FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – The Arkansas Alumni Association will host its 72nd annual Alumni Awards Celebration at 6 p.m. Friday, Oct. 14, at the Fayetteville Town Center.

This year’s awards honor the accomplishments of alumni, faculty and friends and include

• Citation of Distinguished Alumni Awards
•  Andrew J. Lucas Alumni Service Award
• Community Service Award
• Young Alumni Award
• Honorary Alumni Award
• Faculty Distinguished Achievement Awards
• Charles and Nadine Baum Faculty Teaching Award.

Registration for this year’s Alumni Awards Celebration is available online. Registration is $100 per person and $25 of each ticket will go directly to support Alumni Association Scholarship program. For Alumni Awards Celebration ticket and sponsorship information, please contact Deb Euculano at alumniawards@arkansasalumni.org  or 575-2292.

ARKANSAS ALUMNI ASSOCIATION AWARDEES

Carl Collier B.S.’64

Carl Collier will receive the Community Service Award, which recognizes unselfish and extensive service by alumni to their community and humankind. Collier graduated with a bachelor’s degree in pharmacy from the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in 1964 and joined his brother Morris and his father in the family business, Collier Drug Store. He has community service awards from both Washington Regional Medical Center and the Arkansas Pharmacist Association. He has also been active in community and national organizations, including the American Red Cross, Washington Regional Hospice Foundation, Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, Rotary, Dickson Street Improvement District, Fayetteville Public Schools and the United Way.

Frank Fletcher Jr. B.S.B.A.’63

Frank Fletcher will receive a Citation of Distinguished Alumni Award, which recognizes exceptional professional and personal achievement and extraordinary distinction in a chosen field. Fletcher started Cheyenne Industries, and the company began making lamps, mirrors and framed art and grew to become the largest lamp company in the United States. He expanded manufacturing into Taiwan and then mainland China and grew the business to $100 million-plus in annual sales before selling the company in December 2010. He also owns Wyndham Riverfront Hotel, Benihana’s Japanese Steakhouse, Riverfront Steakhouse, The Fletcher Realty Company, Fletcher Furs and 12 car dealerships. He was inducted into the Arkansas Business School Hall of Fame in 2013. He also founded Students Acquiring Knowledge through Enterprise (S.A.K.E.), which is a student-run, nonprofit business operated through the University of Arkansas’ Walton College of Business.

Ingrid Fritsch

Ingrid Fritsch has been selected to receive the Faculty Distinguished Achievement Award in the field of research. Fritsch is a professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of Arkansas. She has pioneered the field of redox-magnetohydrodynamic microfluidics and developed multifunctional miniaturized analytical devices and sensors, including protein and DNA-hybridization microarrays interfaced to electrochemical detection. The work is important in developing portable devices for environmental and point-of-care chemical analysis. She is the recipient of the Society of Electroanalytical Chemistry Young Investigator Award, a National Science Foundation Career Award, an NSF Special Creativity Extension and an American Chemical Society Chemistry Ambassadorship.

Kenny Gibbs B.S.B.A’85

Kenny Gibbs will receive the Andrew J. Lucas Service Award, which acknowledges significant contributions of time and energy on behalf of the University of Arkansas and the Alumni Association. He has worked with Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Inc. for 30 years and is now senior vice president-wealth management. He is the president-elect of Little Rock Rotary Club 99. He has volunteered for the Alumni Association for more than 20 years. Gibbs has served on the Campaign Arkansas Committee and the Central Arkansas Advisory Committee, and he is past president of both the Capitol Chapter and National Board. During his time as national board president, he was instrumental in promoting the Alumni Association and its membership program.

Connie Lewis Lensing B.A.’74, J.D.’77

Connie Lewis Lensing will receive a Citation of Distinguished Alumni Award. Lensing, who lives in Memphis, is senior vice president in the legal department at FedEx Express, the world’s largest express transportation company. She is admitted to the bars of several federal circuits, Arkansas, Texas, Tennessee and the U.S. Supreme Court, where she argued a case during the 2007 term. Lensing graduated with a Juris Doctor with honors from the University of Arkansas School of Law and was associate editor of the Arkansas Law Review. She currently sits on the Board of Directors and the Executive Committees of both the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Institute for Legal Reform and the National Civil Rights Museum. She is a four-time recipient of FedEx’s most prestigious award, the Five Star.

Jeff Long

Jeff Long will receive the Honorary Alumni Award, which honors non-alumni who have served, promoted, developed and loved the University of Arkansas in the tradition of an Arkansas graduate. Long joined the university in fall 2007 as the vice chancellor and director of athletics at the University of Arkansas. He was appointed as the first-ever chair of the College Football Playoff Selection committee. In 2013, Long was named as the Under Armour Athletics Director of the Year for the Football Bowl Subdivision. In spring 2012 the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation and its longtime chair Fred W. Smith made a combined gift of more than $1.25 million to the program in recognition of Long’s leadership of Razorback Athletics. Long has more than two decades experience in athletic administration at the Division I level, including the University of Oklahoma, University of Michigan, Virginia Tech University and Eastern Kentucky University prior to his position at the University of Arkansas.

Doug McMillon B.S.B.A.’89

Doug McMillon, president and CEO of Walmart Stores Inc., will receive a Citation of Distinguished Alumni Award. As CEO, McMillon leads a strong management team that is working to deliver Walmart’s mission of “saving people money so they can live better,” according to the Walmart.com website. From February 2009 to February 2014, McMillon served as president and chief executive officer of Walmart International, a fast-growing segment of Walmart’s overall operations, with more than 6,400 stores and nearly 800,000 associates in 26 countries outside the United States. He has served on the board of directors for Walmart Stores since 2009 and currently is the chair of the Executive and Global Compensation committees. McMillon also serves on the advisory board of the Tsinghua University School of Economics and Management in Beijing, China; the executive committee of Business Roundtable; and the Dean’s Advisory Board for the Walton College of Business at the University of Arkansas. He also earned a master’s degree in business administration with a concentration in finance from the University of Tulsa.

Janine A. Parry

Janine Parry has been selected for the Charles and Nadine Baum Faculty Teaching Award, which recognizes a faculty member whose status is Full, University or Distinguished Professor. It was established in 1997 by the Charles and Nadine Baum Foundation to honor outstanding teaching. Parry is a professor of political science at the University of Arkansas and has directed the Diane D. Blair Center’s Arkansas Poll since its inception in 1999. Her recent research projects examine the effect of endorsements on ballot measure voting and the role of women in contemporary Southern politics. She is the author of two books and numerous articles and chapters. In 2015, she was awarded the University of Arkansas Teaching Academy’s Imhoff Award for Excellence in Teaching and Mentoring. She received the Alumni Association Faculty Distinguished Achievement Award in both rising teaching and service in 2005.

Laurent Sacharoff, J.D.’97

Laurent Sacharoff has earned this year’s Faculty Distinguished Achievement-Rising Teaching Award. Laurent has been an associate professor at the University of Arkansas School of Law since 2012 and was an assistant professor of law from 2010-12. He was recognized as Teacher of the Year in 2015. His teaching areas and interests include criminal law, criminal procedure, international criminal law, capital punishment and cybercrime. Sacharoff is chair of the American Civil Liberties Union of Arkansas and the Association of American Law Schools Criminal Justice Section and has been a reporter for the Arkansas Supreme Court Committee on Criminal Practice since 2014. He graduated with a bachelor’s degree in English in 1985 from Princeton University and a Juris Doctor in 1997 from Columbia Law School.

William Schwab

William Schwab has been chosen for the Faculty Distinguished Achievement Award in the field of professional service. Schwab is a University Professor in the Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice. He was named dean of the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences in July 2008, and after completing his appointment in 2011, he returned to the sociology faculty. He has served as associate dean of Fulbright College and was chair of the Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice twice. He has written four books and numerous articles, papers and technical reports, and has received research grants totaling more than $2.5 million. Schwab has a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio; a master’s degree in urban studies from the University of Akron; and, he earned a master’s degree in sociology and a doctorate in sociology/urban ecology from Ohio State University.

Amber Straughn B.S.’02

Amber Straughn has been selected to receive the Young Alumni Award, which recognizes exceptional achievements in career, public service or volunteer activities that bring honor to the University of Arkansas. Straughn is an astrophysicist for NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. She was also chair of the NASA HQ Hubble 25th Anniversary Committee from August 2014 to April 2015 and staff scientist for NASA HQ Office of the Chief Scientist from February 2014 to July 2014. She graduated magna cum laude with a bachelor’s degree in physics from the University of Arkansas, and she has a master’s degree and doctorate, both in physics, from Arizona State University. In 2015, Straughn was awarded the Robert H. Goddard Exceptional Achievement Award for Leadership; the Robert H. Goddard Award for Science, JWST Project Science Team; a NASA Commendation, Hubble Space Telescope Science Team; and the NASA Goddard Astrophysics Science Division Peer Award.