OXFORD, Miss. – The University of Mississippi Alumni Association is awarding seven distinguished alumni with its highest annual honors as part of Homecoming activities.
Inductees into the Alumni Hall of Fame for 2016 are: David E. Brevard (BA 78) of Tupelo; Dr. James L. Cox (MD 63) of Atlanta; Thomas C. Meredith (EDD 71) of Oxford; Thomas J. “Sparky” Reardon (BAEd 72, PhD 00) of Oxford; and Constance Slaughter-Harvey (JD 70) of Forest.
T. Michael Glenn (BBA 77) of Memphis will receive the Alumni Service Award for service to the university and the Alumni Association over an extended period. Patrick Woodyard (BA 10) of Nashville, Tennessee, is being honored with the Outstanding Young Alumni Award.
The Alumni Association will host a reception for the honorees at 6 p.m. Sept. 30 in the Gertrude C. Ford Ballroom at The Inn at Ole Miss. A dinner for the award recipients follows at 7 p.m. The honorees also will be recognized on the field during the Oct. 1 Ole Miss-Memphis football game.
David Brevard
Created in 1974, the Hall of Fame honors select alumni who have made an outstanding contribution to their country, state or the university through good deeds, services or contributions that have perpetuated the good name of Ole Miss.
The Outstanding Young Alumni Award recognizes alumni who have shown exemplary leadership throughout their first 15 years of alumni status in both their careers and dedication to Ole Miss.
Brevard is president and chief executive officer of B&B Concrete Co. Inc., a concrete materials supply company with plants throughout north Mississippi. He is also vice president of Concrete Industries Inc., a real estate firm with ready-mix concrete plant holdings in north Mississippi.
The 1974 graduate of Tupelo High School was a Carrier Scholar, a member of Phi Delta Theta fraternity and a member of the Hall of Fame at Ole Miss. He earned a master’s degree in business administration from the University of Virginia in 1981.
Brevard is active in the First United Methodist Church of Tupelo. He is a past president of the District
James Cox
One Ole Miss Alumni Club and a past president of the UM Alumni Association. He served as chairman of The Inn at Ole Miss Campaign Committee; member of the Chancellor’s Trust and Pacesetters Committee for the Commitment to Excellence Campaign; member of the Campaign/Committee Chairs for the Momentum Campaign; and as an executive committee member for the UM Foundation. He received the Alumni Association’s Alumni Service Award in 2009.
Brevard is married to the former Shawn Robson Stewart of Glendale, Ohio. They have two daughters.
Cox was born and raised in Fair Oaks, Arkansas. He was recruited to Ole Miss by Johnny Vaught and from 1960 to ’64 played baseball and freshman basketball, was president of Alpha Epsilon Delta and was a member of the Phi Delta Theta Fraternity.
After turning down baseball contracts from the San Francisco Giants and Los Angeles Dodgers, he enrolled at University of Tennessee Medical School in 1963. He received his medical degree in 1967 and was awarded outstanding student in his graduating class.
Cox trained in cardiothoracic surgery at Duke University. He spent the majority of his career as the first Evarts A. Graham Professor of Surgery and chief of the Division of Cardiothoracic Surgery at Washington University School of Medicine and Barnes Hospital in St. Louis.
Tom Meredith
He is best known for his work in the field of cardiac arrhythmia surgery and the development of the eponymous “Cox-Maze Procedure” for the treatment of atrial fibrillation. He lives in Atlanta and serves as a senior consultant to eight medical device companies and on the board of directors of four of them.
Meredith has served as the head of three university systems and as a university president during his 41-year career in higher education.
He has been commissioner of higher education for Mississippi’s eight universities; chancellor of the University System of Georgia, responsible for the state’s 35 public colleges and universities; chancellor of the University of Alabama System; and president and professor of education at Western Kentucky University.
He also served as a vice chancellor at Ole Miss. Meredith holds a bachelor’s degree from Kentucky Wesleyan College, a master’s degree from Western Kentucky University and a doctorate from UM. He also completed the Institute for Educational Management at Harvard University and the Higher Education Roundtable at Oxford University. He has twice been selected as the Ole Miss School of Education Alumnus of the Year.
Sparky Reardon
Meredith’s wife, Susan (BA 72), and sons Dr. Mark Meredith (BS 97, MD 01) and Matthew Meredith (BA 00) are an Ole Miss family.
A 1968 graduate of Clarksdale High School, Reardon served the university in several positions within the area of student affairs. Most notably, he served as dean of students from 2000 to 2014. Before that, he served as coordinator of pre-admissions, assistant director of student activities, associate director of student services and associate dean of students.
Reardon received his bachelor’s degree in education from Ole Miss in 1972 and his doctorate in 2000. He also earned a master’s degree at Delta State University.
Reardon initiated the adoption of the Ole Miss Creed in 2000 and served as co-chair of the Creed Committee. He received the initial Thomas Frist Award for Outstanding Service to Students and was honored by the Class of 2008 with a scholarship in his name.
Reardon resides in Taylor and serves on several local, regional and national boards.
Constance Slaughter-Harvey
Slaughter-Harvey, former assistant secretary of state and general counsel, is founder and president of Legacy Education and Community Empowerment Foundation Inc.
Slaughter-Harvey was the first African-American female to receive a law degree from the university and first female African-American to serve as judge in Mississippi. The Black Law Student Association at the UM School of Law was named in her honor, and she received the Law School’s Public Service Award, becoming the first female and first African-American to be so honored.
She was an adjunct professor at Tougaloo College for more than 36 years. She is president of the Scott County Bar and prosecutor for Scott County Youth Court.
Slaughter-Harvey is the mother of Constance Olivia Burwell and grandmother of James A. Emmanuel “Tre” Burwell III.
Glenn, the Alumni Service Award recipient, is executive vice president of market development and corporate communications for FedEx Corp.
Mike Glenn
He is a member of the five-person executive committee, responsible for planning and executing the company’s strategic business activities. Glenn also serves as president and chief executive officer of FedEx Corporate Services, responsible for all marketing, sales, customer service and retail operations functions for all FedEx operating companies, including FedEx Office.
A native of Memphis, he earned his bachelor’s degree from UM and his master’s degree from the University of Memphis. Glenn previously served as a member of the Ole Miss Alumni Association Executive Committee and serves on the Athletic Committee. He was inducted into the UM Alumni Hall Of Fame in 2008.
The Outstand Young Alumni Award recipient, Woodyard is a 2010 graduate of the Croft Institute for International Studies and the Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors College. He holds a bachelor’s degree in international studies and Spanish.
While at Ole Miss, Woodyard was inducted into the Student Hall of Fame and served as the ASB director of community service, and as philanthropy chair and vice president of Sigma Chi Fraternity.
Patrick Woodyard
After graduating, he pursued an opportunity through Peru Mission to work in microfinance in northern Peru. While there, Woodyard was introduced to a massive community of shoemakers, and with a vision to support the Peruvian footwear industry, he co-founded Nisolo in late 2011.
For his work with Nisolo, Woodyard recently was named a Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree, recognized as an “Innovator Changing the South” by Southern Living magazine and named a Global Accelerator Entrepreneur by the United Nations.
Woodyard resides in Nashville with his wife, Sally Ward (BA 10), and serves as a founding board member of the Nashville Fashion Alliance and the Nashville Social Enterprise Alliance.
For more information about the Ole Miss Alumni Association, visit http://www.olemissalumni.com.