Our Highlanders are using their education to do extraordinary things. In this column, we highlight some notable mentions from local, regional, national and international news media. Whether our students, alumni, faculty and staff are featured as subject matter experts in high-profile stories or simply helping make the world a better place, we’ll feature their stories.
‘Build your own future’
With their freshly minted degrees now in hand (or perhaps even midway through the framing process), many members of Radford University’s spring Class of 2026 are about to become intimately acquainted with that storied virtual highway commonly known as the work week.
And who better to offer advice on that front than the chanteuse behind the 1981 chart-topper “9 to 5” – Dolly Parton?
Indeed, during the May 2 undergraduate commencement exercises, the “Queen of Country” herself made a cameo via video screens to offer up a bubbly burst of homespun encouragement.
“You get out there, and you use what you learned at that school, and you build your own future,” Parton urged the graduates. “Congratulations to all of you.”
The music legend appeared as the “guest” of commencement speaker Eugene Naughton ’89, president of the music icon’s Dollywood Co. During the ceremony, he distributed to each graduate a pair of passes to the theme park he presides over, and he also offered some stirring words of advice himself.
“Adventure isn’t a destination; it’s a mindset. It means waking up every morning ready to learn something new, to laugh and to lead others,” Naughton told the crowds. “It is, as Dolly says, figuring out who you are and doing it on purpose.”
In addition to the 1,427 graduates who participated in Radford’s commencement exercises, local media outlets provided coverage of the festivities, including The Roanoke Times, WDBJ-7, WSLS-TV, WSET (Lynchburg, Virginia), WHSV (Harrisonburg, Virginia), WHNS 21 (Greenville, South Carolina), WIS 10 (Columbia, South Carolina), WVVA (Bluefield, West Virginia) and many others.
You can also read Radford University’s in-depth overview of the celebrations and meet a sampling of our recent graduates in this video, which profiles a student from each of the school’s individual colleges.
A gem of an award
The mission of the Roanoke Blacksburg Technology Council (RBTC) is to promote local innovation and business, and on May 7 at Hotel Roanoke, the group held its annual gala, TechNite 2026, according to a May 11 article on Cardinal News.
During that event, the RBTC presented awards to about a dozen key players in the field, including Radford University Vice President for Economic Development and Corporate Education Angela Joyner.
Joyner and Roanoke County Public Schools Superintendent Ken Nicely were both recipients of this year’s Ruby Award, which recognizes outstanding RBTC members who have established themselves as assets in the Roanoke-Blacksburg region.
In its news release to announce the winners, the RBTC called Joyner a “strategic and energetic leader” and noted that she “has expanded economic development at the university while forming collaborative relationships that increase access to Radford programs and learning opportunities, strengthen the talent pipeline, support innovation and drive economic growth.”
Associate Provost and Professor of Sociology Jeanne Mekolichick attended TechNite and posted her own feedback on LinkedIn.
“A hearty congratulations to my colleague, Angela M. Joyner, Ph.D.,” Mekolichick wrote. “We are so fortunate to have her leading in our community.”
Of the event itself, Mekolichick declared: “Such a fun evening celebrating tech leaders in the New River and Roanoke Valleys with my Radford University colleagues!”
The council also noted Nicely’s development of the C-Change Framework, a strategic educational model that seeks to deepen learning and prepare students for the workforce. Most recently, it said, he was recognized as the 2025 Virginia Region VI Superintendent of the Year.
Good ‘Carma’
Over the past four decades, the Don Holliday Memorial Foundation has awarded more than $590,000 in academic scholarships to young men and women who hail from Southwest Virginia and foster an interest in golf.
It’s a Roanoke-based charitable group founded in 1986 to honor the memory of Holliday, a district sales manager for Piedmont Airlines. Funded by a memorial golf tournament that bears his name, the foundation provides a four-year $30,000 scholarship to one winner annually, but this year, to commemorate its 40th year, the group also awarded an additional $10,000 scholarship.
On May 6, that prize was given to an incoming Highlander – Carma Ferguson of Salem, Virginia, who recently graduated from Glenvar High School and will study nursing at Radford in the fall. Her accomplishment was reported in The Roanoke Times, as well as on WSLS-TV, on WSET-TV and on WFXR-TV.
The foundation said Ferguson competes on Glenvar’s basketball, swimming and softball teams and volunteers at Straight Street while also serving as a member of the Roanoke Symphony Youth Orchestra.
This award, christened the Don Holliday Founding Fathers Scholarship, honors to the group’s charter members: John Bays, Jim Bowden, Jerry English, John Hostutler, Mike Mauck, George Morehead, Ellsworth Snyder, Burch Sweeney and Pete Watkins.
The next Don Holliday Tournament will be held Saturday, June 27, at the Roanoke Country Club.
Radford’s ‘culture of care’ goes on the road
Radford University takes pride in its culture of care, and a new partnership aims to extend its efforts well beyond university grounds.
New River Valley Community Services and Radford’s nursing program are taking maternal health resources out to the region, hosting events that offer free information and services that include wellness screenings, community resource connections and such medical checks as urinalysis, blood pressure evaluations and glucose testing. No insurance is required.
A recent WSLS-TV spot talked about two recent stops – one on May 8 in downtown Pulaski and a second on May 15 in Radford.
Radford University Nursing Director of Research and Innovation Amanda Hudgins told WSLS these visits offer mutual benefits – they assist the community while providing nurses-in-training with opportunities for real-world growth.
“It serves as a living classroom for our students to actually gain clinical learning experiences and provide care in rural and underserved populations,” Hudgins said, adding that these face-to-face interactions help them modify the services they offer. “We’re actually inquiring with participants what they would like to see in their communities and [we] hope to be a resource for them in the future,” she said.
This month will also see the launch of Radford University Cares, a mobile health clinic
operated by the school alongside Anthem Health Keepers, that will increase local outreach.
WDBJ-7 had coverage of that new initiative on May 14.
"Rural health is my heart," Hudgins explained in that report. "This is my passion,
to bring these services and meet people where they are in rural areas.”