As a news officer promoting SMU for nearly 50 years, Ann Abbas has represented the University with honesty, grace, and integrity. She has communicated the strengths and values of the University through years of challenge and change, never wavering from her dedication to the advancement of SMU’s mission. She has won national honors for her outstanding achievements and high standards of professionalism. She has made SMU better – and better known – as a university of distinction.

Honored by colleagues and friends: Patricia Ann LaSalle, Barbara Bodmer, Maxine Cammack, Jane and John Cockrell, Carolyn George, Anne and Roger Hansen, Sue Johnson, Ruth Morgan, Hobert Price Jr., Pat Sites, Barbara Taylor, Betty Jo Taylor, Marsh and Toni Terry, Virginia Thornton.

We are grateful for our mother’s constant and unconditional love for us through her long life. Widowed at the age of forty-two, she demonstrated strength, values, and a sense of humor that guided us all through happy and difficult times.

Honored by her daughters: Toni Terry and May Helen Bradford

Mac Cullum was magical. She could write. She could sing. She could play the piano. She could make everyone she met feel miraculously renewed, restored, ready to return to the world and try again. She knew all about persistent effort, and how to pace herself through times both lovely and demanding. She delivered on her obligations, left no promise unaccounted for, never missed an opportunity to do the thing that was nice and generous and sometimes undeserved. She had fantastic style, and style, of course, mocks death. Style keeps death at bay. It worked for her for a long, long time. For that she will be remembered, and, to quote Virginia Woolf, also as a “voice that once wreathed the fruits into phrases.”

Honored by her daughter: Lee Cullum

As an artist and lover of nature, my mother saw beauty in the simple things of everyday life. She spent a lifetime taking care of her family, but somehow found the time to nurture her own creativity through painting.

Honored by her daughter: Caren Harvey Prothro

Graduating from high school during the Depression, my mother went to work at 18 and began a lifetime process of educating herself. Her curiosity and love of learning set a standard for her three daughters who all graduated from SMU.

Honored by her daughter: Jackie Masur McElhaney

At eighty-nine years of age, my mother continues to be charming, stylish, current, generous, and cheerful. Her invitations “to cruise” transformed a somewhat remote relationship between three adult daughters into an enduring closeness. Most of all, her tender devotion and unfailing care of my father inspired and humbled. I honor her as a small public token of my love and admiration.

Honored by her daughter: Nancy Nicol Martinez

Ermance Rejebian spent a lifetime career of fifty years presenting great literature to thousands of audiences throughout the Southwest. This achievement is all the more remarkable when one realizes that she came to America alone, an immigrant teenager, escaping the death and destruction of her people, the Armenians living in Turkey. My mother’s love of words, language, ideas, and books were a light within her and an inspiration to all who heard her voice. It was here, in the SMU Libraries, that she did her research. It is here that I choose to honor her.

Honored by her daughter: Mary Rejebian Johnston Northern

From small-town piano teacher to wife of a U.S. Senator and mother of three girls, Lou Tower was a remarkable woman. She revolutionized ‘grass-roots’ campaigning and changed the face of Texas politics. She charmed everyone with her style, her grace, her warm heart, her good humor, and her captivating smile. She enriched the lives of all she knew with love and laughter and the pure joy of living.

Honored by her daughters: Penny Tower Cook and Jeanne Tower Cox

Honored by her sons: John and Rob Whaley