ASU Alumni Association announces Homecoming 2008, set for Sept. 19-21

Sept. 5, 2008 -- The Arkansas State University Alumni Association announces plans for Homecoming 2008 which will be held on Friday-Saturday, Sept. 19-20. All alumni and friends of the university are invited to attend.

On Friday, Sept. 19, the A-State class of 1958 will be honored by the ASU Alumni Association at a Golden Anniversary reunion brunch in Fowler Center. After a brief program, guests will be inducted into ASU's Golden Anniversary Club before being escorted on a campus tour.

This year's Distinguished Alumni will be honored on Friday evening. The recipients of the university's most prestigious award for its alumni are Rosalie Gorham Barber of Jonesboro; Bob Earwood of Collierville, Tennessee; Maj. Gen. Elder Granger of Fort Belvoir, Virginia, and Steve McFerron of Jonesboro. The Distinguished Alumni will be honored at a drop-in reception in the Cooper Alumni Center from 4-6 p.m.

Also on Friday, there will be golf outings sponsored by the Strong-Turner Alumni Chapter starting at 8 a.m., and the Red Wolf Open beginning at 11 a.m. Both golf outings will be held at Sage Meadows Golf Club.

On Saturday, Sept. 20, the ASU College of Business will host its annual alumni breakfast honoring the Business Executives of the Year for 2008 beginning at 9 a.m. The honorees for this year are Bill Fisher, CEO of Paragould Light, Water and Cable, and Don Harmon, CEO of the Home Décor Holding Company. The event will be held at the Jonesboro Holiday Inn.

The annual College of Communications alumni seminar and luncheon begins Saturday at 10 a.m. and will feature guest speaker Roy Ockert, editor of The Jonesboro Sun and current president of the Arkansas Press Association. Ockert is a 1967 A-State journalism graduate and former faculty member. The event will be held at the TV Studio in the College of Communications Building on the ASU campus.

Beginning at noon on Saturday, the Strong-Turner Alumni Chapter hosts its annual Gussie Turner/Linual Cameron Memorial Scholarship reception in Centennial Hall at the ASU Student Union. At 2:30 on Saturday, the College of Nursing and Health Professions open house will be held at the Nursing Building where the annual CNHP Distinguished Alumni awards will be presented. The College of Agriculture will have its tailgate party on the ASU Farm beginning at 3:30, and various organizations will sponsor tailgate parties in Tailgate City west of the stadium.

A high point of this year's Homecoming will be the pre-game open house at the brand-new Cooper Alumni Center from 4-5:30 p.m. Guests will have a first look at the facility which includes a ballroom, meeting spaces, a History Room, and office space for the alumni and development units of the university. Music will be provided by the popular local band, The Brewers, and guests will be treated to bar-b-que from Whole Hog. The open house is free and open to the public.

The Homecoming football game will begin Saturday evening at 6 p.m., as ASU hosts Middle Tennessee. Between the first and second quarters, members of the 1958 football team will be honored. Halftime brings the Distinguished Alumni presentation in which this year's recipients will be recognized along with the announcement of the Homecoming Court.

Throughout the weekend, there will also be special reunions for former ASU cheerleaders, football players from the 1958 team and Greek organizations including Pi Kappa Alpha and Sigma Phi Epsilon.

For more details, see the Alumni Association website at http://www.astatealumni.org, contact the Alumni Office at 870-972-2586 or e-mail alumni@astate.edu.

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