The University of Mississippi Athletics
Former Ole Miss Student-Athletes to be Inducted into Ole Miss Alumni HOF
10/8/2015 | M Club
OXFORD, Miss. - The experience of being a student-athlete at Ole Miss can prepare someone to achieve great success when one's playing days are over.
That is not more evident than in the lives of former Rebel football players Dr. Alan Partin and Billy Van Devender, who are among five inductees in the 2015 class of the Ole Miss Alumni Hall of Fame. The class will be officially inducted this weekend as part of Homecoming festivities.
In addition, former basketball player Hunter Carpenter will receive the Outstanding Young Alumni Award from the Ole Miss Alumni Association.
Created in 1974, the Hall of Fame honors select alumni who have made an outstanding contribution to their country, state or the University of Mississippi through good deeds, services or contributions that have perpetuated the good name of Ole Miss.
Inductees into the Alumni Hall of Fame for 2015 are: Mary Ann Strong Connell (BA 59, MA 71, MLS 73, JD 77) of Oxford; Lee McCarty (BAEd 47) of Merigold; Partin (BA 83) of Baltimore, Md.; Van Devender (BSCvE 71) of Jackson; and Dr. Thomas D. Wallace Jr. (BAEd 78, MEd 80, PhD 02) of Bakersfield, Calif. Of note, Wallace was instrumental in starting the Chucky Mullins Courage Award as a member of Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity Inc.
Carpenter (BAccy 99, MAccy 00, JD 03) of Dallas, Texas, will be recognized as an alum who has shown exemplary leadership throughout his first 15 years of alumni status in both his career and dedication to Ole Miss. Suzan B. Thames (BA 68) of Jackson will receive the Alumni Service Award for service to the University and the Alumni Association over an extended period.
Dr. Alan Partin is a professor of urology, oncology and pathology at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. His areas of clinical expertise include prognosis prediction and surgical treatment for men with prostate cancer. He has served as the Jakurski Family Director of The Brady Urological Institute and urologist-in-chief for the Department of Urology since 2005.
Partin received his undergraduate degree in chemistry at the University of Mississippi. He achieved the honor of Academic All-American and varsity letter recognition two years for football, and graduated Summa Cum Laude.
Partin earned his M.D. and Ph.D. in pharmacology and molecular systems from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He also completed his residency in urology and surgery at the Johns Hopkins Hospital.
Partin's research focuses on development and testing of new and existing methods for predicting the aggressiveness of prostate cancers. He is credited with creating a set of tables widely known as the Partin Tables, which help physicians and patients choose the most appropriate treatments for prostate cancer.
Partin has been recognized with the Ambrose Monell Research Award, David Koch Prostate Cancer Research Award and the 2002 AUA/ACMI Gold Cystoscope Award, and the AUA Distinguished Contribution award (2015) among others. He is a member of the American Medical Association and the American Urological Association.
Partin is the editor of Campbell-Walsh Urology Textbook, editor or co-editor of three Journals and has published over 600 scholarly articles.
Partin is married to Vicky Partin and they have four children, Topper, David, Dane and Michael. They presently live in Baltimore, Maryland.
Van Devender has contributed a substantial amount of philanthropic work to his community. He has served as commissioner of the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality since 1998 and joined the board of the Mississippi Fish and Wildlife Foundation in 1997. He served on the board of Mississippi's Young Life organization and the MS Baptist Health System. He is an active board member of But God Ministries, an organization that works to build sustainable living communities in Haiti, and he is a member at First Baptist Church of Jackson. In past years, Van Devender was a member of the Young Presidents' Organization, the World Forestry Center and the Chief Executive Organization.
Van Devender and his wife, Mollie Magee, have been married for 36 years and have four children: Laura, William, Anne and Clinton. His favorite activities are spending time with his four grandchildren, hunting, golf and timber business.
Hunter Carpenter is a partner of RedBird Capital Partners, where he is responsible for RedBird's natural resources and industrial related investment activity. RedBird is a New York- and Dallas-based principal investing firm focused on growth equity, buildups and structured equity investments in family owned, founder-led and entrepreneurial businesses targeting attractive risk-adjusted returns.
Prior to RedBird, Carpenter spent the majority of his career working for the Stephens family of Little Rock, Ark. While there, he helped Witt Stephens Jr. launch The Stephens Group as a stand-alone private equity firm continuing the Stephens family's long history of direct investing. Carpenter either led or assisted on deal teams that invested across 11 platform deals, with multiple add-on acquisitions and five exits. When he left The Stephens Group, Carpenter was the lead board member representing The Stephens Group for six companies in the energy and industrial space.
Carpenter's responsibilities over the course of his career have spanned the full life cycle of private investments including sourcing, negotiating, executing, financing, structuring and exiting investments, as appropriate. The majority of Carpenter's investing experience involved backing entrepreneurs to help them grow as well as navigate the challenges of scaling over longer term hold periods.
Carpenter is a board member of the University of Mississippi Foundation and the chairman of its Investment Committee. He was named one of Oil & Gas Investor's "Top 20 Under 40" in Energy Finance in 2014 and one of the "Top 40 Under 40" by Arkansas Business Magazine in 2011.
Carpenter was a four-year letterman in men's basketball at Ole Miss. He is married to Megan Flowers Carpenter and has three children: Lawler, Brackett and Wyllys.
