Coker Alumni Association's 2007 Award Winners

Hartsville, S.C. — The Coker College Alumni Association honored its 2007 award recipients at Alumni Day on April 7. Local educator Joyce Floyd Shaw of Florence received the Distinguished Achievement Award; community volunteer Susan Frampton of Vail, Co., received the Distinguished Service Award; and magazine editor Mitchell Owens of New York received the inaugural Special Recognition Award.

An accomplished pianist and organist, Shaw is an adjunct instructor at Florence-Darlington Technical College. She is an accompanist for Wilson and West Florence high schools, Coker College, the Hartsville Civic Chorale, and the Darlington County Children’s Chorus. Shaw also serves as director of music ministries and organist for St. Luke’s Lutheran Church in Florence, and she has taught in the Coker College music program.

Shaw is a leading member of two national non-profit boating organizations: the United States Power Squadrons, where she served as the chairman of the national public relations committee, and the National Safe Boating Council, where she currently serves on the board of directors. She is also active with the Florence Little Theater Singers, the Masterworks Choir, the American Guild of Organists, and the Junior League of Florence. Shaw is a past chairman of the Coker College Board of Visitors.

A member of the Class of 1970, Shaw earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in piano performance and music theory from Coker College. She earned a Master’s of Mass Communication from the University of South Carolina and a Master of Arts in church music from Trinity Lutheran Seminary. She has also studied at the Sorbonne in Paris.

Frampton, who graduated from Coker College in 1966 with a bachelor’s degree in elementary education, volunteers primarily with children in Colorado. She has served on the Board of Directors of Vail Mountain School and the Family Learning Center, and she has been a volunteer teacher at Red Sandstone Elementary School.

Frampton is also a past chairman of the Eagle County Resource Center, which operates a 24-hour crisis line and safe house for domestic violence and sexual assault victims as well a youth and childcare center. Susan has  served on the Coker College Board of Trustees and the Alumni Association board.

Owens is the executive editor of Elle Décor magazine in New York. He attended Coker from 1980 to 1982, majoring in English, before leaving the college to be the theater critic and reporter for The Dallas Observer.

An award-winning international travel and style writer, Owens also develops and produces home design and lifestyle stories for the “House and Home” section of The New York Times. He co-writes that newspaper’s weekly design advice column “Room to Improve.” Owens was co-curator of the 2003 Design Triennial at the Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt Design Museum in New York. He wrote 21 essays for the accompanying catalog published by Princeton Architectural Press.

Articles by Owens about architecture, design, travel, social history, fashion, art, urban planning, and popular culture  have appeared in over 30 publications around the world, including Travel & Leisure, Martha Stewart Living and the International Herald Tribune. He was formerly the senior interior design editor for Traditional Home magazine and American HomeStyle magazine.

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April 16, 2007