“Award/Recognition” Class Notes

Justin Humphreys (Col ’01) has won a Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Award for Book of the Year for his recent biography George Pal: Man of Tomorrow.

Lois Waybill Alderfer (Nurs ’90, ’91) received the Founder’s Award from the Virginia Council of Nurse Practitioners. The award honors a member who has founded, pioneered, or made significant historical contributions to the shaping of the organization of the Virginia Council of Nurse Practitioners.

Alderfer is a family nurse practitioner who has practiced at the Blue Ridge Medical Center, a Federally Qualified Health Center, since 1991. For the past seven years she has also served as chief medical officer. Alderfer is one of a few nurse practioners who have held the role of CMO within a FQHC. She was named Provider of the Year in 1995 by the Virginia Primary Care Association and Provider of the Year by the Virginia Community Healthcare Association in 2019.

George T. Snyder (Col ’85 CM) was presented with a lifetime achievement award from the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Chapter of the Turnaround Management Association.

TMA Pittsburgh is a group of professionals dedicated to the local corporate renewal, restructuring, and turnaround management community.

Paul B. Terpak (Col ’77, Law ’80 CM) has been named to the Virginia Lawyers Hall of Fame, an honor given to about one tenth of 1% of lawyers in Virginia every year.  The Hall of Fame honors Virginia lawyers who have been in practice for 30 years. Criteria for inclusion include career accomplishments, contributions to the development of the law in Virginia, contributions to the bar and to the commonwealth at large and efforts to improve the quality of justice in Virginia.

For the fifth time, Terpak was named Best Lawyers 2024 Eminent Domain and Condemnation Lawyer of the Year for the Washington D.C. area.   He practices with Blankingship & Keith in Fairfax.

Retired Col. Richard Kingman (Col ’74 CM) and fellow Air Force ROTC alumni from 1973 to 1977 attended the 2024 Joint Service ROTC Awards Ceremony at UVA to present the inaugural Colonel James A. Ball Outstanding UVA ROTC Instructor of the Year award.  The award is named after Colonel James A. Ball, who served as the assistant professor of Air Science at UVA from 1971-1975 and is a lifelong friend, mentor, and example to the officers he helped train, as well as someone who reflects the best traditions of the U.S. military, the Air Force, and UVA.

The award was the brainchild of Kingman, who solicited support for the effort and endowment from fellow alumni. Also attending the April 16 ceremony were retired Col. Barry Bryan (Col ’76), retired Col. James Holaday (Col ’75 CM), retired Lt. Col John Valliere (Engr ’76 CM),  Bruce Webster (Engr ’74 CM), and Michael Skojec (Col ’ 76 CM).

Ball presented the award to USAF Major Tim Robles of AFROTC Detachment 890 for his outstanding efforts over the 2023-2024 school year demonstrating “instructional and counseling abilities, civic engagement, and overall contributions to [his] ROTC unit.”

Bill Crutchfield (Com ’65 CM) will be honored in May with a Virginia Senate Joint Resolution recognizing the 50th anniversary of Crutchfield Corporation, an electronics retailer based in Charlottesville. Crutchfield founded the company in 1974 when he was unable to find a modern stereo for the Porsche 356 he was restoring. He was named Ernst & Young’s Master Entrepreneur of the Year for Virginia in 1999 and was inducted into the Consumer Electronics Hall of Fame in 2007.

Don Slesnick (Col ’65 CM) delivered the graduation address for Florida International University in December 2023, when was also awarded the FIU Medallion For Outstanding Alumnus. Slesnick, the former mayor of Coral Gables, Florida, received the Excellence in Public Service Award from the Gables Good Government Committee in March 2024. His late wife, Jeannett, a former city commissioner, was also honored posthumously.

Kathleen Biggins (Col ’82 CM), founder of C-Change Conversations, a non-partisan group devoted to educating people about the science and risk of climate change, spoke on Capitol Hill as a keynote speaker at the National Affairs & Legislation Conference.

Biggins spoke alongside Sens. Kristen Gillibrand, Mazie Hirono, Edward Markey and Sheldon Whitehouse and Reps. Debbie Dingell, Garret Graves and Brian Mast. Approximately 400 delegates from around the country attended.

Susan Martin (Educ ’99) has been selected as a finalist for the 2024 Golden Apple Awards for Excellence in Leadership. The Golden Apple Foundation is the leading Illinois nonprofit committed to preparing, honoring and supporting great educators who advance educational opportunities for students. Five finalists were chosen from more than 100 nominations. Martin is principal of Reservoir Gifted Academy in Peoria, Ill.

Jennifer (Bogart) McDowell (Col ’87) has been promoted to interim academic dean of career and technical education at Hennepin Technical College, a member of the Minnesota State system of colleges and universities.

Dr. Reginald J. Sanders (Col ’81 CM), was recently named President of the American Society of Retina Specialists. The ASRS is the world’s largest organization for retina specialists, and Dr. Sanders is the first African American to serve as President. His other achievements include being elected into the Retina Hall of Fame as a charter inductee in 2016.

Justin Humphreys (Col ’01) has been nominated for a Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Award for Book of the Year for his recent biography George Pal: Man of Tomorrow. 

Sarah V. Schweig (Col ’07) has won the 2023-24 Jake Adam York Prize for her second collection of poems, The Ocean in the Next Room. The collection will be published by Milkweed Editions in January 2025. Schweig’s first poetry collection, Take Nothing with You, was published by the University of Iowa Press in 2016. 

Charles Avery (Col ’72) has been leading The Nehemiah Project DC, a federally funded housing program which helps men transition to society following incarceration, while also consulting on other mental health matters. He also serves as the president of the Loudoun Douglass School Alumni Association and co-chaired the effort to preserve and restore the school, which has been designated as a historic landmark. Avery, who was valedictorian of the last class of the segregated school, received a 2023 Charles Hamilton Houston Equity and Justice award from Loudoun County NAACP in recognition of his work. 

Avery took on these projects after completing 11 years as the executive director of Veterans On the Rise, a non-profit dedicated to providing a holistic system of care to fight veteran homelessness in the Washington D.C. area.

Justin Humphreys (Col ’01) has been nominated for the Theatre Library Association’s Richard Wall Memorial Award for his book George Pal: Man of Tomorrow. The award recognizes performing arts scholarship with exemplary use and interpretation of library and archival collections. 

Byron Dickson (Arch ’63 CM), was inducted into the Salem (Virginia) Educational Foundation and Alumni Association Hall of Fame on April 26th, 2023. The five inductees were recognized for major achievements in their chosen fields of education and architecture.

Thaddeus Minshall (Col ’03) received a Design-Build Award from the New England chapter of the Design-Build Institute of America for Connolly Brothers Inc.’s design and construction management work on New England Academy’s new South Shore campus in Marshfield, Massachusetts. Minshall is vice president of real estate/development at Connolly.