BAA Recognizes Outstanding Service

At the Baylor Alumni Association's annual meeting on October 31, during Homecoming weekend, the group honored five individuals for outstanding service to Baylor University. Dr. David Garland, Baylor’s interim president, presented the 2008 W. R. White Meritorious Service Awards.

The award is named for Baylor's ninth president and has been given annually since 1977 by the association to recognize individuals who, like Dr. White, have rendered outstanding service to the university. The 2008 honorees include Waco residents Howard Dudgeon III, Madelyn Jones, and Ann Reed; David Malone of Austin; and Bill Underwood of Macon, Georgia. (Pictured left to right they are: Dudgeon, Reed, Malone, Jones, and Underwood.)

Howard Dudgeon III earned the BBA from Baylor in 1965 and the Bachelor of Accountancy one year later. After a brief stint as business manager and teacher with Waco High School, he joined the Baylor staff in 1969 as assistant budget director. A certified public accountant, Dudgeon was named assistant to the treasurer in 1971 and became university treasurer in 1974, serving in that capacity and later as a member of the cabinet for President Herbert Reynolds until 2003.

Dudgeon continued to serve the university for one year as director of insurance services and one year as director of special projects. In 2007, he was named treasurer emeritus of Baylor University.

Madelyn Gaines Jones served twenty-five years as registrar for Baylor University before her retirement in January of 2008. A native of College Station, Jones completed her last eighteen semester hours at Baylor, transferring them to Auburn University where she received her degree in 1981.

In addition to having an active role in the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admission Officers and the Baylor Round Table, she has been involved locally with the Waco Historical Association and the Earl Harrison House Council and served on the board of directors of the YMCA.

David Malone, a 1973 Baylor graduate, earned an MS degree in engineering from the University of Texas at Austin in 1980 and had a twenty-seven-year career in technology with IBM. Recently retired from IBM, he is currently vice president of sales for Motion Golf, a high-tech golf instruction company.

Malone has been a member of the Executive Committee of the Baylor Alumni Association since 2000 and served as president of the association in 2005. His service to Baylor and Baptist life extends to the state level, where he was a member of the Baptist General Convention of Texas subcommittee for nominating Baylor regents.

Both his parents and all his siblings graduated from Baylor, as did his wife, Mary Massar Malone '73, and their two children.

Ann Reed served on the Baylor staff since 1969, with most of her tenure in the Office of the President. In 1972, Reed joined the staff of Dr. Herbert H. Reynolds, who was then Baylor's executive vice president, and served for three years as administrative associate in his office before being chosen as his personal assistant, a role she played for thirty-years until his death in 2007.

In 2007, she was honored with the Herbert H. Reynolds Award for Exemplary Service, having already received the Outstanding Staff Award in 1999. Reed recently retired after almost thirty-nine years of service at Baylor.

The final award recipient was Bill Underwood, the current president of Mercer University in Macon, Georgia. He previously served as interim president of Baylor University and held the Leon Jaworski Chair in Practice and Procedure in the Baylor School of Law.

A graduate of Oklahoma Baptist University and the University of Illinois College of Law, Underwood completed a federal judicial clerkship and practiced civil trial law in Dallas before joining the Baylor faculty in 1990, where he taught sixteen years, taking a two-year leave of absence to serve as Baylor's general counsel.

Designated a Master Teacher by Baylor, Underwood directed Baylor Law School's Practice Court program and represented Baylor in proceedings before the NCAA Committee on Infractions. He was a member of and spokesperson for a committee that spearheaded an investigation into allegations of misconduct in the men's basketball program. Underwood and his wife, Lesli, are both Baylor Alumni by Choice.

For more information about all alumni awards, contact the Baylor Alumni Association at 1-800-BAYLOR-U, opt. 6, or go to bayloralumni.com.