“Award/Recognition” Class Notes

Melody Robertson Weigel (Col ’06) was elected as the 2019-20 staff senate president of the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. She also serves as the adviser for the OutLaw Legal Society at the university’s William H. Bowen School of Lawworks and works in the admissions office.

Michael D. Steger (Col ’89, Law ’93, Grad ’93 L/M) has been appointed co-chair of the American Bar Association’s Intellectual Property Litigation Committee. He was also recently named a fellow of the American Bar Foundation. Steger practices copyright, trademark and entertainment law in New York City.  

Jill Stein Tietjen (Engr ’76 L/M) was inducted into the Colorado Authors’ Hall of Fame in the 2019 inaugural class. Her latest book, Hollywood: Her Story, An Illustrated History of Women and the Movies, was released in 2019.  

Curry Pajcic (Col ’91 L/M) was named Trial Lawyer of the Year for Florida by the American Board of Trial Advocates. The award is given for an attorney’s cumulative body of work over the past year. Among Pajcic’s accomplishments in 2018, he was the lead attorney in a trial where his client was awarded a $4.3 million verdict in Duval County. Pajcic, who served as president of Jacksonville’s ABOTA chapter, also wrote multiple letters to the press defending attacks on the judiciary, including Chief Supreme Court Justice John Roberts. Defending the independence of the judiciary is another mission of ABOTA.

Dr. Raymond B. Dyer (Col ’74, Med ’77, Res ’81 L/M) was honored with the creation of an award in his name by the Department of Radiology at Wake Forest University School of Medicine, where he has been on the faculty for 36 years. The award is given annually to a resident who has made an outstanding contribution to radiology education.

Judy Coutts (Arch ’79) was presented with a Public Impact Award by Preservation Pennsylvania for her historic preservation work on 820 12th Street in Altoona, Pennsylvania. The project also earned a national award from the 2019 Chrysalis Awards for Remodeling Excellence.

George Shipp (Col ’79, Darden ’82 L/M) is senior managing director and lead portfolio manager, and Adam Bergman (Com ’96) is executive director and associate portfolio manager of Sterling Capital Management. The company’s equity income mutual fund ranked in the first percentile on total return among 442 funds in its Morningstar1 Large-Cap Value category for the 15-year period ending June 30, 2019.

Carin M. Smilk (Col ’89 L/M) won first place in the online feature news category in the Pennsylvania Press Club’s annual journalism competition. The winning article, “Grief Into Action,” is a story about grappling with in the aftermath of the Oct. 27, 2018, synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh. She won second place for the same story by the affiliated National Federation of Press Women.

Myron Santos (Col ’01 L/M) has been nominated for a Primetime Emmy for his work on RuPaul’s Drag Race: All-Stars in the category of Outstanding Picture Editing for a Structured Reality or Competition Program. He is a member of the Motion Picture Editors Guild (IATSE Local 700) and the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, and he is on the board of the U.Va Entertainment Club of Los Angeles. He lives with his wife and their 4-year-old daughter in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Mt. Washington.

Bonnie Rosen (Educ ’93) will be inducted into the Jewish Sports Heritage Association as part of the organization’s class of 2020. Inducted into the U.S. Lacrosse Hall of Fame in 2010, Rosen is the head coach of the women’s lacrosse team at Temple University. 

Tom Sutton (Engr ’78 L/M) is a fellow of the American Nuclear Society

Alice Brown Taylor (Engr ’78) was admitted to the bar of the Supreme Court of the United States alongside 30 other graduates of Boston College Law School.

Andrew G. Lee (Col ’85, Med ’89 L/M) received the Sherilyn Gordon Memorial Award for Distinguished Leadership in Professionalism and the Houston Methodist Hospital Teaching Award from both from Houston Methodist Hospital in June 2019. He was also named a 2019 Health Care Hero by the Houston Business Journal. 

St. Leger “Monty” Joynes (Col ’63) is the librettist of an oratorio, The Awakening of Humanity, that had its world premiere in Toulouse, France on June 2, 2019. The U.S. premiere with symphony orchestra and chorus is being planned for the 2020-21 concert season in Minneapolis with Joynes and composer Edmund Barton Bullock in attendance.

Joynes continues to publish poetry and prose from his home in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. His five novels in The Booker Series are considered pioneer works in the genre of visionary fiction. Joynes credits UVA Professor George Garrett as his literary mentor.

Tommy Holcomb (Col ’66 L/M) has won the American Advertising Association’s Silver Medal Award for his work in the creation and production of advertising-related music. His award-winning music has aired in markets nationwide, and he is currently the music producer for the Miss Virginia Pageant.

Casey King (Engr ’89), a physics professor at Horry-Georgetown Technical Collegesince 1997, was nominated for the 2019 A. Wade Martin Innovator of the Year and was named 2019  Professor of the Year at HGTC. He has also organized the Addiction and Recovery Lecture Series since creating the event in 2008.

Thomas H. Cook Jr. (Com ’81 L/M) has been elected as a fellow of the American College of Tax Counsel. He is head of the tax practice group of Wyrick Robbins Yates & Ponton in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Allison Powell (Arch ’07), an associate with Quinn Evans Architects, was recognized with a 2019 Green Leader Volunteer Award from the U.S. Green Building Council Virginia. Powell was honored for her extensive volunteer efforts for the state organization, including serving as chair of the council’s Green Schools committee for the past four years. The Green Schools committee oversees the organization’s Connect the Dots program, which challenges K–12 schools across the Washington, D.C., Maryland and Virginia regions to develop and implement the most creative, effective, no- or low-cost sustainable practices for their schools.