CONWAY, Ark. (Dec. 7, 2015) — Three exceptional church and community leaders will be honored at the Steel-Hendrix Awards Banquet on Thursday, March 10, 2016, at 5:30 p.m. in Worsham Performance Hall in the Student Life and Technology Center.
Tickets for the banquet cost $20 if bought before Friday, Feb. 19, and will be sold for $25 through Friday, March 4.
Following the awards banquet Dr. Carol Newsom, Charles Howard Candler Professor of Old Testament and Past President of the Society of Biblical Literature, will give a lecture that is free and open to the public at 7 p.m. in Worsham Performance Hall.
The banquet and lecture are sponsored by the Marshall T. Steel Center for the Study of Religion and Philosophy. For more information, contact Hendrix College Chaplain
Rev. J.J. Whitney at 501-450-1263.
The 2016 Steel-Hendrix
Award winners include:
Mary and Ira A. Brumley
Award for Religious Education — Dr. Brooks Holifield
The Mary and Ida Brumley Award for Religious Education honors those who have provided distinguished service in the field of religious education. The award celebrates the legacy of Mary and Ida Brumley, long-time Christian education leaders in the North Arkansas Conference
of the United Methodist Church.
Brooks Holifield ’63 is the Charles Howard Candler Professor of American Church History at Emory University. He graduated from Hendrix College with a B. A. in 1963, Yale Divinity School with a B.D. in 1966, and the Yale Graduate School with a M.A. in 1968 and with a Ph.D. in 1970.
Holifield is the author of seven books on American religious history, including Theology in America:
Christian Thought from the Age of the Puritans to the Civil War (2003), which won the Outler prize of the American Society of Church History. He has also written more than 175 articles, encyclopedia entries, and book reviews.
He has received research fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities (1976-77, 1983-84, 1991-92), the Louisville Institute (1998-99), the Pew Endowment (1998-99), and the Luce Fellowship Program of the Association of Theological Schools (2005-06). Most recently, in
2011, Holifield was elected as a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
In 2011, Holifield retired form Emory after 41 years of teaching in the Candler School of Theology, the Graduate Division of Religion, and the graduate program in history. Holifield and his wife Vicky have two children, Erin and Ryan, and now live in Atlanta, Georgia.
Ethel K. Millar Award of
Religion and Social Awareness — Anthony Falkowski
The Ethel K. Millar Award for Religion and Social Awareness recognizes persons whose lives have been distinguished by a passion for social justice and a commitment to the general welfare of all people. The award is given in memory of Miss Ethel K. Millar, a
long-time Hendrix College librarian whose passion for peace, commitment to a variety of social organizations, and work as a role model inspired Hendrix students to devote their lives to the pursuit of the highest ideals of peace and justice.
Anthony Falkowski, a Delaware native, moved to Arkansas 10 years ago. After nine years as Director of Missions and Outreach at First United Methodist Church in Little Rock, Falkowski said he discovered his calling.
A graduate of the University of Delaware, Falkowski holds a B.A.A.S. degree with a major in sociology and a minor in psychology. For over 30 years Falkowski was self-employed and led men’s discussion groups for 18 years, worked with at-risk-youth, and was a participant in a University of Delaware micro business program in
Panama. He became the Mid-Atlantic coordinator for The Earthstewards Network, an international group whose work he joined in the Middle East, Central America, and the former Soviet Union.
Falkowski has served as co-chair of the Central Arkansas Homeless Coalition, has reignited the ecumenical Urban Ministers Alliance in downtown Little Rock, and has presented at numerous conferences, Rotary Clubs, and other organizations and churches. FUMC of Little Rock and SERVE have been recipients of numerous
mission and outreach awards during Falkowski’s directorship including the Arkansas Conference Micah Missions Award (2010), Bank Of Ozarks Reverend William Robinson Award for Making ACHANGE In Arkansas (2012), Acting Out Against Hunger Award to the SERVE Food Ministry (2013), and the Arkansas United
Community Coalition (AUCC) Change Champions Honoree Award for unparalleled service to Arkansas immigrants (2015).
Falkowski and his wife Becky, a native Arkansan and Hendrix College alum, live in Little Rock. Their blended families include seven children and seven grandchildren living in seven different states, other than Arkansas.
Hendrix College Youth Director
of the Year — Lori Fallon
The Youth Minister of the Year Award was created in 2003 to honor individuals who have been outstanding in their service to young people through the youth ministry of the United Methodist Church in Arkansas.
Lori Fallon, a life-long United Methodist, grew up in a small rural town in central Louisiana. She graduated magna cum laude from Louisiana Tech University in 1997 with a Bachelor of General Studies degree from University of Arkansas for medical Sciences with
a B.S. in Nuclear Medicine Technology.
After running the Nuclear Medicine Technology Department at Delta Memorial Hospital in Dumas, Arkansas for four years, Fallon was recruited to work at St. Francis medical Center in Monroe, Louisiana as a Nuclear Medicine Technologist, where she worked for two years. She then opened a new Nuclear Medicine
Technology Department in the Monroe Surgical Hospital.
In 1997, Fallon and her husband Greg moved to Monticello, Arkansas. Six years later, in 2003, Fallon completed a Disciple I course and was asked to help with the youth program at the First United Methodist Church in Monticello. January 2005, Fallon
became a full time youth director/minister for junior high and senior high youth at FUMC in Monticello.
Fallon has graduated 12 groups of seniors. She works with her youth group on Sundays and Wednesdays and the group participates in mission work, Bible study, fellowship, fundraising, and trips. The youth group’s motto is “livin’ to be the hands and feet of Jesus.”
Not only does Fallon work closely with her youth group in Monticello, she also has been a small group leader at a number of conferences and district events since 2005. She is currently co-coordinator of the Southeast District youth team, a member of the
Arkansas Conference Youth Ministers Task Force, and has recently been chosen to be a small church cohort mentor for Dover United Methodist Church.
Fallon and her husband have lived in Monticello for 18 years and are parents of two daughters. In 2004, the couple adopted Sydney, 11, from South Korea and had Mallory, 8, in 2007, who was a micro-preemie born at 25 weeks.
About Hendrix College
Hendrix College is a private liberal arts college in Conway, Arkansas. Founded in 1876 and affiliated with the United Methodist Church since 1884, Hendrix is featured in Colleges That Change Lives: 40 Schools That Will Change
the Way You Think about Colleges and is nationally recognized in numerous college guides, lists, and rankings for academic quality, community, innovation, and value. For more information, visit
www.hendrix.edu.