Author and entrepreneur Marion Luna Brem will deliver the address for Meredith College’s Spring Commencement on Sunday, May 12 at 10 a.m. in McIver Amphitheater.

Marion Luna Brem is the author of "The Seven Greatest Truths About Successful Women." The book, ranked one of the top ten business books for 2001, draws from Brem’s own life experience as a businesswoman and cancer survivor.

Battling life-threatening breast cancer with no health insurance, no employment and no resume, Brem, newly divorced with two young sons, decided to try her hand at sales. Four years later she was president and CEO of her own auto dealership, Love Chrysler, Inc. The dealership, founded in Corpus Christi, Texas in 1989, is currently ranked nationally in Hispanic Business and Working Woman magazine’s Top 500. Her inspirational story has been profiled in The Washington Post, Reader’s Digest and USA Today.

Brem was honored by the Office of Women’s Initiatives at the White House and took home the Avon Women of Enterprise award in New York City. Earlier she had been selected to participate in case studies at Harvard University Graduate School of Business. She was appointed to serve on the Texas Worker’s Compensation Insurance Board. She is also one of 40 women worldwide to be selected among the Leading Women Entrepreneurs of the World for 2001.

More information on commencement, including a complete schedule and profiles of members of the class of 2002, can be found at www.meredith.edu/commencement/default.htm

COLLEGE FORMING RACE FOR THE CURE TEAM FOR THIRD YEAR

For the third year, the Meredith community will form a team of walkers, runners and phantom runners to participate in the Komen NC Triangle Race for the Cure.

The race, which benefits the Susan G. Komen Foundation, will be held on the Meredith campus on Saturday, June 8, 2002. The event, one of the largest 5K races in the state, is expected to draw more than 15,000 participants.

Paula O’Briant, director of community outreach, and Cathy Allen, in the president’s office, are co-chairs of this year’s Meredith Cares Team. The following members of the Meredith community are also serving as team builders: Aundrea Hildreth, ’02, (student liaison), Catherine Rideout, LeNelle Patrick, Anne Henderson, Margaret Clary, Betty Harper, Ann Gleason, Dianne Parker, Lara Kinas, Beth Meier, Barbara Robinson, Janice Swab, Gretchen Solomon, Kristi Eaves-McLennan, Ruth Pearce, and Carol Cato.

The registration fee is $20 per person, which includes an event t-shirt and a Meredith Cares team visor. Entry forms are available from any Meredith Cares team builder. May 10 is the deadline to register as a member of the Meredith team.

For more information, please contact Cathy Allen, ext. 8369, or Paula O’Briant, ext. 2367.

PROFESSOR EMERITUS AUTHORS BOOK

new book by Thomas C. Parramore, Meredith College professor emeritus, chronicles North Carolina’s significant role in the early history of aviation.

First to Fly: North Carolina and the Beginnings of Aviation, is published by the University of North Carolina Press. Working with archival sources, newspapers, patent records and personal accounts, Parramore’s book begins well before the Wright brothers’ first powered flight at Kill Devil Hill in 1903. North Carolinians labored at the cutting edge of aviation technology from the late 1800s through World War I.

This account of the Wrights’ experiments and turn-of-the-century Dare County provides new information on the crucial role of the residents of the Outer Banks in ensuring the Wrights’ success. Without this aid, Parramore argues, it is unlikely that the miracle of flight would have first been achieved in 1903 – or in America.

Parramore was a member of Meredith’s history faculty from 1962 until 1992. He is also the author most recently of Norfolk: The First Four Centuries. His undergraduate and graduate degrees were earned at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

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Nutshell Archives:
March 2002
February 2002
December-January 2001-2002
October-November 2001