Posted 8:47 am Friday, October 10, 2008
Tyler Junior College Recognizing 3 Alumni
Tyler Junior College will honor three alumni award recipients during a homecoming dinner/dance at 6 p.m. today in the Apache Rooms of Rogers Student Center on the TJC main campus.
Darren Kindred will be honored as Valuable Young Alumnus; Nancy Duckett Lun-ceford will be honored with the Apache Spirit Award; and Dr. Kenneth Ragsdale will be honored as the Distinguished Alumnus.
Kindred is a 1992 graduate of the TJC tennis tech program. He is the director of tennis and head teaching professional for Bucks County Racquet Club in Washington Crossing, Pa. He lives in Yardley, Pa.
Since 2005, he has served as director of tennis and advisory board member for Orthotic and Prosthetic Assistance Fund of America and developed OPAF's First Volley, which conducts free adaptive tennis clinics for ambulatory players who either have limb loss or limb differences. This population includes amputees, stro-ke victims and cerebral palsy and multiple scl-erosis patients. Tennis legend Billie Jean King has donated hundreds of racquets to OPAF.
OPAF received the National Community Service Award from the United States Tennis Association in 2007, and he will speak about adaptive tennis at the USTA National Tennis Teachers Conference during the U.S. Open. His dream is to see the U.S. Open add a competitive event for ambulatory amputees.
"The TJC tennis tech program instilled the value of giving back to the community, though sometimes this community of amputees actually ends up giving back to me," Kindred said in a statement from TJC. "I receive joy from seeing them overcome an obstacle and also just from them having fun playing a sport that I have dedicated myself to teaching."
While attending TJC, Mrs. Lunceford was an Apache Belle, a member of San Souci Sorority and Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society. She met her husband David Lunceford at TJC when he played football for the Apaches. They married in 1955, the year she graduated TJC.
After his retirement as an Exxon executive in 1992, the Luncefords moved to the Van area and he served many years on the Tyler Junior College Board of Trustees. The mother of three, Mrs. Lunceford stayed busy volunteering for her children's interests, her church and her community. She was a troop leader for the Girl Scouts, PTA vice president, carnival chairwoman, home room mother and she sang with the Baton Rouge Women's Chorus. She has been active in her church and volunteered at local nursing homes.
In Jamestown, near Van, she served as secretary and bookkeeper for her church, tending their flower beds, making flower arrangements for the pulpit, organizing and teaching Ladies' Bible Class as well as helping organize the church's fellowship activities.
In 2005, the couple moved to Tyler and she volunteers at the Karing Kitchen and the Salva-tion Army Women's Auxiliary. A past president of the TJC Alumni Association Board of Directors, Mrs. Lunceford has volunteered for more than 15 years, helping at the East Texas State Fair, graduation ceremon-ies, membership drives and ho-mecoming events. She is also a lifetime member of Apache Belle Gold and serves as treasurer.
The Luncefords established several scholarships: one at Hard-ing University and three at TJC.
She previously worked for Phillips Petroleum in Waco, Tenneco Oil in New Mexico and Exxon Chemical in Baton Rou-ge, La. The Luncefords have three children, 10 grandchildren and one great-granddaughter.
Ragsdale attended TJC from 1937 to 1939. At The University of Texas at Austin, he received his Bachelor of Music degree in 1943, his Master of Music degree in 1949, his Master of Arts degree in history in 1967 and his doctorate in American studies in 1974.
"I regard my two years in Tyler Junior College 1937-39 as the major turning point in my life and feel mainly indebted to a wonderful English teacher, Miss Brandenburg, who inspired me to write and instilled in me the confidence to believe in myself," Ragsdale said.
He dedicated his 1998 book, "Big Bend Country: Land of the Unexpected," to Miss Brandenburg. He has written extensively on Texas history.
Ragsdale is also a licensed pilot, real estate investor and orchestra leader in Austin, where he and his wife, Janet, live. Among his professional music pursuits, he played viola in the Austin Symphony Orchestra and played clarinet and oboe in the Austin Municipal Band.
In 1959, he organized the Ken Ragsdale Orchestra, for which he was the leader and arranger and played baritone saxophone and clarinet.
In 1967, he assumed directorship of the Junior Historian Program, the statewide junior and senior high school history educational program of the Texas State Historical Association. In 1969, he organized the Walter P. Webb Historical Society, the college- and university-level history club program of the Texas State Historical Associa-tion.
Also in 1969, he organized the first Texas History Awareness In-Service Workshop for history and social studies teachers, an ongoing continuing education program of the Texas State Historical Association with the cooperation of Texas colleges, universities, the Texas Education Agency, Regional Education Service Centers and independent school districts.
He retired in 1977 to devote his time to individual historical research and writing.
