Huntingdon Alumni Announce Awards for Achievement and LoyaltyThe four 2007 recipients have focused their lives on serving those considered “the least
of these”
Montgomery, Ala.—“Enter to grow in wisdom; go forth to apply wisdom in
service,” is the Huntingdon College motto, inscribed in stone above the front door of the
College’s oldest building, John Jefferson Flowers Hall. The Huntingdon College National Alumni
Association took that motto to heart in selecting the 2007 alumni loyalty and achievement winners.
Each of this year’s award winners has devoted his or her life to serving individuals who would
be considered among “the least of these.” The board’s annual Outstanding Young
Alumni Award will be given to Marquell Johnson, a native of Ramer, Alabama, who
works with individuals who have physical disabilities. Camilla Sessions Wible, a
Montgomery resident originally from Ozark, and Ruth Griffin Crosby, a
Birmingham resident originally from Greenville, will be recognized with Alumni
Achievement Awards for their work with gerontological patients and homeless women, respectively.
Betty Gensert Towey of Mobile, who coordinates homebound ministries for her church,
will receive the Alumni Loyalty Award. In addition, a special Loyalty Award will be
given to Dr. Thomas F. Staton, professor emeritus of psychology, of Montgomery. Awards
will be given at the College’s annual Alumni Awards Banquet, Friday, April 27, in Julia
Walker Russell Dining Hall.
After graduating from Huntingdon College in 2001, Marquell Johnson completed his
Master’s degree in adapted physical education at the University of Wisconsin at La Crosse in
2004. He is completing his Ph.D. in movement studies in disability at Oregon State University. A
native of Ramer, Alabama, Johnson resides with his wife Erin in Corvallis, Oregon,
where he is completing his dissertation this summer. Johnson credits Huntingdon and its SuperSports
program, now known as the Wheelin’ Hawks program, for sparking his interest and passion for
working with people who have disabilities. As an undergraduate at Huntingdon, he was the lead student
volunteer for the SuperSports program, progressing later to volunteer recruiter and then student
director of the program. Since his days of coordinating the SuperSports program, he has gone on to
coordinate and lead a variety of school- and community-based programs for children with a variety
of disabilities. He has also coordinated many community-based programs for adults with disabilities;
primarily programs that have focused on adults with multiple sclerosis, traumatic brain injury, and
spinal cord injuries. After completing his doctorate, he plans to continue developing community-based
and school-based programs that promote and increase physical activity opportunities for individuals
who have disabilities. He also looks forward to training undergraduate and graduate students in the
allied health professions on how to incorporate the needs of individuals with disabilities into their
professional training.
Camilla Sessions Wible, a native of Ozark, Alabama, completed her Huntingdon
Bachelor’s degree in home economics with minors in science and sociology in 1965. After marrying
Montgomery architect Bill Wible, the couple settled into Montgomery life and Wible concentrated
on raising her three children and volunteering as a room mother, team mother, Scout leader, and
Sunday School and Bible School teacher. In 1971, Wible joined the South Central Alabama Rehabilitation
Center as director of the Department of Activities of Daily Living. In 1977, she moved on to work as
director of public relations, trainer, and field representative with the South Central Alabama Girl
Scout Council. In 1983, she was hired to coordinate the Lifeline program for Baptist Health, which
installs, monitors, and maintains personal emergency response equipment in individuals’ homes.
In its infancy, the program had 35 subscribers. Under Wible’s leadership, Lifeline has grown
to 650 subscribers and is one of the largest and most profitable in the United States. According
to Wible, services are provided to subscribers at one of the lowest prices in the nation. In 1986,
Wible was asked to serve on a Gerontology Task Force to develop ideas for a Baptist program to
offer health-related services to seniors. That program, now known as Senior Advantage, has grown
to more than 10,000 members. Wible developed the membership mechanism; recommended program
materials, programs, services, and discounts to be offered; and ultimately implemented the program.
Senior Advantage established and maintains three support groups: one for care-givers and two for
families of Alzheimer’s patients. These groups have raised more than $100,000 in funds to
support programs and seminars and to provide materials on care-giving and dementia. Wible is certified
as a DETA Trainer (Dementia Education and Training Act), and has become certified in gerontology.
In 2001, she assumed responsibility for managing all of the volunteer services for Baptist Health.
She and her staff recruit, train, supervise, evaluate, and recognize more than 400 volunteers at
Baptist Health. Wible was a member of the 1999–2001 National Advisory Board for Lifeline Inc.
and was the 1999 recipient of the Catalyst Award for Outstanding Senior Programs in the nation. She
has been elected to the Alabama Senior Hall of Fame and served for eight years as chairman of the
advisory council for the South Central Alabama Aging Consortium.
Ruth Griffin Crosby of Birmingham grew up in Greenville, Alabama, as the
oldest of five children. After graduating from Huntingdon in 1970 with a degree in biology, she
worked in malaria research and cancer prevention research at Southern Research Institute. She then
took a job at the University of Alabama Birmingham in the Comparative Medicine Department, and
later worked for eight years at EBSCO Media. In 1997, Crosby began volunteering at the homeless
women’s shelter in the basement of First Presbyterian Church of Birmingham. Since then, she
has dedicated her life to serving the homeless women in her community. After serving as a volunteer
for two years, she was hired as the shelter coordinator in 1999, moving up to shelter transition
manager, and later serving as founding executive director. In May 2000 the shelter moved out of
the basement of the church and into the renovated Granada Hotel, becoming First Light Inc., A
Center for Homeless Women and Children. First Light was founded to expand the services for
homeless women and children in the Birmingham area and to incorporate the emergency shelter for
women and children that operated in the basement of First Presbyterian Church. The program
provides vital services to the homeless women and children of Birmingham, including the Emergency
Shelter, the Overflow Emergency Shelter, Permanent Supportive Housing, Project Healthy Minds, and
Creative Adventures: Affirmation and Healing through the Arts. More than 10,000 volunteer hours
were logged last year by volunteers who serve meals and stay overnight in the shelter to distribute
linens and personal items to the guests. First Light provided 14,581 nights of shelter for an
unduplicated 895 guests: 784 homeless women and 111 children. Crosby serves on the Mayor’s
Commission to Prevent and End Chronic Homelessness and is a deacon at Independent Presbyterian
Church of Birmingham.
Betty Gensert Towey of Mobile, Alabama, excelled at Huntingdon, where she served
as president of the student body, was selected as Miss Charming Maid, and was a member of
Who’s Who in American Colleges and Universities and Tri-Sigma. Towey, voted Most
Likely to Succeed, graduated with a degree in English in 1945, then did graduate work in
speech at the University of Alabama. She went on to teach senior high and middle school speech
and English for 24 years. During her career in education, she became a member of the teachers’
honorary society, Delta Kappa Gamma. Active in Little Theatre productions, she has received best
actress and best supporting actress awards. She has also been a member of the Modern Study Club,
where she served as president and coordinated many of the club’s programs. Always loyal to
Huntingdon, Towey has served as class agent for the Class of 1945 for many years. She is also a
member of the College’s John Massey Heritage Society and has attended May Day/Homecoming/Reunions
as she has been able. She coordinated the Class of 1945’s sixtieth class reunion, which was held
in 2005. Towey has also been an active volunteer at First Baptist Church of Mobile, working for years
with children’s Sunday School and as the Business Women’s Missionary Union. Currently she
is coordinator of the Home Bound Ministry and the Bible Study section of a continuing education
program called “Experiences in Enrichment,” inviting ministers of all faiths to speak to
an ecumenical audience.
Thomas F. Staton was born in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains 90 years ago. His
father was a school teacher and farmer, and his mother taught in a one-room schoolhouse in North
Georgia before she married. He entered school in the third grade when he was six years old. He went
on to graduate high school and attended the University of Georgia, where he received his
Master’s degree when he was 19 years of age. His first job was with the Atlanta Public School
System where, at age 19, he was hired as a half-time substitute teacher in a junior high school at
$40 per month. He served in the United States Army and World War II as a clinical psychologist and
received his Ph.D. from George Peabody College for Teachers. In 1946, Dr. Staton came to Montgomery
as a member of the Educational Advisory Staff of Air University. He spent most of his years there
as senior educational advisor at the Air Command and Staff College, where he lectured many times
each year to classes of approximately 500 captains, majors, and lieutenant colonels on psychological
factors in leadership and in international relations. He came to Huntingdon College in 1960, where
he served 20 years as head of the Psychology Department. While at Huntingdon he taught summer schools
in several colleges and universities and wrote several books on various applications of psychology,
which were published in English, Spanish, Portuguese, Serbo-Croatian, Afrikaans, and Indonesian. This
past winter, he was notified that a new printing of one of his books has been published in Chinese.
Dr. Staton’s interest in various practical applications of psychology led him to lecture to legal
groups and insurance federations in a number of states. Because of his long-time interest in criminology,
he has volunteered extensive hours in Alabama prisons, where he conducted inmate discussion groups on
personal adjustment. In the 1970s the Governor appointed him to the Alabama Board of Corrections,
where he served eight years, two as chairman. The Governor asked Dr. Staton to prepare a report that
would put Alabama in competition with other states for one of six federal grants to be awarded based
on “the best analysis of the state’s criminal justice system and proposals for the
state’s criminal justice system.” His work on that 554-page project one summer resulted
in Alabama’s criminal justice system winning one of the six federal awards and receiving a
substantial amount of federal funding for corrections. In the 1970s a new Alabama prison in Elmore
County was named the Thomas F. Staton Correctional Facility.
Dr. Staton retired from Huntingdon in 1980 in order to move to Nashville with his wife, Emma,
to care for his mother-in-law, who was in declining health. Following her death, he and Emma moved
back to Montgomery and have lived here, one block from the campus, for the past 14 years. They
became charter members of the Huntingdon College Hall of Honor, when, in a compelling gesture, the
couple donated Emma’s diamond ring to the College. Then-Huntingdon President Dr. Allen Jackson
thought it fitting that the proceeds be used to establish the Thomas and Emma Staton Endowed
Scholarship. The Statons still eat many meals each week in the Huntingdon dining hall and attend
many of the College’s public lectures and events.
The College’s Alumni Awards Banquet is part of Reunion Weekend, a spring-time tradition
at the College. For more information on alumni awards and Reunion Weekend, contact the Office of
Alumni Advancement at (334) 833-4564.
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