The Pantagraph Holiday Spectacular brought another year of cheer to Bloomington-Normal during performances on Dec. 3-4. The production was written by Nancy Steele Brokaw ’71, directed by former faculty member Lori Adams, and featured performances by Marketing Director Andy Kreiss ’86 and Assistant Professor of Music Bob Mangialardi. Read the full Pantagraph article here.
Richard McCoy ’74 and his wife Laurie McCoy were recently featured in a My Journal Courier article about their experience in Jacksonville theater. They have been involved for over four decades, and could be considered the “first family” of local theater. Read the full article here.
Tim Brown ’78 will be awarded an honorary doctorate from Indiana State University. Read the full article from Yahoo here.
Jack Sikma ’77 has been featured in a recently-published Basketnews article detailing much of Jack’s influence and legacy in basketball. Read it here.
Community Players Theatre is celebrating 100 years on stage. Bruce Parrish ’74, president of the board for Community Players Theatre, recalls how participating in theatre at IWU helped pave the way for his involvement with the local group. You can read more here.
Karen (Smith) Portle ’71 recently retired from AdTec, Inc. after being an E-Rate Consultant for over 10 years. Congrats, Karen!
Tom Patterson ’75 wrote an article that was published by the Journal of Louisiana Historical Association (Louisiana History, Summer 2022, Vol. LXIII, No. 3, page 321). The article, called “Mastering the Senate Maze: Mr. Long Goes to Washington,” describes the first four months in office of Senator Huey P. Long, Jr.. Tom is also writing a book about Senator Long, expected to be published in 2024.
Jack Sikma ’77 will be the keynote speaker at the annual meeting of The Hundred Club of Kankakee County where he will talk about how basketball has impacted his life. Read the full Daily Journal article here.
Dr. Debra R. Burt-Frazier, Ed.D. ’75 was recently elevated to the tenure teaching track at Central State University in Wilberforce, Ohio. The position is a full-time three year contract teaching freshman academic writing and English literature classes in the College of Humanities. Currently, Debra is in her sixth year at the Historically Black College/University (HBCU). Congratulations, Debra!
The School of Nursing honored their award recipient during an event from 9-11 a.m. on Saturday, Sept. 24 in the Wilson Atrium in the Center for Natural Sciences as a part of IWU’s Homecoming celebrations.
Joan Alverzo ’72 graduated from Illinois Wesleyan University with a BSN in nursing. She then went on to receive her MSN from Seton Hall University in 1978 and her PhD in Nursing from New York University in 2004. Alverzo is an accomplished academic, researcher and practitioner in her field. In 2004, she received a research grant from the Rehabilitation Nursing Foundation to fund her doctoral research. Her articles have been published in numerous peer reviewed nursing and medical research journals, and she has been presenting her research at different conferences for over 20 years. In addition to her own research pursuits, Alverzo has been a member of the editorial board for the journal Rehabilitation Nursing since 2010. From 2008-2014, she was an Associate Professor in Nursing at Rutgers University, where she taught a course in Economic and Financial Management in Nursing. Her expertise in this area is shown through her career as a nursing executive at healthcare company, Select Medical. She has been with Select Medical since 2009 and has served as their Senior Vice President for Clinical Operations since 2013. In this role, she has established a total of 23 Rehabilitation Hospitals with 8800 employees in 10 states and an annual revenue of 750 million dollars. In 2019, she established a Patient Safety Organization with Select Medical Corporation, one of 77 federally sanctioned organizations recognizing 120 hospitals owned by Select Medical with federal designated status for excellence in Patient Safety. In January 2022, she retired to Ocean City, Md., with her husband Richard and their lab Molly.
