OXFORD,
Miss. – Eight people are to receive the University of Mississippi
Alumni Association’s highest annual honors Friday (Oct. 3).
To
be inducted into the Alumni Hall of Fame are Glen Ballard of Beverly
Hills, Calif.; Mike Glenn of Memphis; John Grisham of North Garden,
Va.; Ed Meek of Oxford; and Shepard Smith of New York, N.Y. Herb Dewees
will be recognized posthumously with the Alumni Hall of Fame
designation.
Carole Lynn Meadows of Gulfport is to receive the
Alumni Service Award for service to the university and the Alumni
Association over an extended period. Brian Sanderson (BBA 95, JD 98) of
Gulfport is to receive the Outstanding Young Alumni Award.
The Alumni Association hosts a reception for the honorees at 6 p.m. Friday in the Gertrude C. Ford Ballroom at The Inn at Ole Miss. A dinner for the awards recipients follows the reception at 7 p.m. Cost of the dinner is $40 per person, or tables of eight are available for $300.
Six-Time Grammy Award winner Ballard (BA 75) is one of popular music’s most accomplished producers/songwriters and arrangers. His records have sold more than 150 million records worldwide, and he has worked with a diverse array of the finest singers and artists in the business, from Aretha Franklin to Van Halen and Aerosmith.
Among the many highlights of his career are the 10-times-platinum debut of Wilson Phillips, multi-platinum No Doubt record “Return of Saturn” and The Dave Matthews Band multi-platinum “Everyday,” which he co-wrote and produced.
One of Ballard’s biggest successes involved chart-topping, multi-platinum album “Jagged Little Pill” (33 million worldwide), which Ballard co-wrote and produced for Alanis Morissette. The 1995 record was named ‘Album of the Decade,’ by Billboard and was the top selling artist debut album of all time. For the original album, Ballard received Grammys for Best Rock Song (“You Oughta Know”), Best Rock Album, Best Video and the prestigious Album of the Year.
Dewees (BA 65, JD 68) joined the UM Alumni Affairs staff at the Medical Center in 1976, then moved to the Oxford campus a year-and-a-half later to work with various alumni chapters on alumni activities and fundraising.
He was appointed executive director in 1990 and served in that capacity until his retirement in 2004. While Dewees was executive director, the association renovated its alumni center, celebrated its 150th anniversary and broadcast its first alumni meeting nationally live via satellite from the Oxford campus.
In recognition of his commitment to providing scholarships to Ole Miss students, the Alumni Association’s board voted in 2007 to name its scholarship fund the Herbert E. Dewees Jr. Alumni Association Lineal Descendant Scholarship Endowment.
Dewees received the Law Alumnus of the Year for 1989-1990 and the Algernon Sydney Sullivan Award in 2004 for exhibiting the character, humanitarian and spiritual qualities evident in the life of Sullivan, a Southerner who became a prominent 19th century lawyer, businessman and philanthropist.
Glenn (BBA 77) is executive vice president of market development and corporate communications for FedEx Corp. He also serves as president and chief executive officer of FedEx Services. In this role, he leads all marketing, sales, and communications across the FedEx operating companies and is responsible for the FedEx Office and Global Supply Chain Services business units.
Also, Glenn is a member of FedEx’s five-person executive committee, which plans and executes the corporate strategy, and the strategic management committee, which oversees corporate operations.
Before FedEx was incorporated in January 1998, Glenn was senior vice president of worldwide marketing, customer service and corporate communications for FedEx Express. He was responsible for directing all marketing, customer service, employee communications and public relations activities.
He serves on the board of directors of Pentair Inc., Renasant Bank, Autism Speaks and the United Way of the Mid-South. He is also chairman of the board of Madonna Learning Center, a school for special needs children, and serves on the executive committee of Christ United Methodist Church.
After graduating from law school at Ole Miss in 1981, Grisham (JD 81) practiced law for nearly a decade in Southaven, specializing in criminal defense and personal injury litigation. In 1983, he was elected to the Mississippi House of Representatives and served until 1990. From 1988 to 1990, he served as vice-chairman of the Committee on Apportionment and Elections.
While still working in Desoto County, Grisham spent three years writing his on “A Time to Kill,” finishing it in 1987. The book received some good reviews but initially sold only moderately well. His next book, “The Firm,” was an entirely different story.
In 1990, before the novel was even published, Paramount Pictures purchased the film rights. Since then, Grisham has become one of the world’s best-selling novelists, and many of his novels have been scripted into successful movies.
Meek (BSJ 61, MA 63, PhD 74) is former assistant vice chancellor for public relations and marketing and president and CEO of Oxford Publishing Inc.
A native of Charleston, at age 24, Meek was the youngest person ever to be appointed to head a department, University News Service, at Ole Miss.
After receiving undergraduate and master’s degrees from Ole Miss, Meek received the first Ph.D. in communications awarded by the university. He was a member of the Department of Journalism faculty and was director of public relations and resource development for many years.
Meek chartered the student chapter of the Public Relations Society of America at Ole Miss, was one of the founders of Mississippi College Public Relations Association and the Mississippi Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists, Sigma Delta Chi.
In 1983 Meek formed Oxford Publishing, which founded and published eight trade magazines primarily in technology and hospitality, and established the Western Hemisphere’s largest beverage and food show, held annually in Las Vegas.
Meek and his wife, Becky, reside in Oxford and have two daughters, Cindy Sinervo and Kelleye Houston, and five grandchildren.
A native of Holly Springs, Smith (87) anchors the “Fox Report,” Fox News Channel’s evening newscast, which ranks in the top five programs in cable news and has been No. 1 in the 7 p.m. time slot for more than 60 consecutive months. The Washington Post has compared Smith to a news NASCAR driver, “racing through the news at breakneck speed” as he reports nearly 70 stories in an hour. He also hosts the afternoon fast-paced news/interview program, “Studio B with Shepard Smith.”
Recognized as America’s second-most trusted news anchor in a TV Guide poll, he has covered virtually every major news story over the course of his career. Before joining FNC, Smith was a Fox News Edge correspondent based in Los Angeles, where he covered a wide range of stories for the Fox affiliate news service. Before his stint at Fox News Edge, he served as a news reporter for the syndicated program “A Current Affair.”
Meadows (BSC 60, MBEd 64) earned a B. S. and a master’s degree in business education from the university. She has more than 25 years teaching experience at Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College. She also worked five years as an investment broker with JC Bradford, now UBS.
She is co-founder of the Lynn Meadows Discovery Center. Named in memory of her daugher, the Gulfport center is Mississippi’s first children’s museum. She chairs the building committee for the forthcoming center’s WINGS Children’s Performing Arts and Education facility. She was awarded the Rotary International Paul Harris Fellow Award in recognition of her work for children.
Meadows became the first female president of the Ole Miss Alumni Association in 1994 and was inducted into the UM Alumni Hall of Fame in 1999.
Meadows is secretary of the executive committee of the Gulfport Main Street Association, board member of the Gulf Coast Business Council and board member of Mississippi Council on Economic Education.
She and her husband, Joseph R. Meadows, are Sunday school teachers at First Baptist Church of Gulfport. The Lucedale native has lived in Gulfport since 1965.
Sanderson, 35, is president of the Gulf Coast Business Council, a private, nonprofit corporation of over 200 of business leaders on the Mississippi Gulf Coast.
He previously served as deputy director of Gov. Haley Barbour’s Office of Recovery & Renewal, where he offered policy advice and formulation.
Sanderson is a member of the Mississippi Bar and served as president of the state’s Young Lawyers Division through July 2008. He serves as second vice president and is a member of the Board of Bar Commissioners. He is a past president of the Federal Bar Association, Mississippi Chapter.
Sanderson is president of the Board of Directors Boys and Girls Club of the Gulf Coast, was named the statewide New Board Member of the Year in 2004 and received the Kerly Award for outstanding service in 2006.
In 2005, Sanderson was selected as one of the Top 10 Business Leaders Under 40 in South Mississippi. He is a parishioner of St. Alphonsus Catholic Church in Ocean.
For more information on the recipients, visit http://www.olemissalumni.com/welcome/alumninews/awards?intro.asp