Two Montgomery Residents Honored at Huntingdon HomecomingMontgomery, Ala.—Huntingdon College honored five alumni with Alumni
Loyalty and Alumni Achievement Awards during its Sesquicentennial Homecoming
celebration April 15–17. Alumni Loyalty awards were presented to John A.
Mabry Sr., Class of 1961, and Jennifer Gaston Rodopoulos, Class of 1988,
both of Montgomery.
Mabry devoted most of his adult life to Huntingdon College, serving as a student,
teacher, and coach. Graduating in the summer of 1961, he coached baseball and was
assistant basketball coach for 14 years. In 1965, his Huntingdon team won the
district and area championships, and finished third in the regional basketball
championship. Mabry was voted Coach of the Year that year and again in 1970.
From 1976 through 1982, he served as intramural director. As a volunteer for the
Alabama High School Athletic Association, Mabry served as a leader in the development
of athletic officials throughout the state. Mabry was inducted into the Athletic Hall
of Fame in 1998 and retired in 1999, having served the college for 38 years.
Rodopoulos, a teacher at Forest Avenue Academic Magnet School since 1988, served on
the National Alumni Board for nine consecutive years, rising to the level of president.
She has served on Alumni Phonathon committees, advised the Alpha Omicron Pi sorority,
spoken at two senior luncheons, served as the alumni representative on the Board of
Trustees, and spent countless hours planning for, organizing, working at, and cleaning
up after Huntingdon events. Rodopoulos is also active in her church family, Frazer
Memorial United Methodist Church, with the Junior League, and with her teacher sorority,
Alpha Delta Kappa (for which she currently serves as president).
Achievement honorees included Paul Allen, Class of 1967, a college professor and
Pulitzer-nominated poet from Charleston, South Carolina; Elizabeth McDuffie Bricken
Jones, Class of 1965, a retired educator and city official from Johnson City, Tennessee;
and Alexis Cleghorne Tibbetts, Class of 1973, a middle and high school teacher and
administrator and leader in community service from Shalimar, Florida.
Alumni Achievement and Loyalty Awards recipients were selected by a committee of
the Huntingdon National Alumni Board and were presented at the Alumni Awards Luncheon
on Saturday, April 17. The theme of this year’s festivities, “Celebrate the Past,
Treasure the Future,” mirrored the College’s Sesquicentennial year theme.
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