1960s
Robert Archer, MBA ’61, Ashland, OH, and his wife, Janet, were commencement speakers at Ashland University on May 7, 2022, and university President Carlos Campo presented each with an honorary degree (Doctor of Humane Letters).
Robert Archer also received an Alumnus Achievement Award from the Claymont Foundation (Claymont City School District) on May 14, 2022. He is a 1953 graduate of Uhrichsville High School. (Uhrichsville consolidated with other area schools to form the Claymont district in 1965.)
He and five partners purchased Kent Watersports from Brown Group in 1980 and grew the business, which sells its products worldwide, via 35 acquisitions. Archer serves on the Board of Trustees at Ashland University, the Canton-Akron Advisory Board of Huntington Bank and the Business College Advisory Board of Kent State University. He is a lifetime member of the Ashland Family YMCA Board of Trustees.
Fred Packard, MA ’61, Lafayette, LA, artist and retired professor of visual arts at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, has a retrospective show of his career as an artist at the university’s Hilliard Art Museum. The exhibit, Little Things: Drawings and Photographs by Fred Packard, features pieces of art created by Packard from each decade since the ’50s. The show runs from July 2022 to April 2023.
Packard, who was drafted into the US Army in 1956, was an Army photographer during his tours of duty in Europe. He began as an art instructor at Louisiana State University in 1964 and spent most of the next 30 years teaching at the University of Southwestern Louisiana, now known as the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. There he also served as department head and founded the photography concentration in the Department of Visual Arts. He retired from teaching in 1996.
Donald Lowe, BS ’64, MA ’69, Eatonton, GA, was inducted into the Mid-Ohio Valley Sports Hall of Fame on June 11, 2022. He was coordinator of sports medicine at Syracuse University, in Syracuse, New York, for 25 years. The athletic training area in the university’s Carmelo K. Anthony Basketball Center is named the Donald and Mary Lowe Sports Medicine Center. In 2000, Lowe became the director of sports medicine at Georgia Tech and, in 2003, he created Sports Medicine Management Consultants. The winner of several awards from the Athletic Trainers Association, Lowe was athletic trainer for the 1983 Pan American Games men’s basketball team and was on the US Olympic Committee’s athletic training staff for the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona.
Donald Stafford, BBA ’65, BS ’84, Minerva, OH, was inducted into Minerva High School’s Alumni Hall of Fame on June 11, 2022. Stafford graduated from the US Army officer training program in 1965, the US Army aviation training program in 1966, and had advanced helicopter training. As a pilot of a Huey helicopter, he was assigned to Vietnam, where he survived crashes and was shot down by the Viet Cong. He returned to the States and became a flight instructor at Fort Rucker, Alabama. He retired from the military in 1990. In 2008, he received the Wright Brothers Master Pilot Award from the Federal Aviation Administration for 50 years of civilian flying without an accident.
John Sinclair, BS ’66, MEd ’66, Howland, OH, spent 25 years as a science teacher and assistant principal at various Trumbull County schools, most of the time within the Liberty Local School District. He also had a second career as a tour bus driver, driving for Anderson Tours from 1969 to 1986, and eventually opened his own business, Sinclair Tours Inc., which he closed in 2013. He still does short trips for Anderson Tours and helps arrange tours for senior citizens through the SCOPE (Senior Citizens Opportunity for Personal Endeavor) program in Trumbull County.
So far, Sinclair has logged more than 1.5 million miles and has been to all the states (except Hawaii) and all the Canadian provinces at least twice. In 2019, he was one of only six people to receive the Outstanding Driver/Tour Operator Award from the Pennsylvania Bus Association.
Bonnie (Cox) Trubee, BS ’67, MEd ’72, Millersburg, OH, and her husband, the Rev. R. Eldon Trubee, celebrated their golden anniversary (and 51st anniversary) at a surprise dinner party hosted by their children and grandchildren in June 2022. They were married June 26, 1971, but due to the pandemic were unable to gather with family to celebrate until this year.
Bonnie Trubee also earned certification in gifted education from Ashland University and has taught in public schools in Columbiana County and in West and East Holmes local school districts for more than 30 years. Following retirement from the public education systems, she taught in a Montessori school system.
Benette Waugh DeCoux, MEd ’68, Clayton, OH, was a school social worker and Head Start director before retiring as an administrator for Dayton Public Schools. She also spent 17 years as a volunteer court-appointed special advocate for children. She is a member of Twentig Inc., a small sisterhood of community-minded members that supports other nonprofit organizations. She is also president of the Wayman Civic Association, which encourages voter registration, advocates for voter rights and does good deeds for members of the Wayman Chapel AME Church and the Dayton community. Her goal is to improve the lives of others.
Carol Klingel, BS ’69, Lodi, OH, exhibited her artwork in the Beeghly Hall Gallery in Alliance, Ohio, from February through May 2022. Klingel taught in the Medina Public Schools, Brunswick High School and at the University of Akron. She has led workshops on creativity and drawing, and her work has been included in numerous group and solo exhibitions.