Baylor alumni, don’t miss the unique opportunity to hear Baylor’s A Cappella Choir, the premier choral ensemble of the university, as they tour the Eastern Seaboard for the first time in years!

Join the group from Atlanta to New York for the following performances in March 2012:

Thursday, March 8 – 7 PM
Atlanta, GA
Dunwoody UMC
1548 Mt. Vernon Road
Atlanta, GA 30338
(770) 394-0675

Friday, March 9 – 7:30 PM
Charlotte, NC
Myers Park Baptist Church
1900 Queens Road
Charlotte, NC 28207
(704) 334-7232

Saturday, March 10 – 7:30 PM
Richmond, VA
River Road Baptist Church
8000 River Road
Richmond, VA 23229
(804) 288-1131

Sunday, March 11 – 7:30 PM
Haddonfield, NJ
First Presbyterian Church
20 Kings Highway East
Haddonfield, NJ 08033
(856) 429-1960

Monday, March 12 – 8 PM
Philadelphia, PA
Old St. Joseph’s Church
321 Willings Alley
Philadelphia, PA 19106
(215) 923-1733

Wednesday, March 14 – 8 PM
New York, NY
St. James Madison Avenue
865 Madison Avenue
New York, NY 10021
(212) 288-4100

Thursday, March 15 – 7:30 PM
Washington, DC
National Presbyterian Church
4101 Nebraska Ave. NW
Washington, DC 20016
(202) 537-0800

Friday, March 16 – 7:30 PM
Columbia, SC
Mt. Tabor Lutheran Church
1000 “B” Ave. West
Columbia, SC 29169
(803) 796-5948

By: Katie Burns

Baylor University’s Hankamer School Business hosted a sneak peak of Undercover Boss on Tuesday, January 17, featuring Waco business superstar Dina Dwyer-Owens, chair and CEO of The Dwyer Group.

Dwyer-Owens attended Baylor from 1981-1983 before taking over her father’s successful business, The Dwyer Group.  In her time as CEO, the company has expanded to nearly 1,600 franchises nationwide.

The Dwyer Group owns such popular franchise brands as Aire Serv, Glass Doctor, Mr. Appliance, Mr. Electric, Mr. Rooter, Rainbow International, and The Grounds Guys.  The franchises make nearly two million service calls each year.

Dwyer-Owens accepted the invitation to appear on CBS’s two-time Emmy-nominated reality show, which kicked off its third season on January 15.  The show allows the world’s most successful company leaders to go undercover within their own organizations and witness firsthand the day-to-day life within their companies.

“Being out there in the van with the service professionals and the franchisees for a day or half a day really doing the work that they do, I have a whole new appreciation and respect for these professionals,” Dwyer-Owens said in the Catholic Review.

The sneak peek event filled Waco Hall with The Dwyer Group’s employees and franchise owners, as well as Baylor students, faculty, and Waco community members.  Dwyer-Owens described her journey on the television show and explained what she believes makes her company a success.

The backbone of the company is The Dwyer Group Code of Values, which instills respect, integrity, customer focus and having fun in the process in each of the company’s employees.  It is this attitude toward business ethics that Dwyer-Owens talks about when she lectures students in the Hankamer School of Business.

“I think business students will find it interesting to get a real CEO’s perspective on building culture in an organization and to hear about her undercover experience,” Terry S. Maness, dean of the business school, said in Hankamer School of Business News.

The Undercover Boss episode airs Sunday, January 22, at 7 p.m. Dwyer-Owens encourages everyone to tune in to watch her exciting experience and see what make her company so special.

Attention all Baylor Black Alumni!

It’s that time of year again to nominate someone for the Distinguished Baylor Black Alumni Award. Let us know who you feel has brought great honor to themselves, their community, and to Baylor University.

Please take a brief moment to fill out the nomination form either online or by mail, and show your support for a deserving recipient.
Nominations must be submitted by February 28, 2012.

To see a list of past Distinguished Baylor Black Alumni recipients, click here.

For more information, please visit the Baylor Black Alumni Club website.

Greetings in the New Year! We hope you all had happy holidays and are settling nicely into 2012. Things are in full swing at the Baylor Alumni Association as we prepare for a variety of events this spring. We hope you will include the following dates on your calendar.

As always, thank you for your support and participation, and don’t forget that it’s a great time to join or renew your membership with the BAA!

January 27
BAA Hall of Fame Award Presentations
Waco Convention Center ⋅ Dinner 6:30 p.m.

January 28
Baylor Alumni Association Board meeting
Hughes-Dillard Alumni Center ⋅ 9 a.m. – 11:30 p.m.

February 18
Alumni by Choice Brunch
Hughes-Dillard Alumni Center ⋅ 9:30 a.m.

February 20 – 23
Ring Week
Student Union Building on Baylor Campus



March 25 – 26
Heritage Club
Waco Convention Center



April 20 – 21
Fling
Hughes-Dillard Alumni Center

April 24
Senior Send-Off
Hughes-Dillard Alumni Center Lawn ⋅ 4:30 – 6:30 p.m.

April 28
Baylor Alumni Association Board meeting
Hughes-Dillard Alumni Center ⋅ 10 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.

April 28
BAA Annual Membership Meeting
Hughes-Dillard Alumni Center ⋅ 1 p.m.

May 1
Official Baylor Class Ring Ceremony
Waco Hall ⋅ 5:30 p.m.

May 5
Retired Faculty and Administrators Luncheon
First Baptist Church Fellowship Hall ⋅ 12 p.m.

In 1961 we left Baylor declaring that “We’ll do things that can’t be done!  We’re the Class of ’61!”

In 1962, I traveled in Europe and crossed over the Berlin Wall. I listened to the U.N. debate the U. S. blockade of Soviet ships. Concerns about the future began to impinge on our brave graduation claim.

By 1963, our world was shattered by the brutal assassination of President Kennedy; chaos seemed to be descending on the country we believed was so strong.

In 1965 while we were both teaching in Longview, Texas, I met my husband, Bob Brick. On TV we witnessed riots in Los Angeles and wondered why Malcolm X was assassinated.

I found myself in graduate school in 1966 at George Washington University in Washington, D.C.  After completing my master’s degree, I worked for a U.S. Senator.

By 1968 I married Bob. He worked for the Peace Corps in the Philippines. We wanted to bring peace, education and democracy to the world. But chaos struck as I heard the radio announce “Martin Luther King, morte, morte,” and in June, I heard the same words announce the assassination of Robert Kennedy.

Summer of 1968, we returned to Hawaii. Friendships with different ethnic groups provided a soothing relief, but riots spread across the country, military flights left for Vietnam and people realized that the war wasn’t ending soon.

In 1970, the birth of our first child brought sanity. Six years later, we were blessed with a son.  By then we were back in Texas and Bob had a full time teaching position at Texas A&M.

From 1976 on our lives were consumed with parenting, jobs, graduate school and all that comes as one “matures.”

In 1980 we moved, for business, to Illinois, Hawaii, Pakistan, and Indonesia before returning to Texas.  The moves were opportunities that allowed us to see ourselves and our country in a different light.

In 2001, we watched the attacks on New York and Washington, D.C., trying to understand why the U.S. had once again become the target of hostility.

Fifty years later we’re wondering if we’ve “done things that can’t be done.” As I look back, I treasure Baylor friendships and I value the opportunities Baylor offered me.

I believe, Jefferson’s “Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” is actually “The Good Old Baylor Line,” and in turn, I’m trying to pass those values on to my family, friends, students, and community.

Blanche Henderson Brick, Ph.D.
Class of 1961
Blanche Brick teaches U. S. History at Blinn College in Bryan, Texas, and serves as Division Chair of Social Sciences.  She is a graduate of Baylor University, George Washington University, the University of Hawaii and Texas A&M University.  She and her husband have lived in Texas, Illinois, Hawaii, Pakistan, and Indonesia. Her husband, Robert Brick, a graduate of Texas Tech and the University of Hawaii, is Vice President of Blinn College for Applied Science and Workforce Technology.

Congratulations and Best Wishes to Coach Art Briles and the Baylor Bears!

Few things are more powerful than a family hug and best wishes during the Christmas season. And it’s in that spirit that the Baylor Alumni Association would like to congratulate the Baylor football team on a landmark 2011 season!

“We want to wish Coach Art Briles and the entire team the very best in the upcoming Alamo Bowl on December 29 against the University of Washington and to let them know how much their hard work is appreciated,” said Jeff Kilgore, executive vice president and CEO of the BAA.

Alumni and other members of the Baylor family couldn’t have been prouder of the team’s success and the accomplishments of many individual players over the course of this 9-3 season. Time and again, the Baylor Bears represented our alma mater in an outstanding manner in a national spotlight and in front of great crowds at Floyd Casey Stadium.

The BAA also wishes to extend a special congratulations to Robert Griffin III for being selected as one of five finalists for the Heisman Trophy and to give him our best wishes for the ceremony in New York City on Saturday, when the winner will be announced. The Baylor family is equally proud of all the teammates who helped make Griffin’s accomplishments possible.

We encourage all Baylor alumni to be in San Antonio for the Alamo Bowl to cheer on our Bears on to another victory. Many thanks to each of you for your continued support of Baylor University and the Baylor Alumni Association!

You can find a wealth of information about the Alamo Bowl at Bowl Central.

Tickets for the game can be purchased online at Baylor Football Tickets.

By Blair Stephens

Houston attorney Roland Garcia ’81 was recently appointed by President Barack Obama to the United States Naval Academy’s Board of Visitors. Garcia is one of fifteen members.

“It is a high honor that the President of the United States had the trust and confidence in me to appoint me to this prestigious board,” Garcia said. “It is particularly special to me considering the challenging times we live in, and the importance of national defense and security, and the training and readiness of our forces.”

The board oversees the morale, curriculum and overall state of things within the U.S. Naval Academy.

Garcia grew up in a family that valued military service. He followed in the footsteps of both his father and grandfather, serving in the Marines.

Garcia earned a BBA from Baylor, graduating from the Honors Program with distinction. While at Baylor, Garcia was a member of Beta Gamma Sigma, Gamma Beta Phi, Beta Alpha Psi, Omicron Delta Epsilon, and Phi Eta Sigma honorary fraternities.

“Baylor set me on my course in life.  I was the first person ever to go to college in my immediate family,” Garcia said. “Baylor prepared me for the professional success I have achieved,  taught me the values which guide me today, instilled in me the spirit of helping others less fortunate and giving back to the community.”

Garcia learned the importance of collaboration and team work while at Baylor. His life motto reflects his lessons.

“Work hard, never give up, do your best, and do not let anyone tell you that you are not good enough,” Garcia said.

Garcia went on to earn his JD from South Texas College of Law. And in 1998, Garcia received the Herbert H. Reynolds Outstanding Young Alumni Award from the Baylor Alumni Association.

As a founding shareholder of Greenberg Traurig, LLP, Garcia is currently a management group member of the Houston office. He is vice president of the Harris County Hospital District Foundation and serves on the Texas Supreme Court Rules Advisory Committee.

Journalism celebrated
By Meg Cullar

Baylor’s Department of Journalism, Public Relations, and New Media celebrated excellence in journalism education with a series of events on October 20-21. Almost 250 people filled Barfield Drawing Room to honor the fiftieth anniversary of the “Cheavens-McHam era” in the department, with David McHam ’58 as the guest of honor. Former students traveled from as far as Alaska to see their college professor.

Both Dave Cheavens ’33 and McHam came to Baylor’s journalism department in 1961 from positions in the news business. Cheavens had been Austin bureau chief of the Associated Press for twenty years, and McHam was writing for the Houston Post after earning a master’s degree in the prestigious program at Columbia University.

At the banquet, Baylor’s journalism department awarded McHam with the inaugural Legacy in Journalism Education Award.

“Neither of my parents graduated from high school,” McHam said after accepting the award. “So they would be surprised to know that all of you have come here to see me tonight.”

McHam, now seventy-eight, still teaches journalism as an instructional professor at the University of Houston, where he has taught since 2001. He taught at SMU from 1974 to 1998 and at the University of Texas Arlington from 1998-2001. In 1994, the Society of Professional Journalists named him the outstanding journalism teacher in the nation.

Cheavens died in 1970 at the age of sixty-three while still serving as department chair and director of the news bureau for Baylor. According to his obituary, Cheavens devoted the final years of his life to raising money for what is now the Castellaw Communications Building. The building is named in honor of Cheavens’s friend, Jack Castellaw, who died in the Immortal Ten bus-train crash in 1927. Cheavens was also on the bus.

In addition to the banquet, Baylor also hosted three educational events—one speaker and two discussion panels. On Thursday, Pat Dougherty ’74, editor of the Anchorage Daily News, spoke about his experience in the news business, his paper’s Pulitzer Prize-winning series on suicides in rural Alaska, and his coverage of former Alaska governor and vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin.

“In the old days, when you lived in Alaska and visited what we referred to as the ‘Lower Forty-Eight,’ people asked you about the cold and the dark, or bears, or fishing,” Dougherty said. “Now they ask you about Sarah Palin. I kind of miss the old days.”

A panel of sports writers on Friday morning included David Pickle ’74, NCAA director of digital communications, as moderator; Dave Campbell ’50, founder of Texas Football magazine and a sportswriter for more than fifty years; David McCollum ’72, sportswriter and columnist at the Arkansas Democrat and the Log Cabin Democrat; and Eddie Sefko, NBA writer for the Dallas Morning News. The panelists talked about everything from the NBA lockout to the value of Twitter in sports reporting.

On Friday afternoon, Baylor President Ken Starr defended a degree of privacy in government deliberations as part of a panel discussion on freedom of information laws. Moderated by Tony Pederson ’73, the Belo Distinguished Chair of Journalism at SMU, the panel also included Kenneth Bunting, executive director of the National Freedom of Information Coalition; Charles Overby, former chair and CEO of the Newseum and the Freedom Forum & Diversity Institute; and Thomas Williams, a partner at the Haynes and Boone law firm.

The winter issue of the Baylor Line will include a feature story about the career and influence of David McHam. To make sure you receive an issue, become a member of the Baylor Alumni Association.

For Lariat stories on the events of October 20-21, check these links:

McHam Award and Banquet

Pat Dougherty Presentation

Legacy of Cheavens

Sports Media Panel

Freedom of Information Panel Discussion

DALLAS CHILDREN’S THEATER EXECUTIVE ARTISTIC DIRECTOR, ROBYN BAKER FLATT ’60, MA ’63, HONORED FOR EXCELLENCE

(Dallas, TX)  Dallas Children’s Theater (DCT) proudly announces that its founder and Executive Artistic Director, Robyn Flatt, will receive Northwood University’s 2011 Distinguished Women’s Award. Community leaders, business entities, and over 250 other Distinguished Women alumnae from across the nation will join Ms. Flatt for a multi-day celebration, November 4-5 in Dallas, Texas.

Ms. Flatt joins seven other Distinguished Women honorees being recognized for outstanding achievement. “This year’s 2011-2012 Distinguished Women’s Endowed Scholarship Recipients are excellent examples of Northwood’s ethics and values. I am proud of all of them,” stated Keith Pretty, Northwood University President.

In 1970, the Northwood University Board of Trustees, under the inspiration of its founders Dr. Arthur E. Turner and Dr. R. Gary Stauffer, established the Distinguished Women’s Award to recognize the enormous contribution women make to communities, businesses, volunteer agencies, and public and private sector services world-wide. It is awarded annually and never in absentia. Each Distinguished Woman receives a medal that was originally designed by the late sculptor, Giulio Tamassy. The awards honor high achievement in areas specific to Northwood’s distinctive philosophy. The Distinguished Women serve as role models for students and are encouraged to become involved with the university and students in a variety of meaningful ways. Annually, scholarships are awarded from the Distinguished Women’s Endowed Scholarship.

ABOUT ROBYN FLATT

Robyn Flatt co-founded Dallas Children’s Theater in 1984 with a start-up fund of $500. Under her artistic leadership, the theater’s creative and operational stature has grown over the past 27 years to reflect its current annual budget of more than $3 million. Her theatrical career has brought her acclaim as a professional director, actor and lighting designer. During her tenure as a member of the DALLAS THEATER CENTER Resident Company, she served as Assistant Artistic Director, director of MIMEACT and THEATER-IN-THE-PARKS, and Director of Graduate Studies in Theater at Trinity University. She received a BA Degree from Baylor University in 1960, a MA Degree in 1963, and studied with Paul Baker, Etienne Decroux, Juana Laban and Hanya Holm. Among Ms. Flatt’s many acting credits include two roles she created for award-winning world premiere productions: Dewey Dell in Journey to Jefferson and Martha Ann Sickenger in Preston Jones’ The Oldest Living Graduate.  Her directing credits at DCT include The Velveteen Rabbit; To Kill A Mockingbird; Coyote Tales; African Tales of Earth and Sky; The Great Gilly Hopkins; five world premiere musical adaptations of author/illustrator Steven Kellogg’s books such as Island of the Skog and Pinkerton!!! by Linda Daugherty; Adventures of Huckleberry Finn; The Miracle Worker; Island of the Blue Dolphins; and the critically acclaimed productions of And Then They Came For Me and Bless Cricket, Crest Toothpaste, & Tommy Tune.  She has served on the boards of AATE and ASSITEJ/USA and is a recipient of the 2006 Center for Nonprofit Management Award for Excellence in Nonprofit Leadership, the 2004 Sara Spencer Artistic Achievement Award, The 500, Inc.’s prestigious Ken Bryant Visionary Award, Dallas Historical Society’s 1999 Excellence in Community Service for Creative Arts, the 2002 Leon Rabin Standing Ovation Award, and the YWCA Centennial Award. Ms. Flatt has also been inducted into the College of Fellows of the American Theater, and holds the honorary designation of American Theatre Fellow for life.  She was nominated by The Dallas Morning News arts staff for the 2010 Texan of the Year Award.

ABOUT NORTHWOOD UNIVERSITY

Northwood University is committed to the most personal attention to prepare students for success in their careers and in their communities; it promotes critical thinking skills, personal effectiveness, and the importance of ethics, individual freedom and responsibility.

Private, nonprofit, and accredited, Northwood University specializes in managerial and entrepreneurial education at three full-service, residential campuses located in southern Florida, mid-Michigan and northern Texas. Adult Degree Programs are available in eight states with many course delivery options including an online option. The DeVos Graduate School offers day and evening programming in Michigan, Texas, Florida and Switzerland. The Alden B. Dow Center for Creativity and Enterprise in Midland, Michigan, specializes in creative thinking and innovation development. International education is offered through study abroad and in Program Centers in Switzerland, China, Malaysia and Sri Lanka. Northwood University also operates the Margaret Chase Smith Library in Maine.

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Lisa Schreiner Goss
PR Director
lisa.schreinergoss@dct.org
Dallas Children’s Theater .. 5938 Skillman .. Dallas TX 75231
214-978-0110 x143 desk .. 214-740-0051 box office .. 214-978-0118 fax
www.dct.org