Southeast professor of interior design, received the Faculty Merit Award for excellence in teaching. She went on to earn a Doctor of Philosophy from the University of Missouri-St. Louis in 2010. Her career at Southeast began in 2003, when she was hired as an assistant professor in the interior design program.

Alumni Merit Awards have been presented annually since 1958 to Southeast alumni who have brought distinction to themselves and the university.

Jeremy Loenneke of Oxford, Mississippi, was presented with a Distinguished Young Alumni Award. Loenneke is a 2008 Southeast graduate who, after earning his doctoral degree from The University of Oklahoma, teaches physiology at The University of Mississippi and conducts research on skeletal muscle adaptations to exercise. This award was established in 2017 to honor alumni younger than 37 for outstanding service to and support of the university.

Congratulations to all the award winners for their recognitions and for representing Southeast and Cape Girardeau excellently in their endeavors.