Released: Oct. 20, 1998

Centre honors four with Alumni Achievement Awards

DANVILLE, KY- Centre College has honored four persons with 1999 Alumni Achievement Awards, including Lancaster native Lanny Gregory van Allen, now a resident of Austin, Texas. Van Allen was honored for her innovative work as a middle school teacher and administrator with the Texas Education Agency.

Also honored during homecoming weekend were Mississippi State Senator John Horhn, Lexington minister James Rucker and Memphis businessman Tom Cowens.

Van Allen is a 1958 graduate of Centre and has a master's degree from Vanderbilt University and a doctorate from the University of Texas at Austin. She taught English in five different states and became an English curriculum specialist at the Texas Education Agency. She is currently a consultant in curriculum and instruction in the Center for Reading and Language Arts at the University of Texas in Austin and volunteers with the Ronald McDonald House foundation.

Van Allen authored the first "In the Middle" column for the national English Journal and played a key role in establishing a new journal for middle level educators, Voices from the Middle. Her work was honored in 1997 when she received the Richard W. Halle Award as the nation's outstanding educator at the middle school level.

Horhn is a 1977 graduate of Centre and was elected to the Mississippi Senate in 1992. He currently serves on eight committees, including the Senate Management Committee. He was appointed chairman of the Senate Economic Development, Tourism and Parks Committee in 1996. Horhn has particular expertise and interest in economic development, and he has supported legislation that would approve approximately $300 million in bonds for the funding of small and minority business loan programs.

Rucker earned a bachelor's degree at Centre in 1955. He has a master of divinity degree from Louisville Presbyterian Seminary and is interim senior pastor at Maxwell Presbyterian Church in Lexington.

Cowens, a 1985 graduate of Centre, is vice president of the Trammell Crow Company in Memphis. He is a member and a past president of the Phoenix Club, which helps fund the Boys and Girls Club of Greater Memphis. He is also a member of the Church of the Holy Communion.

Van Allen, Horhn and Rucker received Distinguished Alumni Achievement Awards. Cowens was honored with the 1999 Young Alumnus Award.

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