Awards Presented to Three Alumni
This article describes the Outstanding Alumni awards presentation to three accomplished alumni. This and other articles may be found in the University Archives.
Citation for this article is: "Awards Presented to Three Alumni," ECU Report, Winter 1991, Volume 22, No. 2.
A composer, a chemist and an audiologist were honored by the Alumni Association during Homecoming ceremonies in October as outstanding alumni.
Receiving the 1990 Outstanding Alumni awards were Velton Ray Bunch '71 of Toluca Lake, Calif., Dr. Keith D. Holmes Jr. '68 of Greenville and Dr. Brenda Morgan Ryals '71 of Keswick, Va.
The honorees were selected by the Alumni Association Board of Directors based on nominations submitted by alumni, faculty and staff.All were presented engraved pewter plates at the chancellor's awards luncheon on campus and introduced at halftime of the ECU-Cincinnati game.
Velton Ray Bunch is a self-employed composer and arranger whose most significant accomplishments include serving as music director for the 1987 U.S. Olympic Festival in Raleigh and 1984 presidential inauguration, and composer of the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Message Campaign.
He has been nominated for five Emmy awards, most recently in 1988 for Dolly Parton's variety television program, Dolly! , in the best song and best score category.
Bunch's scores can be heard on several current television programs -- Quantum Leap, L.A. Law and Star Trek: The Next Generation -- as well as Hunter, Hill Street Blues and Magnum P.I..
The Pointer Sisters, Lionel Ritchie, Kenny Rogers, Tina Turner and Brabara Mandrell are among the many stars who have recorded songs composed by Bunch.
A native of Goldsboro, Bunch studied theory, composition and piano in the ECU School of Music.After graduating in 1971, he moved to Los Angeles to pursue a professional career in commercial music.
"If anyone did it the hard way, Ray did," said Dr. Brett Watson, an ECU associate professor who taught Bunch. "His success was not at all easy to attain -- he had quite a long struggle."
Bunch and his wife, Patty, have two children, Farah and Justin. He maintains close ties to North Carolina through the Monroe radio station he co-owns with Ronnie Milsap and a summer home at Lake Gaston.
Dr. Keith D. Holmes Jr. is Analytical Development Laboratories director for Burroughs Wellcome Co. of Greenville and Research Triangle Park, and an adjunct professor in the ECU Department of Chemistry.
Often at the forefront of major advances in the pharmaceutical industry, Holmes most recently managed the development of and obtained approval for the analytical chemistry procedures used to assure the quality of drugs used in the treatment of herpes (ZOVIRAX), AIDS (RETROVIR) and Infant Respiratory Distress Syndrome (EXOSURF).
Due to his sponsorship, Burroughs Wellcome has awarded several grants to ECU's chemistry department: more than $130,000 in 1989 and 1990 to fund a postdoctoral position, $37,000-plus from 1987 through 1990 for a research fellowship in analytical chemistry, and $24,500 for scientific equipment in 1983.
In addition, Holmes has taken an active interest in promoting the study of chemistry, long an area of declining student interest.
"During numerous guess lectures and award addresses at functions held in the chemistry department, Dr. Holmes has skillfully described the excitement of working in a state-of-the-art pharmaceutical company," said Dr. Paul J. Gemperline, an associate professor of chemistry."Exposure to this kind of vision is a significant factor in motivating young students to pursue careers in chemistry."
A founding member and past president of the ECU Chemistry Professional Society, Holmes was instrumental in the organization's formation and endowment last year of a scholarship for chemistry students.
A Vietnam veteran, Homes is a 1968 graduate of ECU and received master's and doctorate degrees from Emory University in 1974. He and his wife, Susan, have two sons, Christopher Patrick and Benjamin Tucker.
Dr. Brenda Morgan Ryals is coordinator of audiology and speech pathology services at the Veterans Administration Medical Center in Richmond, Va., and professor of audiology at James Madison University.
"In our 21 years as professors here at ECU, we have never been as proud of one of our former students," wrote Hal J. Daniel and Dr. W. Garrett Hume in nominating Ryals for the award."Brenda has not only been the first individual to demonstrate that the structures for hearing can regenerate after damage, but she has also shown that a major theory of how hearing works appears to be more than just a theory."
SCIENCE, the prestigious journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, has twice published articles by Ryals, who was recently named principal investigator of a $445,000 research grant on hearing regeneration for the Veterans Administration.
In addition, a $5 million private donation was made to the University of Washington for the study of hearing regeneration as a direct result of research she and a colleague conducted. Their research demonstrated conclusively that key hearing cells in birds can regenerate after hearing has been damaged.
Ryals has published more than 30 articles and abstracts and presented numerous papers at national and international conferences.In December she traveled to London to speak on hearing regeneration at the Ciba Foundation Symposium.
Ryals majored in speech pathology at ECU, graduating in 1971.She holds a master's degree in audiology from the University of Tennessee and the PhD in audiology/neuroscience from the University of Virginia.
She and her husband, Reggie, have a son, Matthew Morgan, born in 1988.
