Top Cat

By now, I hope you're enjoying the new and hopefully improved look of the Winter 2009 issue of the magazine. The design has undergone a much-anticipated (at least from my perspective) makeover, with cover boy (and former ACU classmate) Lance Barrow as the headliner. This blog will be getting a corresponding facelift this summer to better reflect the new look of the magazine.

I particularly like the inclusion of the two Horizons spreads on pages 2-5, which allow us to use a dramatic image on each to help tell a story. Horizons is a nod to ACU Today's forerunner, an award-winning magazine from the 1960s and early 1970s that was a national pacesetter as a university think-piece containing campus news, great writing and compelling photography.

Among other new wrinkles: Alumni Newsmakers in the EXperiences section to allow us to spotlight those, well, making news in different ways; InnovativeACU, a sidebar in the News section to highlight programs and initiatives as examples of forward-thinking; an expansion of Hilltop View to two pages; a true This Issue table of contents-type spread at the first opening featuring interesting photography as well as Dr. Money's From the President message; typography improvements; color palette modifications; and, in general, a fresh look we think you will find inviting.

And if all you notice is a dramatically new cover design, that's OK, too!

Our new year's resolution is to make this blog a great place to visit regularly to learn more about ACU, with extra content we'd never have room to include in each issue but would like to share with you anyway. We are blessed with talented writers and photographers who contribute to each issue, and we'd like you to read and see more of their handiwork.

Work on the Summer 2009 issue is underway. We'll share plans for it with you soon.

Winter 2009 Issue

Look for your Winter 2009 issue in early February. On the cover is 1981 graduate Lance Barrow (’81), ACU's Outstanding Alumnus of the Year, executive producer of football and golf at CBS Sports. Inside are profiles of Lance, as well as the Young Alumnus of the Year and five winners of the Distinguished Alumni Citation.

This issue offers a look at the record-setting ACU football team and Harlon Hill Trophy winner Bernard Scott, plus 101-year-old Hattie Bentley Baker of Fort Worth (pictured here), our latest "One Hundred and Counting" profilee.

It also marks a major redesign we believe will improve readability and offer more of what you enjoy about ACU Today.

Are you ready for some [more] football?

The Wildcats are 10-0, champions of the Lone Star Conference, the No. 1-ranked team in NCAA Division II's Super Region Four (and No. 2 in the nation) and hosts of the next two rounds of national playoffs if they continue their winning ways in the postseason.

They are among national leaders in several offensive and defensive statistics, powered by a trio of record-smashing seniors [and NFL prospects] – quarterback Billy Malone and wide receiver Johnny Knox [pictured here], and runningback Bernard Scott [see photo on post about Gerald Ewing earlier today].

You can follow the team on acusports.com each day, or by following the posts at acusports.blogspot.com.

Get your purple on and come to Shotwell Stadium, starting Saturday, Nov. 22, for the first of what could be several exciting playoff games hosted by ACU. Because of the Wildcats' sterling record and ranking, the road to the semifinals goes through Abilene and could lead to the national championship game in Florence, Ala., Dec. 13.

Coach Chris Thomsen's team is being called by some longtime college football observers the most talented and exciting offense in NCAA Division II history. You'll be kicking yourself if you miss the show.

Photographer Profile: Gerald Ewing

One of ACU's primary freelance photographers is Abilene native Gerald Ewing.

No one has snapped more frames on campus or on the university's behalf in the past 10 years than Gerald, who had an award-winning 32-year career at the Abilene Reporter-News before starting his own business, (www.geraldewing.com), in 1998.

He shoots virtually all our athletics events [such as this image of record-setting ACU running back Bernard Scott], and many others such as fundraising dinners and commencements and Opening Assemblies and press conferences. He is a fixture on campus, with a can-do spirit and sense of humor that endures him to others easily. Gerald has been a large part of the magazine's success in juried competition, providing quality images that make us and the university look our best.

He also hates it when I catch more fish than him.

Photographer Profile: Bill Albrecht

One of the privileges we have at ACU Today magazine is to work some talented freelance photographers in the process of producing each issue. We do not have an on-staff photographer, so all our work is outsourced to a variety of professionals who live across Texas and around the world.

Austin-area photographer Bill Albrecht is one. He spent nearly two years documenting the work to sculpt and cast and produce Jack Maxwell's Jacob's Dream on our campus. Bill traveled to spend time with Jack on campus and at places such as Blue Genie Art Industries in Austin, Deep in the Heart Art Foundry in Bastrop, and Leuders Limestone in Leuders (near Abilene).

Bill provided environmental portraits to us of 2008 Alumnus of the Year Chris Kyker for the Winter 2008 issue, and 2007 Alumnus of the Year Dr. James Womack for the Winter 2007 issue.

You can see some of Bill's favorite images of the Jacob's Dream assignment on his Web site at www.albrechtphoto.com and download PDFs of our story in the magazine here.

ACU Sports Blog is Rolling

ACU Today sports editor Lance Fleming (’92) has started a blog for Wildcat fans at acusports.blogspot.com. He and others are writing almost daily about preparations for the upcoming year at ACU. If you're a football practice junkie and want to know who looked good in shorts and pads this week, this is the blog for you.

Hopes are particularly high for the football team, which is favored to win the Lone Star Conference and is ranked No. 5 in the nation (by The Sporting News). Featuring one of the most prolific offenses in college football, the Wildcats are coming off two consecutive years of appearances in the NCAA national playoffs.

Last year's team set more than 70 ACU, LSC and NCAA records, and the statistical carnage could be as great this season as last. If you have been putting off catching a Wildcat game in person, this is the year to fix that. You can follow the team on acusports.com each week, but the excitement of watching players such as quarterback Billy Malone, runningback Bernard Scott and wide receiver Johnny Knox, and a host of others, should not be missed.

Standing out among all the typical pre-season college football stories you'll find on the Web is one at www.promisekeepers.org/news/072808/football-team-joins-pks-manhood-movement chronicling the ACU football team's plans to take a break from preparation for the season by attending an Aug. 15-16 Promise Keeper's conference in Dallas. Head coach Chris Thomsen is to be commended for his emphasis on developing much more than his student-athletes' time in the 40-yard dash or weight room. I think you will be moved by what you read there.

You can get a similar insight into the ACU football program by watching the video clip, "Paying it Forward" I helped put together back in February with Martin Perry (’81) of Phillips Productions Inc. of Dallas. It profiles Wildcat defensive backs coach Desmond Gant who uses his faith and football knowledge to influence student-athletes on the ACU team. The story was part of a longer film produced for The President's Circle at ACU.

Watch it at www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgiuH7_nPeI

David Ramsey in Beijing

While vacationing in Colorado with my family recently, I enjoyed catching up one evening in Colorado Springs with longtime friend and 1981 ACU graduate David Ramsey. He and I and our spouses walked the grounds of the Broadmoor Hotel, where the U.S. Senior Open golf tournament was being held, and visited over coffee at a nearby Starbucks. David was helping with coverage of the tourney.

Another former Optimist writer who has distinguished himself (I am prejudiced about this, mind you), David is one of the featured columnists and sports writers for The (Colorado Springs) Gazette (www.gazette.com). A terrific (one of his favorite words) writer, he has won a number of awards for his freelance work in ACU Today magazine. He spent quite a few years as an award-winning sportswriter for the daily newspaper in Syracuse, N.Y.

David and his family also are happy globetrotters. His wife, Sheryl, is the daughter of the late ACU education professor Dr. Kelly Hamby, who helped establish a thriving mission work in Zambia. She was still recovering from jet lag from a trip to Zambia with her mother, Eleanor Hamby, when we met up with her and David in Colorado Springs. David's latest work-related assignment is in Beijing, covering the Olympics for his newspaper. Colorado Springs is the home of the U.S. Olympic Training Center and the headquarters for the U.S. Olympic Committee, so stories about the Games are of high interest to David's readers.

You can follow the stories he posts from China at www.gazette.com/sections/sports/livefrombeijing