Southeastern to honor three Distinguished Alumni at Homecoming on Oct. 25

by SOUTHEASTERN PUBLIC INFORMATION
September 19, 2008

DURANT, Okla. -- Southeastern Oklahoma State University will honor Senator Jay Paul Gumm, Dr. Chris Muzny and Dr. Jeretta Horn Nord as its 2008 Distinguished Alumni.

The Distinguished Alumni will be recognized at the Alumni Homecoming Awards Luncheon at 11:30 a.m. Saturday, Oct. 25, in the old Student Union Ballroom. They will also be introduced at a special 2 p.m. pre-game ceremony that afternoon at the Homecoming football game, which features Southeastern and Northeastern in a 2:30 p.m. kickoff.

Tickets for the Alumni Luncheon are priced at $20. Please make checks payable and return to the Southeastern Foundation, Inc., 1405 N. 4th Avenue, PMB 4187, Durant, OK, 74701-0609. For further information, contact Ardeth Ludrick at 580-745-2875.

Oklahoma State Sen. Jay Paul Gumm ('86) is a Durant native and a 1982 graduate of Durant High School. He received his Bachelor of Arts Degree in Political Science from Southeastern in 1986.

At Southeastern, Gumm was active in Student Government, the Young Democrats, and the Student Senate. He served as Student President in 1985-86, was a Young Democrat state officer in 1983-86 and a National Young Democrat Regional Director in 1984-85.

Gumm worked for the Oklahoma House of Representatives from 1986 to 1998, winning more awards for public relations work than any other PR professional in the state. He served as executive director of the Durant Area Chamber of Commerce from 1998 to 2002 and helped develop the city's first economic development incentive plan approved by the City Council.

He announced his candidacy for the Senate on Jan. 9, 2002, won the Democratic nomination on Aug. 27, and was the overwhelming choice in the general election on Nov. 5, 2002. He was sworn into office Nov. 19, 2002, for a four-year term.

Gumm was re-elected without opposition in 2006, the first time in a quarter-century the Senator from District 6 was re-elected by acclamation.

He wrote and saw passed into law numerous pieces of legislation, including the two largest tax cuts in Oklahoma's history, and has received numerous awards.

He and wife Deena have one son, Jacob Taylor Gumm, who was born Dec. 16, 2005.

Dr. Chris Muzny ('82) is a Ph.D. research physicist working at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Boulder, Colorado. He was born in Oklahoma City and later moved with his family to Kingston, where he graduated from high school in 1979. That same year he was accepted as a member of the first group of Parson's Scholars at Southeastern Oklahoma State University. He majored in physics and mathematics, with a minor in computer science while at Southeastern.

During the summer between his junior and senior years, he was selected to attend a National Science Foundation undergraduate summer physics research program at the University of Arkansas where his interest in experimental physics blossomed. After graduating from Southeastern in 1982, he was accepted into the graduate physics program at the University of Colorado. While there, he first received a Masters in Condensed Matter Physics in 1986 and then his Ph.D. in 1994. He began his career at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in 1992, first as a research associate and then in 1995 as a post-doctoral researcher.

In 1999, he was hired into the Chemical Science and Technology Laboratory at NIST as a full-time research physicist. In his career, he has studied topics in physics that range from the behavior of string defects in liquid crystals to the structure of polymer-clay nanocomposites and has published more than 40 peer-reviewed papers in the scientific literature.

He resides in Boulder with his wife, Lise, and their two children, Dylan and Grace.

Dr. Jeretta Horn Nord ('77, '79) was born in Sherman, Texas, and graduated from Colbert (Okla.) High School in 1974.

She earned her Bachelor's and Master's of Science at Southeastern and received her Ed.D. in 1982 at Oklahoma State University, where she is currently a Professor of Management Science and Information Systems in the Spears School of Business.

At Southeastern, she was involved in Sigma Kappa Sorority and served on the Panhellenic Executive Council. She worked at Eaker Field while obtaining her private pilot's license, and was named Southeastern's 1976 Homecoming Queen.

Nord previously served as Associate Dean for Undergraduate Programs in the Spears School at OSU. She has also spent time as a Visiting Scholar at UCLA and the University of Southern Queensland in Australia.

Dr. Nord recently founded the Oklahoma State University chapter of the Collegiate Entrepreneurs' Organization, and conducts research in the areas of Technology and Entrepreneurship. She is currently the Editor-in-Chief of The Journal of Computer Information Systems.

She resides in Stillwater with her husband, Daryl, and 17-year-old son, Nicholas.

Nord has presented papers at international conferences in 14 countries, is scheduled to be the keynote speaker at the Management International Conference in Barcelona, Spain, in November, and was recently awarded a Fulbright Specialist Grant. She is also the author of numerous articles and a textbook.