alumni profiles

Teaching Success

	National teaching winner Marjorie Mickelson (right) with Valerie Skarbek

Marjorie Green Mickelson, JM 1967, was one of 20 recipients of the Time Warner National Teacher “Crystal Apple”Award at a ceremony in Washington, D.C. in June.

Mickelson received a $1,000 stipend, the trip to the nation’s capital and a crystal apple sculpture.

She has taught at Apopka High School 17 years, following a 15-year career as a newspaper reporter. She earned a master’s degree in criminal justice at Rollins College.

Mickelson’s award-winning entry, “Election 2000: Odyssey in Critical Thinking,” used programming from C-SPAN, PBS, FOX and MSNBC to stimulate thinking about the protracted 2000 presidential campaign.

The programming is part of “Cable in the Classroom,” a public service of the cable television industry which supplies more than 525 hours of commercial-free, educational programming to schools each month.

Also attending the presentation was Valerie Skarbek, TEL 1996, who is community affairs manager for the Central Florida division of Time Warner. Previously she was advertising producer/manager and advertising production manager for Time Warner Cable in the Chicago area.

Kenet Adamson, PR 1980, has been named 2000-2001 Adjunct Instructor of the Year at Asheville-Buncombe Technical Community College in Asheville, N.C. He also teaches humanities at the University of North Carolina at Asheville. His poem, “Duck Shade,” was published this year by The Victoria Press.

native encounters

	Bob Haiman and Judy Lynn Prince (center).

Bob Haiman, JM 1958, and Judy Lynn Prince, JM 1964 (center), were members of an ATJ Bold Ventures expedition in August to Papua New Guinea, one of the most remote and primitive countries in the world and the last one to still harbor some headhunters and cannibals. They visited lowland tribes by river boat and mountain villages in small planes since the South Pacific country of 4.5 million has almost no paved roads.

They are shown here with members of the Huli Wigmen tribe, one of 800 tribes who speak 700 different languages. The tribes maintain a Stone Age warrior lifestyle (but fortunately most gave up headhunting and cannibalism in 1978, three years after Papua New Guina gained independence from Australia.)

Both Haiman and Prince are Alumni of Distinction of the College and served on the College Capital Campaign Committee. Haiman is the former executive editor of the St. Petersburg Times and president emeritus of The Poynter Institute for Media Studies.

Prince is also a member of the UF Foundation Board of Directors. She is a retired executive of Mobil Oil and lives in Washington, D.C.

Bob Boyd column gives advice on active retirement

Robert S. “Bob” Boyd, MA 1970, an advertising faculty member in the College in the 1970s, is a newspaper columnist and radio personality in Reno, Nev.

He and a friend from his undergraduate days at Bethany College in West Virginia, write a column, “The Living Age,” for the Reno Gazette-Journal and a radio version for the “beyond 50” audience. They focus on active retirement and second careers.

Boyd said, “We also write a column for a senior group connected with a local hospital (10,000 circulation) and have a web page, www.thelivingage.com. I do a daily 90-second inspirational radio spot on a ‘big band’ station each morning to get the old geezers up and at ‘em and get lots of funny fan mail.”

Chadd & Kristi Thomas debut on TV soap

	Chadd (right) and Kristi Thomas backstage with longtime Days of Our Lives star Drake Hogestyn (“John Black”)

They met and fell in love working for ROCK-104 and now co-host one of Tampa Bay’s top-rated morning radio shows, but the big news this summer for Chadd and Kristi Thomas was getting on a television soap opera.

Chadd, TEL 1993, and Kristi Smith, JM 1992, met while working at WRUF-FM and both found jobs in the Tampa area. They teamed up earlier this year as co-hosts on the “Magic Morning Show” on WWRM-FM.

Big Fans of the TV soap Days of Our Lives, they had planned to attend the annual fan weekend in California. They sent in their resumes and photos after interviewing Days’ stars on their show in April. This led to an invitation to appear in non-speaking roles on the June 25 episode.

“It was a combination that we were fans of the show and both had some television and acting in our backgrounds along with our radio experience,” Kristi said.

They can be heard weekday mornings from 5 to 9 on “The New Magic 94-9” in the Tampa area.

Chadd and Kristi have a son, Brendan, who is 3.

calendar pin-ups

When Justin Knapfel, JM 2001, was called by The Carlisle retirement home in Lantana (Fla.) to photograph 20 of its residents he had no idea what to expect—least of all having a sold-out calendar that would be featured on “The Today Show,” CNN and “Dateline,” plus stories in The New York Times, Sun-Sentinel and The Palm Beach Post.

The calendar was published this spring and called “The Men of Carlisle.” It featured men between the ages of 80 and 92. Most were attired in their best suits (and canes), but one was in his swimming trunks. Some of the men were holding baseball bats, others were eating ice cream or leaning on their golf clubs.

Knapfel is a night-time image-flow technician at the South Florida Sun-Sentinel in Fort Lauderdale.

muscle man

Darren Liebman, JM 1994, is a freelance writer and photographer, but his e-mail address—Dltarzan@aol.com—gives a clue to his main interest. He's a personal trainer who owns Pitcher Perfect Personal Training in Tampa, specializing in fitness training for baseball pitchers and other athletes. He's also landed gigs on TV, including work as a fitness model for the Home Shopping Network.

Emily Sills ‘merges’ consumer product with ‘Ally McBeal’

Emily Sills, PR 1996, poses with Merge, a fragrance for men and women that appeared in the final five episodes of last season’s Ally McBeal TV series. Sills, who is consumer practice director for Kodora Communications—the New York-based marketing communications firm representing the fragrance—negotiated to have the product placed free of charge in the show’s restroom which is appropriately named “The Unisex.”