Page 64 - Southern Magazine-Winter/Spring 2013

62 / ’southern
CLASSNOTES
Christopher B. Hardin ’00 of
Clarksville, Tenn., on July 19, 2012.
A native of Alabaster, Hardin was
an associate professor of voice
and movement at Austin Peay
State University. His master’s
degree in theatre was completed
at Oklahoma State University,
followed by an MFA in Acting
Pedagogy from the University
of Alabama. He starred in the
NewYork production of Dammit,
Shakespeare! by Seth Panitch, and
later took over the role of William
Shakespeare. His theatrical
interests and specialties included
stage dialects and absurdist and
existentialist theatre.
James Daniel Smith III ’03 of
Hoover on Sept. 20, 2012.
Russell Neal Gann ’11 of Fayette
on Jan. 12, 2013. Gann earned an
associate degree from Bevill State
College before transferring to BSC
to study business and play football.
He was enrolled in the RN program
at Bevill. He was a member of the
Rehobeth Baptist Church.
Friends
Grace Lyman Norris Nealeans
of Sylacauga on July 17, 2012.
Nealeans was a retired piano
teacher who received her training
at the Birmingham Conservatory
of Music, which later became
the music department at BSC.
She became a member of the
conservatory faculty at age 17 and
taught there for many years, taught
in Atlanta during World War II, and
taught in Sylacauga from 1945-
83. Nealeans achieved emeritus
status with the Alabama Music
Teachers Association in 1980. She
was an active member of First
Presbyterian Church.
Winyss Acton Shepard of
Birmingham on Oct. 14, 2012.
Shepard taught history at BSC
from 1963-67. A native of
Pennslyvania, she earned her
bachelor’s, master’s, and Ph.D.
degrees from the University of
Pennsylvania. Shepard moved
to Birmingham in 1960 when her
husband accepted a position at
UAB’s Department of Surgery. She
is survived by her husband, Dr.
Richard B. Shepard ’49, and three
children.
Dr. DouglasWaits of Birmingham
on Jan. 23, 2013. Waits taught
biology at BSC from 1967-2002.
He was a celebrated teacher who
won both the Omicron Delta
Kappa Excellence in Teaching
Award and the United Methodist
Church Excellence in Teaching
Award. Waits also served on
every committee of the college,
including all of its elected faculty
committees. He was division chair
and worked during the summer
of 1987 as acting dean. Waits
also was an ardent champion of
the college’s first environmental
studies program and active in the
ACS Costa Rica program. He
earned his doctorate from North
Carolina State University in 1967.
In Memoriam Friend
JaniceTurnipseed Ikenberry, educator and
philanthropist, passed away on Oct. 25. Ikenberry
resided in Montgomery, but was born in Union Springs.
She was 95.
She and her husband, the late Dr. Ernest Ikenberry,
were dedicated and deeply generous supporters of the
college, with distinguished historical ties to the school.
Neither of them were alumni, although both of her
parents graduated from the Birmingham-Southern.
A collection of historic Turnipseed family furniture is
informally displayed in the Stockham parlor on campus.
Four large pieces—corner cabinet, secretary, library table,
and davenport—dating from the early 19th century were
given to the college by Ikenberry and her husband in September 1991, in memory of
Janice’s father, William OwenTurnipseed ‘06 (Southern University at Greensboro).
Janice’s grandfather, David Columbus Turnipseed, was a longtime trustee of Southern
University and had four sons who were SU graduates. The third son was Janice’s
father. Upon his death, she received the family furniture her father had inherited from
his grandfather, William Turnipseed. Her mother also earned a master’s degree from
SU before doing further graduate work at the University of Grenoble in France, and her
maternal great-grandfather, John Walton, was a founder of SU.
The Turnipseed-Ikenberry Scholarship at BSC was established by Janice and her
husband in tribute to her ancestors. The award provides full tuition, room and
board, and fees for juniors or seniors demonstrating high academic achievement and
majoring in physics, mathematics, or history. It is renewable for one year.
Ikenberry graduated from Randolph/Macon Women’s College in Lynchburg, Va.,
in 1938 in political science and international law. She also attended classes at the
University of Geneva in Switzerland. Early in 1939 she began graduate study at
the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, but transferred later that year to
the University of Alabama, where she was offered a teaching fellowship and earned
her master’s degree. During the war years she taught French at leading colleges and
universities in Nashville and Greensboro, N.C., and returned to Alabama in 1945 to
teach at Alabama Polytechnic Institute (now Auburn University).
Ikenberry was a cousin to the late Marti Turnipseed Moore ’65.