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Alumni News

8/21/19

SCO Announces 2019 Alumni Awards

Southern College of Optometry will honor the accomplishments of Drs. Allan Barker and Matt Jones during the institution’s annual Fall Homecoming and Continuing Education Weekend, October 3-6, 2019 in Memphis.

Receiving the college’s Lifetime Achievement Award will be Dr. Allan Barker, a 1975 graduate. A member of the American Optometric Association for 44 years, Dr. Barker is a past president of the Optometry Care Foundation. 


A former President of the North Carolina State Optometric Society, Dr. Barker has also served as a VOSH State Director in North Carolina, on the Essilor Eye Care Practitioner Advisory Panel, and completed the Wharton Chief Executive Optometrist course.  He worked at the Olympic Vision Center in Lillehammer, Norway, and is a charter member of the AOA Contact Lens and Cornea Section. He has lectured and published extensively throughout his career, including one of the first studies on hyperopic soft contact lenses in 1977 which was co-authored with Dr. Frank Fontana.


Dr. Barker has served as an SCO clinical preceptor, member of the SCO Alumni Council, and served on the college’s 75th Anniversary Celebration Committee. He and his wife Susan are the parents of three children and have one grandchild. The Barkers live in Rocky Mount and Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina.


Receiving SCO’s Young Alumni Award will be Dr. Matt Jones, a 2009 graduate who is co-owner of Family Eye Care, located in Blytheville and Osceola, Arkansas. Dr. Jones was named the AOA’s Young OD of the Year in 2019. 


Dr. Jones serves as president of the Arkansas Optometric Association Board of Directors and as a board member of Vision Arkansas, the charitable foundation of the association. He serves on the board of directors for the Great River Charitable Clinic where he provides free exams to the uninsured in the area. He also works with the Mississippi County Head Start program to provide vision exams to preschool children.  Dr. Jones serves as a volunteer member of the logistics committee of SECO, and was awarded their 2017 Young Optometrist of the South. In 2016, he began serving in the American Optometric Association volunteer structure on the Meetings Center committee. 


Dr. Jones has attended several AOA Congressional Advocacy Conferences in Washington, D.C. and served as a key person for one of the U.S. Representatives from Arkansas. On the state level, he has served as legislative key person captain for northeast Arkansas since 2014. He coordinates member doctors of optometry on 30 state legislative campaigns. He also serves as a key person for his state Senator and Representative.


Congratulations to both of these outstanding alumni!

Posted by Jennifer Sharp at 8/21/19
Alumni Homecoming alumni awards

8/13/19

SCO Welcomes Back Two Alumni to Campus

SCO is excited to welcome back two alumni, this time a faculty. 

Dr. Catherine (Wood) Hogan received her BA from Davidson College in Davidson, NC. After graduating from SCO in 2017, she completed her residency in primary care and ocular disease at the Memphis Area Veteran’s Medical Center. Since then, Dr. Hogan worked at Distafano Eye Center in Chattanooga, TN where her focus was on treatment of ocular disease. Dr. Hogan is a FAAO, and member of AOA and TAOP. She and her husband have settled in the East Memphis area.
 
A 2018 SCO graduate, Dr. Laurel Roberts is delighted to be back home in Memphis. Dr. Roberts spent the last year in Chicago where she recently finished her cornea and contact lens management residency at Illinois College of Optometry. Dr. Roberts is a member of TAOP and AOA. She and her finance have put down roots in the Central Gardens area.

Congratulations to our new faculty members!

Posted by Jennifer Sharp at 8/13/19
Alumni Faculty

7/10/19

Glen Steele, OD ’69 Inducted into the National Optometry Hall of Fame

SCO Professor Glen Steele, OD ’69 is now the newest inductee into the National Optometry Hall of Fame. Dr. Steele was officially recognized by the American Optometric Association (AOA) at their annual conference in St. Louis, Missouri last month for his significant contribution to the profession of optometry, specifically his role in creating the InfantSEE program, which provides no-cost eye exams to infants in their first year of life.

Dr. Steele is SCO’s longest-serving faculty member with a half-century of teaching and providing patient care. Upon graduating from SCO in 1969, Dr. Steele was appointed as a faculty member, while opening his own private practice that he would run for 40 years. 

In his 50-year career, Steele is most notably recognized for his contributions to pediatric eye care. Since the founding of InfantSEE in 2005, the program has provided eye exams to 140,000 infants, and nearly 4,000 optometrists across the country currently participate in the program. Its successes include countless early interventions for both minor issues – like lazy eye – and major ones – such as ocular cancers or diabetes – made possible by early detection in an eye exam.

Dr. Steele has authored and presented nearly 30 original papers at the Southeast Optometric Vision Forum on topics ranging from retinoscopy to vision therapy. He also regularly lectures across the world, having led nearly 200 presentations to providers about the importance of infant vision development and care.

Congratulations, Dr. Steele!

Posted by Jennifer Sharp at 7/10/19
Alumni AOA American Optometric Association Dr. Glen Steele

4/18/19

Blum to Receive Honorary Degree

Ronald Blum, OD ’72, was chosen to receive SCO’s Doctor of Ocular Science degree and deliver the commencement address to the Class of 2019. The Founder and Chairman of NewSight Reality, Inc., Dr. Blum has founded and led a number of companies, including Encore Health and Encore Vision, which merged and sold to Novartis in 2017.

He also founded and led The Egg Factory, PixelOptics, and Innotech, part of his track record of success as a visionary innovator and businessman. As the inventor or co-inventor of more than 750 patents worldwide, Dr. Blum is one of the world’s leading inventors in the fields of optics, electronic eyewear, and vision correction. He was one of the inventors of eye drops for treating presbyopia and for spectacle lenses that block high energy blue light to provide protection against macular degeneration.

He led and managed the team that invented an developed the Definity Lens, a progressive addition lens acquired in 2005 by Essilor, the world’s largest lens manufacturer. The Definity Lens at the time became the number one selling digitally surfaced progressive addition lens in North America. ‘’

Dr. Blum founded a practice that had grown to be one of the largest multi-location private professional practices in the Southeastern United States. He has served on the Board of Trustees of Roanoke College. Although he stopped examining eyes in 1989, he continues to contribute to advances that improve sight and improve vision care through his active work as an inventor and entrepreneur.

Posted by Jennifer Sharp at 4/18/19
commencement Doctor of Ocular Science Degree Honorary Degree

4/17/19

The Hayes Center for Practice Excellence Announces 2019 Award Recipients

The Hayes Center (HCPE) for Practice Excellence, a vital resource for SCO students and alumni, is pleased to announce its 2019 award recipients for the HCPE Practice of Excellence Award.

The HCPE Practice of Excellence Award is designed to identify and reward successful practices, recognize the achievements made by SCO graduates, and help foster joint relationships that benefit both the alumni and current optometry students.

The Hayes Center for Practice Excellence (HCPE) saw a banner year of interest in its 2019 HCPE Practice of Excellence Award with a record 57 young ODs nominated this year.

The awards are divided into three sections based on the number of years of practice: long-term graduate, midterm graduate and recent graduate. A panel of judges consisting of members of the Hayes Center for Practice Excellence Advisory Board, the Director of HCPE and Dr. Jerry Hayes made the selection.

“All the judges feel secure in knowing the future of our profession is in good hands,” said Lisa Wade, OD ’84, MPA, Director of HCPE. “These alumni are doing amazing things and setting a high bar for their peers.”

Long-term Graduate award recipient (2008-2011) Murray Pratt, OD ’11, practices at Lifetime Eye Care in Phoenix, Arizona.

Mid-term Graduate award recipients (2012-2014) John Nail, OD ’12, and Hannah Schmidt Nail, OD ’13, practice at Curtis Optometry, in Columbus, Mississippi.

Frank Carusone, OD ’16, practices at EyeXcel in Knoxville, Tennessee.

Congratulations to the HCPE Practice of Excellence Award recipients!

L-R: Nathan Hayes, Natalie Hayes, Frank Carusone, OD ’16, John Nail, OD ’12, Hannah Schmidt Nail, OD ’13, Murray Pratt, OD ’11, and Jerry Hayes, OD ’73.

Posted by Jennifer Sharp at 4/17/19
Practice Excellence Alumni Hayes Center Award
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