Alumni Board Announces Achievement and Loyalty AwardsMontgomery, Ala.—During the annual Huntingdon College Alumni Awards Banquet Friday, April
18, the College’s National Alumni Association will bestow their highest awards on five Huntingdon
alumni who have contributed to the good of the College community and to the good of the world community.
Anne Shinn, Class of 2000, a Montgomery native who resides in Washington,
D.C., will receive the Young Alumni Achievement Award. Shinn served with the Peace Corps in Cameroon from
2001 to 2003, working as an English teacher in a rural government middle school and teaching health and
HIV/AIDS prevention to her students. She then worked with a USAID (Agency for International Development)
-funded family planning and reproductive health project in Washington, D.C., compiling evaluations of health
programs throughout the world. As part of her master’s program in public health at Columbia University,
she spent six months in Bangladesh developing an HIV prevention project that targeted injecting drug users.
She now works with the Global Health Bureau of USAID, evaluating and designing health programs for major
health issues. Shinn cites her relationships with international students and opportunities to study in
Belfast and Paris while at Huntingdon as the beginning of her interests in international affairs and in
working and living overseas.
Class of 1954 graduate Jacob “Jake” Martinson of Lake Junaluska,
North Carolina, will receive the Alumni Achievement Award. Martinson completed graduate and doctoral studies
at Duke and Vanderbilt Universities, postgraduate studies at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, and
higher education management studies at the Institute for Educational Management at Harvard. He served as a
college president from 1972 to 2005, with the latter 20 years of service completed at High Point University,
where he now holds the title of honorary chancellor. During his tenure, the former college became a
university, enrollment increased 110%, and the endowment increased five-fold. Martinson is a minister of the
United Methodist Church and has also served as president of Andrew College in Georgia and Brevard College in
North Carolina. Among a long list of community service involvement, he has served as chairman of the High
Point Chamber of Commerce, High Point Board of the First Union National Bank (now Wachovia), Piedmont
Independent College Association, and North Carolina Friends of Higher Education. He has also served on the
national board of United Methodist Colleges and Universities and on the board of the W.I.H. and Lula E.
Pitts Foundation in Atlanta. In 2002, he was honored by the High Point Police Department for a crime
commission he began in 1998. In 1994, Martinson was the first American to be named an honorary fellow at
Westminster College, Oxford. He was named a Paul Harris Rotary Fellow in 1999.
Class of 1958 graduate Paul Kazuo Nakane of Cambria, California, will receive
the Alumni Achievement Award as his class returns to campus for their 50th reunion. Nakane holds graduate
and doctoral degrees from Brown University and a doctorate in medicine from Keio University School of
Medicine, Tokyo, Japan. Nakane began his career as a research associate in the Department of Pathology at
Stanford University in 1963. He then became an instructor and then assistant professor in the Department of
Pathology at the University of Michigan. There, with Dr. G. Barry Pierce, Nakane introduced the
“enzyme-labeled antibody method,” principles of which are used worldwide for bio-medical research,
immuno-histochemical diagnosis, and enzyme immuno-assay. Following chairmanships and professorships at Tokai
University (Tokyo) and Nagasaki University School of Medicine, Nakane returned to the United States in 1997
as the director of diagnostics at Microcide Pharmaceuticals. He is now a research professor at the
Environmental Biotechnology Institute of California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo,
California. His many honors include the David Glick Lectureship from the International Federation of
Societies for Histochemistry and Cytochemistry (IFSHC). He was the first recipient of the Paul K. Nakane
Prize established by the IFSHC in his honor, awarded every four years to a scientist who has made
outstanding scientific contributions and shown international leadership in the advancement of the
disciplines of histochemistry and cytochemistry.
Wayne Gibson, Class of 1961, will receive the Alumni Loyalty Award. A Woodrow
Wilson Fellow at Northwestern University, where he earned master’s and doctoral degrees in music
history and literature, Gibson has studied with Metropolitan Opera soprano Irene Jordan since 1962. Gibson
has taught with the Chicago City College System, Central Missouri State University, the State University of
New York at Plattsburgh, Burlington College (New Jersey), and Kennesaw State University (Georgia), where he
chaired the music department for 22 years and served as assistant to the president for arts affairs. A past
president of the Music Teachers National Association, Gibson is credited with founding the “Music for
Everyone” program, recognizing the accomplishments of students and teachers. Gibson is a member of the
Huntingdon Society giving club and for the past two years has contributed his services as a consultant in
the redesign and re-launch of Huntingdon’s music program. He resides in Atlanta.
Sara Stembridge Perry, Class of 1954, will receive the Alumni Loyalty Award.
Perry has lived in Birmingham for 45 years and has served as an extended substitute teacher for Bluff Park
Elementary School. She is a member of Bluff Park United Methodist Church, where she coordinates the Office
of Communications and serves on the Board of Stewards. She is active in the arts community in Bluff Park,
volunteering at the Birmingham Museum of Art and serving on the board of Soon-Bok Sellers Art Gallery. She
is a member of the Hoover Beautification Board. For Huntingdon, Perry has served as a class agent, gift
agent, a member of the National Alumni Board, and a member of the Huntingdon Society giving club. For the
past two years, she and her husband, Jim, who is also a Huntingdon graduate, have traveled with
Huntingdon’s travel-study program.
Huntingdon’s Alumni Awards Banquet is part of Reunion Weekend festivities, April 18–19. The
banquet will be held at 7:00 p.m. Friday, April 18, at the Montgomery Country Club.
Huntingdon College, grounded in the Judeo-Christian tradition of the United Methodist Church, is
committed to nurturing growth in faith, wisdom, and service and to graduating individuals prepared to
succeed in a rapidly changing world. Founded in 1854, Huntingdon is a coeducational liberal arts college.
The College motto is “Enter to grow in wisdom; go forth to apply wisdom in service.”
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