Jeremy Billingsley (B.A. 2012) is both teaching creative writing for a grad school online and building the creative writing program at Crowder College. He also tutors student athletes at the U of A. He is writing consistently. He is currently working on two novels – one is autofiction – and he’s just had four more short stories picked up by four different anthologies that should be out this year.
John Clayton (B.A. in English and French 1993), in May 2019, graduated with a Ph.D. in Intercultural Studies from Columbia International University in Columbia, SC. His dissertation title was “A Secular Kirk: The Rise of Secularism in the Church of Scotland, 1688-1843.” He continues to serve as the Minister of Covenant Presbyterian Church in Fort Smith, Arkansas, and he has fond memories of his English studies in Kimpel Hall back the early 1990’s!
Stephanie (Brodacz) Dzur (B.A. 1987) is working as an attorney in New Mexico for the Coalition for Clean Affordable Energy, a non-profit organization that works to shut down coal plants and promotes the use of renewable energy and energy efficiency.
Ryan Flynn (B.A. 2019) is currently working in Japan as an Assistant Language Teacher through the JET Programme, which he started in August 2019.
Marshall Bruce Gentry (B.A. 1975), Professor of English at Georgia College and Editor of the annual Flannery O’Connor Review, coedited with Robert Donahoo Approaches to Teaching the Works of Flannery O’Connor (Modern Language Association, 2019). Among the contents are a section reporting on resources for teachers; articles on how to teach O’Connor in relation to such topics as race, religion, history, science, ecology, disability, and feminism; and articles about teaching O’Connor in comparison to such other authors as Junot Díaz, William Faulkner, James Joyce, Toni Morrison, Ann Petry, and Alice Walker. The volume also reprints “On Her Own Work” by O’Connor and a story by Walker written in response to O’Connor’s “Everything That Rises Must Converge”: “Convergence: The Duped Shall Enter Last: But They Shall Enter.”
Betty Frankenberger Gravlin (B.A. 1972) has retired after a 36-year career as a software technical writer with numerous companies in the St. Louis area.
Mebane Harrison (B.A. in English, Speech and Dramatic Arts 1964) received her Master’s in Religion Education from Princeton Theological Seminary as well as a Master’s in Divinity from San Francisco Theological Seminary. She is a retired Education Director for both the Army and the Navy, and she retired last year, as President Emeritus, from the worldwide organization Military Educators. Currently, she is in the process of selling a children’s story called “The Gazoo at the Zoo” about a little animal who never has anyone visit him at the zoo.
Ryan Kerr (B.A. 2016) was recently accepted into the English Ph.D. program at the University of Florida, and he started his doctoral studies in the fall of 2019. He is currently researching modernism, postmodernism, and critical theory.
John D. Olson Jr. (B.A. 1967) is still happily retired and doing as much amateur photography as he can. His health is good, and he plans to be around for a long time. He still remembers the classes he took, especially from Dr. Robert Morris (12 hrs), William Harrison and James Whitehead, among others. He is proud to have his B.A. and his commission in the U.S. Army through ROTC. Both have helped him a lot.
Zoë Rom’s (B.A. 2016) reporting for Aspen Public Radio, in March 2019, won “Best Feature Story” from the Colorado Broadcasters’ Association, and her story on Colorado avalanches was featured on NPR’s All Things Considered. She has since transitioned to working as Assistant Editor at Trail Runner magazine where she launched a podcast called “DNF” that is sound-rich storytelling about reframing failure in life and running.
Jonathan Ruff (B.A. in English & Creative Writing 2019, also majored in Philosophy and minored in History) is currently a resident of the Urban Teachers program in Dallas, Texas. As part of the program, he is earning his M.S. in Secondary Education from Johns Hopkins University (Class of 2021) while working in a Title 1 Middle School in Dallas. The goal of the program is to place highly qualified teachers in high-need schools. In addition to his degree, when he completes the program he will also have certification in his content area (English Language Arts and Reading), English as a Second Language, and Special Education.
Jamie Stephens’s (B.A. 2017) poem, “Checking the Mail on a Sunday Evening” was recently published in Issue #6 of Buddy. a lit zine. She has her B.A. in English and Creative Writing from the University of Arkansas and will graduate with her M.A. in English and Creative Writing from Southern New Hampshire University in the fall of 2020. She currently works as an Administrative Specialist in the Undergraduate Admissions office at the University of Arkansas.
Gary Udouj Jr. (B.A. in English 1991; M.Ed. 1998; Ed.D. 2015) began as the first director of the Career Education Center and District Innovation for the Fort Smith Public School District in July, 2019. The new career and technology center will open in the fall of 2021 and will offer specialized training through concurrent credit classes, apprenticeships and internships. The center will focus on the areas of Advanced Manufacturing, Healthcare Sciences, Information Technology, and Fine Arts.
Rachael Ward (B.A. 2015), after returning home to Maryland, was hired to teach Secondary English. She is currently in her fourth year of teaching and is now teaching in the same district where she went to school. In her four years, she’s been able to teach 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, and 12th grades of English!
Kay Yandell (B.A. 1993), an Associate Professor with the English Department at the University of Arkansas, published her book, Telegraphies: Indigeneity, Identity, and Nation in America’s Nineteenth-Century Virtual Realm, with the Oxford University Press in 2019.