Chronicles Summer 2014 | Georgia Southern Magazine

60s

Bjorn Kjerfve (’68) has been appointed the new chancellor of American University of Sharjah (AUS) in the United Arab Emirates after an intensive international search. Kjerfve has established himself as an expert in coastal and estuarine physical oceanography since majoring in science and math at Georgia Southern.

80s

Daniel Purdom, M.D., (’80) was installed as president of the Missouri Academy of Family Physicians at the Academy’s Annual Scientific Assembly in June.

90s

Julia Raschen (’92), the principal of Brooks Elementary School in Coweta County, Georgia, has been named Georgia’s 2014 National Distinguished Principal by the National Association of Elementary School Principals and the U.S. Department of Education. Raschen was chosen for the award by her fellow principals through a statewide search conducted by the Georgia Association of Elementary School Principals. In November, she will travel to Washington, D.C., where she will meet with the distinguished principals from the 49 other states, the District of Columbia, and with elementary school educators from private and international schools.

Department of Biology alumnus Keith Choe (’99), a professor at the University of Florida (UF), has been named UF’s 2013-2014 teacher of the year.

2000s

S. Zebulon Baker (’01, ’11) was selected as a winner of the 2014 State Historical Society of Iowa’s “Awards for Excellence in History” during a ceremony at the Iowa State Capitol. Baker was presented with the Mildred Throne/Charles Aldrich Award for the article, “This affair is about something bigger than John Bright: Iowans Confront the Jim Crow South, 1946-1951.”

Matthew Wilson (’03) has been named chapter president of the Birmingham National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors. He was also honored as one of the Top Advisors Under 40 in Birmingham, Alabama.

Eddie Lee Williams Jr. (’05) of Lithonia, Georgia, was among the graduates in the inaugural class of students awarded the Doctor of Pharmacy degree from the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine – Georgia Campus.