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Distinguished Service Award Recipients

 
Col. Ellis F. Hall, Jr. '98 (honorary)
Col. Ellis Hall completed 32 years of active U.S. Army Service with the rank of Colonel. He served as administrator in the School of Medicine, Department of Family Practice in 1981, Associate Dean for Administration in 1983, and Associate Vice Chancellor for Administration in the Health Sciences Division at ECU. In 1996, Hall returned to ECU as the Interim Associate Vice Chancellor for Development and Alumni Affairs in the Health Sciences Division.
  

Charles C. Martin, Jr. ’69
Charles Martin has served as the President of the Parents Council since 2002. He initiated the Office of Parent Services, the parent web site, The Pirate Parent newsletter, a parent e-mail list, parent involvement in student move-in, and stewardship for The Parent’s Fund. Martin also assists in the reviewing and granting of academic scholarships to new students in the ECU Honors Program.
  
 William (Billy) D. Mills, Sr. ’54
Billy Mills served on the Executive Committee for the East Carolina University Educational Foundation for three years, first as Executive Committee Director (1997-1998), as Executive Vice President (2001-2002), and Executive President (2003-2004). Mills was a member of the State Senate in the 1970's and helped establish the approval of the Brody School of Medicine. He was also a member of the State House in the 1960's, and again in 1989. Mills is now serves as immediate past president for the ECU Pirate Club.

Honorary Alumni Award Recipients

Keith A. LeClair
Beginning In 1997, LeClair spent five seasons at the helm of the East Carolina baseball team. LeClair was twice named the Colonial Athletic Association Coach of the Year and the ABCA East Region Coach of the Year (1999 and 2001). In his five seasons with the Pirates, he led the team to four NCAA Regional appearances and was inducted into the ECU Hall of Fame in 2002. LeClair now serves as the special assistant to East Carolina Director of Athletics Terry Holland. 

Outstanding Alumni Award Recipients

James Cromartie '66
James “Jim” Cromartie is one of America’s leading historical artists. Cromartie is credited for introducing a style of painting called “Hard-Edge Realism” to the art world in 1968. Cromartie painted the official White House portrait and has been commissioned to paint significant historical landscape portraits such as the U.S. Capitol, Smithsonian Institute buildings and the Cape Hatteras lighthouse. Cromartie’s rendition of the U.S. Capitol is featured as an example of symmetry and balance in “Art Talk,” a Time-Life art history textbook for high school students.
  

Dr. Deitra "Dee" Lowdermilk '66
Dr. Dee Lowdermilk graduated from East Carolina with a B.S. degree in Nursing in 1966. She later received a M.Ed. and Ph.D. from UNC at Chapel Hill where she works today in the School of Nursing as a clinical professor. Certified in In-Patient Obstetrical Nursing, Lowdermilk began her nursing career in public health nursing and has worked in a variety of maternity and women's health care clinical settings. She has been in nursing education since 1970. She is co-editor of two maternity and women's health textbooks and a leader in the North Carolina Section of the Association of Women's Health, Obstetric and Neonatal Nurses. Lowdermilk is one of North Carolina’s Great 100 RNs for Excellence and is a Fellow in the American Academy of Nursing. 
  

Clay Walker '89
Clay Walker is the Senior Vice President for PLAYERS INC, the licensing and marketing subsidiary of the National Football League Players Association. Under Walker’s management, the revenue generated from sales of PLAYERS INC’s licensed merchandise has grown from $350 million in 1994 to $750 million. Walker had the foresight to encourage the development of licensing fantasy football when no other sports leagues were doing so. Walker received a B.A. in English from East Carolina University in 1989, an M.B.A. from Colorado State University, and a M.S. in Labor Relations from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He was named to the Advancement Council for the School of Health and Human Performance at East Carolina University and serves as an adjunct professor of sports management at George Washington University. He is on the Board of Directors for the National Council of Youth Sports and on the Board of Directors of USA Football. Walker was recently selected by Street & Smith’s Sports Business Journal as a recipient of the Forty Under 40 award which honors the forty most influential people in sports business under the age of 40 each year. 
  

Conwell S. Worthington II '72
Conwell Worthington is the Co-President and Chairman of Cornerstone Entertainment International, Inc. located in California. Mr. Worthington earned a B.F.A. degree in Theatre Management and Directing and received a Minor in Voice and Piano in 1972 from East Carolina University. Worthington joined The Walt Disney Company in 1988 and held various leadership roles including Producer of Walt Disney Theatrical Productions for the internationally run musical stage shows of “Beauty and the Beast,” the producer of the opening entertainment of National Hockey League, Mighty Ducks shown nationally on ESPN, the MLB All-star game in Anaheim, the Super Bowl in Florida and more than one-thousand special events at Disneyland, Disneyworld, national tours and Los Angeles shows. More recently, Worthington has co-directed the critically acclaimed one-woman comedy, “Vatican II: What the Hell Happened,” is the associate producer of “Dirty Dancing, the stage musical” in Sydney and Melbourne, Australia and will direct a new Broadway show about the American Civil War entitled, “Crossroads to Freedom.”

For more than thirty-two years, Mr. Worthington has successfully worked as a producer, director, manager and stage manager of live theatre and special entertainment events including Broadway, National Tours, International tours, spectacles, corporate theatre, Las Vegas and regional theatre. 




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