ALUMNI, PROFESSOR WILL RECEIVE SOUTHEAST UNIVERSITY MERIT AWARDS

The Alumni Association of Southeast Missouri State University has selected five alumni and a Southeast professor to receive the institution's annual alumni and faculty merit awards.

Each Alumni Merit Award is presented by an academic college at Southeast to honor a distinguished alumna or alumnus. The recipients and the academic college presenting their awards are: Mary L. Remley, College of Education; Judith L. Farris, College of Liberal Arts; Robert A. Dickemper, College of Business Administration; Priscilla LeMone, College of Health and Human Services; and Dr. Ronald E. Keeney, College of Science and Technology. Frank Nickell, professor of history, is this year's recipient of the Faculty Merit Award.

The six will be honored homecoming weekend during a merit award dinner Oct. 30 in the Show Me Center. Tickets for the dinner are $13 and are available by calling the university's alumni office at (314) 651-2259.

The awards have been given since 1958 to graduates or former students of Southeast who have brought distinction to themselves and the university.

"The awards are very important to us as a university because any time we honor one of our alumni or professors, we honor the university," said Jane Stacy, director of alumni services.

Remley, of St. Louis, earned her bachelor's degree in education from Southeast in 1951. She received her master's degree from Ohio University and doctoral degree in education from the University of Southern California. Her teaching career spans four decades, including teaching at various high schools and universities. She is currently employed at Indiana University, where she has been since 1976.

Remley has published numerous books and articles, has given presentations and workshops, and belongs to numerous professional organizations such as the North American Society for Sport History; American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance; National Association for Physical Education in Higher Education; and Midwest Association for Physical Education of College Women.

Farris, a native of Cape Girardeau, earned her bachelor's degree from Southeast in 1970 in music education. She is now an opera and concert singer and private voice teacher in New York City.

She is a member of the American Guild of Musical Artists and the American Federation of Television and Recording Artists, and began her professional career at the Santa Fe Opera. She has also appeared with the Opera Theater of St. Louis, the Tulsa Opera, the Fort Worth Opera, the Virginia Opera, the Washington Opera and the Hartford Symphony.

She has appeared as the soloist with many of America's finest orchestras, including the St. Louis Symphony, the American Symphony, the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the New York Philharmonic.

Dickemper earned his bachelor's degree in business administration from Southeast in 1965. He began his career with Southwestern Bell Telephone Co. as a commercial assistant in the St. Louis area in 1969. He has held a number of positions over his 20-year career, and has extensive experience in governmental relations and regulatory affairs at both the state and federal levels.

While a part of Southwestern Bell's corporate staff, he was responsible for new business and growth initiatives in the United States and internationally. Now Dickemper is the vice president for human resources at Southwestern Bell.

He belongs to many organizations and serves on a number of boards, including the board of directors of the Southeast Missouri University Foundation.

LeMone, a native of Mexico, Mo., earned her bachelor's degree in 1979 and master's degree in 1981 from Southeast. She received her doctor of science degree in nursing from the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

LeMone is now an assistant professor at the University of Missouri-Columbia; prior to that she taught at Southeast for 16 years. She also served on the professional advisory board for Southeast Missouri Hospital School of Nursing, as well as headed up the campaign cabinet for the nursing building campaign, which resulted in the obtaining of funds to completely renovate the Crisp Hall of Nursing at Southeast.

She is also a benefactor, providing scholarships to nursing students. She earned her bachelor's degree summa cum laude, and also gained distinction in the graduate school. She was the "Outstanding Teacher" for 1986, and received the Faculty Merit Award in 1990.

She is also a founding and continuing member of the Copper Dome Society at Southeast.

Keeney, a 1964 Southeast graduate who earned his doctoral degree in 1968 from the University of Missouri School of Medicine, is now vice president of the Glaxo Inc. Research Institute in North Carolina.

He has been involved in 14 civic and volunteer activities. Some of them, such as Child Abuse and Neglect Management Team, Family Stress Consultations Team and North Carolina Chapter of the National Committee for Prevention of Child Abuse, he founded. He is also a member of 17 medical and professional societies.

Keeney's present responsibilities include: coordinating recruitment and other staffing policies with human resources; facilitating the completion and utilization of all Glaxo facilities; participating in long-range and immediate strategic planning of budgets, personnel and facilities use for the president of the institute; and supervising and directing external scientific collaboration for Glaxo with research companies and universities.

Nickell, winner of the Faculty Merit Award, is a professor of history at Southeast, where he has served since 1961. He is also director of the Regional History Center at Southeast.

Born in Central Illinois, Nickell received his bachelor's and master's degree from Eastern Illinois University, and his doctorate from the University of New Mexico in 1972.

Through the years, Nickell has worked in several positions with Southeast. He was bursar of the university from 1973 until 1976, professor of the history department until 1978, and then chairman of the history department until 1983. He then went back to teaching full time.

Nickell is involved in Elderhostel and a number of other programs, and has been a consultant or written grants for nine groups.