Lyon College GreenSheet Online

• Lyon faculty members, students attend science meeting in Washington

• Lyon bagpipers play a musical farewell to Win Rockefeller

• Lyon College names new golf and basketball coach

• Lyon grad Amanda Price graduates from medical school in Kansas City

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Pipe band to host free performance
as prelude to World Championship trip

Over 200 bagpipe bands from across the world will gather in Scotland this summer to compete for the World Championships, and area residents will soon get the chance to hear the music that Lyon College’s pipe band will play in the competition.

Tonight at 7 p.m., Lyon’s Pipe Band, led by Pipe Major and Director of Scottish Heritage Jimmy Bell, will present a pep rally and musical performance in Brown Chapel.

The rally is free and the public is invited. Indeed, the public is encouraged to celebrate the send-off of the only American band that will be competing in its group .

“It’ll be a great time to cheer on the local pipe band before we head to the World Championship competition,” Bell said.

The World Championships are slated for August 5 – 15, in Glasgow, Scotland. On August 12, the band will compete in the World Championships on the Glasgow Green in the center of the historic city.

Also on August 12, the Highland dancers will compete in Abernathy.

Kenton Adler, Lyon’s academic services coordinator, said 20 members of the pipe band will make the trip, and Brooke Hollis will be go to compete in the Highland dance competition

“This trip will be ‘strictly business,’ and the business is winning the World’s,” he said.

Lyon faculty, students attend
scientific research meeting in D.C.

Robert Gregerson and Barry Gehm, members of the Lyon College science faculty, attended the first National IDeA Symposium of Biomedical Research Excellence (NISBRE) in Washington, D.C., on July 20-22. Accompanying them were Chris Schmitt, a Lyon biology major who is doing summer research with Dr. Gehm, and Derinda Fair, a 2006 Lyon graduate who works as a technician for both professors.

The meeting was a part of the National Institutes of Health's IDeA (Institutional Development Award) program, which is aimed at fostering biomedical research in states that historically have received little NIH research funding. Drs. Gregerson and Gehm are recipients of grants from this program, via the Arkansas IDeA Network for Biomedical Research Excellence (AR INBRE) consortium.

In addition to attending lectures and workshops at the meeting, the Lyon group found time for some sightseeing in Washington, and visiting the National Mall (site of the Washington monument, Lincoln Memorial, and WWII memorial), the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, and the National Zoo.

They also briefly visited the campus of George Washington University and saw two of the bronze busts of Washington that were cast from the same mold as the one on the Lyon campus, which was a given to Lyon in 2004 by Dr. Steven Trachtenberg, president of GWU, as a token of his long friendship with President Walter Roettger.

Lyon bagpipers play a musical farewell to Win Rockefeller

Democrats and Republicans stood side-by-side July 19 in the Capitol to honor Lt. Gov. Win Rockefeller as the mournful melodies of Lyon College’s premier bagpipers filled the marble chamber.

Rockefeller’s body lay in state in the rotunda and his closed casket remained there until 6 p.m. An honor guard from the Arkansas State Police stood vigil over its fallen friend and longtime supporter. Chief of staff Doyle Webb said Rockefeller served on the Arkansas State Police Commission for 14 years and was very close to the all officers.

Lyon bagpipers Jimmy Bell and Kenton Adler appeared on the Wednesday night news broadcast by Little Rock’s CBS affiliate KTHV channel 11 during the memorial service.

Seen playing at the bottom of the east steps of the Capitol, they performed the classic bagpipe standard, “Amazing Grace.”

Adler, academic services coordinator, Webmaster and pipe band member for Lyon College, said it was an honor to represent the College this way.

“We were right at the end of the indoor part of the memorial,” Adler said. “Jimmy played it once through solo inside the rotunda, then I struck in and we played once through together as we passed through the brass doors and descended the steps.”

Bell, Lyon’s director of Scottish Heritage and Pipe Major, said Webb contacted him and requested he play at the service.

“We played as the family moved out of the Rotunda to the waiting limos,” Bell said.

The two musicians then “posted to one side and played once through with harmonies,” finishing as the Air Force performed a fly-over with a C-130.

Webb said he’d heard Rockefeller mention his fondness for the bagpipes many times in the past and that’s why he asked Bell to play at the service.

“At many Law Enforcement Memorial services I have attended with the Lt. Governor, a bagpiper usually ends the service with the playing of Amazing Grace,” Webb said. “The Lt. Governor had commented about his love of that instrument and the song.”

Doyle’s wife, Barbara, is the moderator of the Presbytery of Arkansas, and through the group’s close association with Lyon College, she had become familiar with the quality of Bell and Adler’s playing.

“Mrs. Rockefeller had served on one of the boards at Lyon and I knew of her appreciation for the College,” Webb said. “Plus, Barbara and I love the school and hope one day to be able to attend the Scottish Festival.”

The great-grandson of legendary Standard Oil Co. founder John D. Rockefeller, and the son of former governor Winthrop Rockefeller, the lieutenant governor died July 8, eight days after entering the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences hospital with pneumonia. He had recently returned home from Seattle, Wash., after undergoing two unsuccessful bone marrow transplants.

Survived by his wife, Lisenne, and eight children, he was 57.

Lyon College names new golf and basketball coach

By Wil Shane
Lyon College News Bureau

When Lyon College administrators started looking for a new golf and basketball coach, they went to “Church” and found a familiar face.

Blytheville native Julie Church once played for the teams she’ll now be coaching. She graduated from Lyon College in 2004 with a math degree, and she’ll soon graduate with a master’s in kinesiology from UCA.

At Lyon, she’ll be the head coach for the men’s and women’s golf teams and assistant women’s basketball coach.

“I’m grateful for the opportunity to come back to Lyon, my alma mater,” Church said. “And I’m excited to work with both the golf and basketball teams since I was also a member of both teams while I was at Lyon."

One of her goals is to get both the men and women’s golf teams into the position where they can compete each year in the national tournament.

“The golf teams have been successful in the past and I look forward to building on that success,” she said. I’m looking forward to the opportunity to recruit student/athletes who can handle the academic and athletic demands at Lyon.”

Church played a big part in that success, as did her best friend since childhood, Adrian Barnett, who’s currently playing professional golf on the Nike FUTURES Tour.

A former point guard for the Pipers, Church had her biggest successes with the golf team.

“We won three conference championships, and one regional championship,” she said. “And we went to three national tournaments.”

That kind of experience is invaluable in a coach, especially one as young Church.

For the last two years, Church has served as the assistant golf coach at the University of Central Arkansas while she pursued her master’s degree. Both the men’s and women’s teams at UCA were ranked in the top 25, with the women being ranked consistently in the top five in the country both years.

“I had a great experience as a student/athlete at Lyon, and I’m really happy to be back in Batesville,” she said.

Lyon College Athletic Director Terry Garner is also glad she’ll be back on campus.

“We’re just really pleased that she’s coming back home to Lyon College,” he said. “She was an outstanding student/athlete for us, and I know she’ll bring that same level of dedication and commitment to this new job.”

Lyon alumna graduates from medical school

Amanda Lea Price '02 of Gravette recently graduated from Kansas City University of Medicine and Biosciences in Kansas City. She received the Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine degree in ceremonies on May 21.

Price is the daughter of Ricky and Christie Price of Gravette. She graduated from Gravette High School and the Arkansas School of Mathematics and Science in Hot Springs in 1998. She earned her bachelor of science in biology from Lyon College in 2002 prior to her acceptance at KCU M & S.

She began her postdoctoral residency in pediatrics at the Arkansas Children’s Hospital in Little Rock last week.

During the commencement banquet, Dr. Price was presented the Glasgow-Rubin Memorial Achievement Citation, given to female students who graduate in the top 10 percent of their class. She graduated magna cum laude and was a member of Sigma Sigma Phi honor society, a national honorary osteopathic scholastic honor society.