Contact: Sammy McDavid
STARKVILLE, Miss.--As the Mississippi State University Alumni Association welcomes new officers for the national board of directors, it also is preparing to observe 125 years of service to the land-grant institution and its graduates.
The 2009-10 leaders include three Mississippi residents and two from Alabama. Officially taking office July 1, they include Charles A. Cascio of Cleveland, president; Karen Dugard Lawler of Madison, Ala., first vice president; Jerry L. Toney of Starkville, second vice president; and Jodi White Turner of Montgomery, Ala., treasurer.
A.D. Hunt Jr. of Hattiesburg continues on the board as immediate former national president.
The association was founded June 17, 1885, by the first three graduating classes of what then was Mississippi Agricultural and Mechanical College. A full-service organization, it now includes 90 chapters and enrolls more than 113,000 members worldwide.
Cascio, a 1979 industrial engineering graduate, is business development manager for Baxter Healthcare Corp.-Cleveland. He previously served as the association's national first and second vice president, and at-large director. With the Bolivar County alumni chapter, he has been vice president, secretary and treasurer.
Lawler is a 1982 business administration graduate who also holds a 1994 MSU master's degree in business administration. She is team lead* for the Budget Integration and Analysis Office of the Chief Financial Officer at NASA Marshall Space Flight Center. With the Huntsville-Decatur Chapter, she has served as treasurer, vice president and president.
Toney, a 1996 graduate in real estate, mortgage finance and economics, is a certified financial planner and vice president of Cadence Bank. He is a former president of the Oktibbeha County chapter.
Turner begins her second term as national treasurer. She received a bachelor's degree in accounting in 1997 and a master's in business administration two years later. She is chief financial officer at PrimeSouth Bank in Tallassee, Ala.
Hunt, owner of Hunt Insurance Agency, is a 1970 management graduate. Before leading the association last year, he was national first vice president and at-large director.
For more information on the association, visit www.msualumni.msstate.edu.
For more information about Mississippi State University, see http://www.msstate.edu/.
* EDITOR'S NOTE: "team lead" is Ms. Lawler's correct title.