Following the annual Alumni Brunch held prior to the Homecoming game, Oct. 7, five outstanding alumni and friends will be honored.
All alumni and friends are invited to attend the brunch and recognition ceremony, which will begin at 12:15 p.m., Oct. 7, at the Heritage Club Bank House, Jefferson Street (reservations required).
Honorees this year include W. COOPER BEAZLEY, M.D., JOE GREER ('70), D.D.S., and Tenn. Rep. TOMMY HEAD ('67), recipients of the 1995 Outstanding Service Award. Commissioner SARA KYLE ('75) and PHILIP H. SANFORD ('78) are recipients of the Outstanding Young Alumnus/a Award.
Beazley, Clarksville, is a longtime friend of Austin Peay State University. A highly respected orthopaedic surgeon, he has served as team physician for Austin Peay since 1986.
Currently, he is co-chair of the APSU Campaign for Science, a fund-raising campaign aimed at ensuring that Austin Peay science students have use of the best science equipment on the market. He is a two-term member of the APSU Foundation and the APSU Heritage Club. He, also, is the sponsor of Austin Peay's Athletic Trainer Scholarship Fund.
Beazley has been in practice in Clarksville since 1983 with an interest in sports medicine, adult reconstructive and spine surgery and head surgery. He is the a founding member of Premier Medical Group, Clarksville's first and only multi-specialty medical group, and currently serves on Premier's board of directors. He is chief of staff of Heritage Medical Center and chair of the Utilization Review Committee and Quality Assurance Committee at Clarksville Memorial Hospital.
He serves on the administrative board of Madison Street United Methodist Church and is a member of the advisory board of Farmers & Merchants Bank. He is a member of the local United Way and the Cumberland Society.
Among his professional awards, he received recognition for the Outstanding Chief Residents Paper in 1982. The paper was subsequently published in "Clinical Orthopaedics and Related Research."
Beazley and his wife, Carol, have three sons.
Born in Dyersburg, Greer was one of seven children and the first of five to attend college.
Greer initially came to Austin Peay on a music scholarship and an academic grant, but shortly changed his major to chemistry. To put himself through college, he kept the grant, participated in Austin Peay's work-study program and worked at a local restaurant.
In April 1969, he became the first African American student to be accepted by the University of Tennessee College of Dentistry, Memphis. He graduated in 1973 with a degree as a doctor of dental surgery. After several hours of post-graduate studies in temporal mandibular Joint (TJM) dysfunction and nutrition and fitness, Greer entered Memphis State University in 1988 and received a master's degree in fitness, wellness and nutrition.
After graduating from the University of Tennessee College of Dentistry, he accepted a faculty position with the college, working part time as an lecturer in dental courses and part time in the Office of Minority Affairs where his primary responsibility was to recruit minority students to all health science colleges within the University of Tennessee system.
While employed by the university, Greer conducted a part-time private practice. In June 1976, he left the university to open his dental office for full-time private practice of general dentistry. In 1983, he opened a satellite office in Dyersburg located 75 miles north of Memphis. He later relocated that office to Covington, 38 miles from Memphis.
In addition to his practice of dentistry, Greer has initiated several entrepreneureal operations including Keenan Snack Food Inc. and Bio-D Products Inc., which manufactures consumer and industrial soaps, detergents and air fresheners. In 1990, Bio-D received the Minority Enterprise Development Award for Manufacturer of the Year.
Additionally, Greer has developed a computerized health management program for The Good Health Institute, which he founded.
Greer was named to the board of directors of the Austin Peay National Alumni Association in 1992; in 1995, he was elected a member of the Tennessee Dental Association Council on Legislation by the 128th House of Delegates. Greer and his wife, Estella, have three adult children.
In 1986 Head was elected to represent the 68th House District of the Tennessee General Assembly and currently is serving his fifth term. As state representative, he has proven himself an advocate for his alma mater, instrumental in ensuring that Austin Peay always gets a fair share of funding for capital projects.
Between 1992-95, he helped secure more than $10 million for facilities on the Austin Peay campus, including more than $3.5 million for the renovation of Harned Hall.
The son of Richard and Hazel Albright Head, Head was born in Robertson County but currently lives in the Henrietta community of Montgomery County where he works as a farmer and utility contractor.
A 1963 graduate of Clarksville High School, he earned an associate degree from Cumberland Junior College and a baccalaureate degree from Austin Peay in mathematics and physics. During his college years at Austin Peay, he was a member of the 1967 All-OVC basketball team. After graduation, he taught mathematics and coached basketball for two years at Fort Campbell High School.
Within the Tennessee House of Representatives, Head is secretary of the Finance, Ways and Means Committee and chairs the powerful Budget Subcommittee. In addition, he serves on the Fiscal Review, Transportation and Education Oversight committees and various study committees.
Cited by "The Commercial Appeal," Memphis, as one of the most effective Tennessee lawmakers, Head is a recent recipient of the Legislator of the Year Award from both the Human Resources Agencies of Tennessee, in recognition of his work for the underprivileged and the state district attorneys general association. He and his wife, Deloris, have two grown children.
Three years after winning her first elective office in Memphis, Ms. Kyle took a giant stride and became only the second woman in Tennessee history to be elected to a statewide office.
When she was sworn in Jan. 2, 1995 as a member of the Tennessee Public Service Commission, she took the final step in a fast-paced journey in which she went from the life of an attorney, wife and mother to become a Memphis City Court judge and then became one of only four public officials elected statewide in Tennessee.
A member of a family with a proud tradition of public service in elective office, she has studied the ways government relates to its citizens and worked to make that government and its agencies and courts sensitive to the needs of its citizens.
Ms. Kyle was born in 1952 near the Tri-Cities of Upper East Tennessee just a few days before her uncle, the late Frank G. Clement, was elected to his first of three terms as governor of Tennessee.
After moving to Middle Tennessee, she graduated from Dickson County High School. The daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Bruce Peery, she attended the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, before graduating from Austin Peay and teaching elementary school in Clarksville.
In 1976, Ms. Kyle began more than a decade of service on Capitol Hill that would include tackling public issues during the day and studying law at night at Nashville School of Law. She became a legislative assistant to her aunt, Sen. Anna Belle Clement O'Brien, Crossville, and was later with the General Assembly's Office of Legal Services and a law clerk for the Tennessee attorney general.
She received her law degree in 1987, the same year she married Tenn. Sen. Jim Kyle, Memphis. She practiced law in the same firm with her husband and was an assistant public defender until she was elected to the Memphis City Court bench in 1991.
Ms. Kyle resigned from her bench in March 1994 to become a candidate for the PSC. In a three-candidate primary, she received 63 percent of the vote and went on to a general election and won 54 percent of the vote the only member of her party to win a statewide race that day.
The Kyles have three children.
Sanford, Atlanta, is Coca-Cola Enterprises' vice president for finance and administration. As such, he is responsible for the commercial banking, investment banking, pension investments, investor and share-owner relations, corporate public affairs, internal audit and various administrative functions within the company.
Coca-Cola Enterprises Inc. is the world's largest Coca-Cola bottler with 1994 revenues of $6.1 billion. Owning and operating Coca-Cola bottling franchises in the United States and Europe, the company is a New York Stock Exchange, Fortune 100 company.
Prior to the merger of CCE and Johnston Coca-Cola Bottling Group Inc. in 1991, Sanford was the senior vice president and treasurer of Johnston Coca-Cola Bottling Group Inc., a position he assumed in 1985.
Prior to 1985, Sanford held various positions with Commerce Union Bank (now part of NationsBank) in Nashville and Chattanooga. His last position with the bank was as its executive vice president.
Sanford serves as director/trustee of the Coca-Cola Scholars Foundation, the largest foundation in the United States granting college and university scholarships funded by Coca-Cola bottlers throughout the United States.
Additionally, he serves on the board of directors of The Atlanta Ballet, the nation's oldest ballet company, chairing various committees during his tenure on the board. He serves as a director on the boards of several privately held companies, including GiroVend Ltd., a London-based technology company.