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UNCP Today
Fall 2011
Tara Clark
Bullard '00,
'08 was
one of 21
teachers
selected from
17 school
systems in
southeastern North Carolina to
join the Sandhills Leadership
Academy. She is the daughter
of Jackie Clark `77, vice
chancellor for Enrollment
Management.
2001
James Burney is a teacher at
Pembroke Middle School. He
was elected vice president
of the Robeson Association
of Educators. He served as a
delegate to both the North
Carolina Association of
Educators and the National
Education Association.
Burney is a member of the
NCAE Professional Rights and
Responsibilities Commission
and the National Education
Association American Indian
and Alaskan Native Caucus.
He resides in Lumberton.
Lee Thaxton married Maggie
Miller on July 2010 in
Greensboro. The couple resides
in Greensboro.
E. Ryan
Harrelson
was
promoted
to director
of Bladen
County
Cooperative
Extension in May. He is
married to Shanna May
Harrelson '01, a chemistry
laboratory teaching associate
in the Department of Chemistry
and Physics at UNCP since
2004. They also own and
operate R&S Brooders for
Prestage Farms in Clarkton.
They are the proud parents of
Levi Judson, age three. He is
the grandson of Sylvia McLean
May `72, '89. The family
resides in Clarkton.
2003
Shana Gray
is a web
and content
manager
at the
Spartanburg
Herald-
Journal. She was awarded first
place and "best of the best" for
her page-one design portfolio
by the South Carolina Press
Association. Shana has been
at the paper, a New York Times
Company, since July 2009. She
resides in Spartanburg, S.C.
Sara Johnson is married to
Robbie Stephen Johnson Jr,
'01, `03. The couple resides in
Fort Belvoir, Va.
Melissa Stricklin Cox is
married to Gary `Jabo' Cox.
The couple welcomed their
first child, Micah Graham Cox,
on February 5. He was born at
Cape Fear Valley Hospital at
5:29 p.m., weighing 6 pounds,
10 ounces.
Judy Maples Heffner is a
principal with Randolph
County Schools. She resides in
Southern Pines.
notes
notes
Emily Coble '67 is president of N.C. Peace
Corp group
W
hen Emily Coble '67 graduated from Pembroke State
College, she joined the new Peace Corps. The experience
changed her life, and today she is the president of the North
Carolina Peace Corp Association.
After three months of training, she was set to go to Korea, but
a family crisis kept her home. A few months later, she went to
Guatemala and was there four months before she contracted
amoebic dysentery and had to return home.
"Most people would have quit then. They would have said,
`this isn't for me,'" Coble told the Rocky Mount Telegraph
recently. "But I was determined that I was going to be a Peace
Corps volunteer."
Coble recently retired from teaching in Nash County. By the
early 1970s with a job teaching in Tarboro, she remembered
President John Kennedy's charge to the youth of the country to
make a difference in the world. On August 9, 1974, Coble
boarded a plane to Sierra Leone
with 179 other Peace Corps
volunteers ready to begin a two-
year journey that would change the
course of her life.
The Peace Corps turned 50 in
2010. In a Catholic school for
girls, Coble taught African history,
geography and English in Lunsar,
Sierra Leone. She lived with two
other volunteers in a cinder block
house.
In the mornings and early afternoons, Coble taught school.
With most of her afternoons free, she volunteered at a hospital.
"What you do is go and try to make it better than you found
it," Coble said. "If that is an incremental thing, that is still success."
Coble is married to Craig Smith and they have one daughter,
Claire.
Alumni profile: John Mangum
J
ohn Mangum `68 retired on May 31, 2010, as director of the
Cannon Complex at Wingate University.
The Wingate University Athletic Department Service Award
was presented Mangum, an 18-year university employee. He
joined the Athletic Department staff 1999.
Mangum is a 40-year veteran volunteer fireman for the
Town of Wingate. He also served 11 years as a Wingate town
commissioner. He is a Lion Club member and American Heart
Association volunteer.