Around the State: DBU honors Joel Allison; Slover to HighGround

Dallas Baptist University presented the 2016 Russell H. Perry Free Enterprise Award to Joel Allison, who has announced plans to retire Feb. 1 as president and chief executive officer of Baylor Scott & White Health. Scott Turner of Frisco, a former cornerback in the NFL who represents Rockwall County and much of Collin County in the Texas House of Representatives, was featured speaker at the gala dinner where Allison received the award. Over the past 29 years, the fund-raising dinner has provided scholarship support for more than 2,400 DBU students.

David Slover HighGround Advisors, formerly the Baptist Foundation of Texas, named David Slover senior vice president and chief strategy and business development officer, effective Dec. 12. Since 2010, Slover served as president of the Buckner Foundation. Previously, he was senior director of development and campaign director for Children’s Medical Center in Dallas, director of planned and major gifts for Southern Methodist University, and assistant vice president for Baylor Health Care System Foundation. He holds bachelor of arts and master of business administration degrees from Baylor University.

Jerome Farris Jerome Farris, pastor of Gospel Tabernacle Baptist Church in Detroit, Mich., delivered the 14th annual McCoy Lecture at Wayland Baptist University. First Baptist Church in Plainview developed the lecture series with an estate gift from Dorothy McCoy, a longtime math professor at Wayland who died in 2001. In addition to speaking in chapel and at a lunchtime discussion on campus, Farris also spoke at First Baptist Church in Happy.

Baptist Health Foundation of San Antonio will present its 2016 Spirit of Health Award to Ernesto Gomez, founder and chief executive officer of CentroMed, an accredited federally qualified health center that has served San Antonio more than 40 years. The foundation selected Gomez for his dedication and commitment to providing health care to San Antonio’s underserved communities since 1973. CentroMed began as El Centro del Barrio, a family counseling program for low-income residents. It grew to 24 service sites in Bexar and Comal counties, providing health care to more than 78,000 individual patients a year. Of those, about 47 percent lack insurance, and 38 percent of patients are children or youth. The foundation will present the award at a reception at First Baptist Church in San Antonio Dec. 13 at 4:30 p.m.

Baylor University named Jason D. Cook vice president for marketing and communications and chief marketing officer. Cook has served most recently as senior associate athletics director for external affairs at Texas A&M University, after serving as vice president for marketing and communications at Texas A&M from 2008 to 2013. In 2010-11, he also was chief communications officer for the Texas A&M University System. He previously was director of communications and marketing for Texas A&M AgriLife, director of public relations and marketing for the Texas Engineering Extension Service and assistant vice president of media and communications for HealthSouth Corp., based in Birmingham, Ala. A native of Tupelo, Miss., and son of a Baptist minister, Cook received his bachelor’s degree in communications from Mississippi State University. Cook and his wife, Leann, have two teenage sons, Brayden and Jace.

Jeff Sutton The University of Mary Hardin-Baylor named Jeff Sutton director of alumni relations, effective Jan. 2. For the past nine years, Sutton has been assistant director of campus activities at UMHB. He earned a bachelor of arts degree in religion at UMHB in 2007. He and his wife, Jen, have two children, Jude and Millie. They are members of First Baptist Church in Belton, where he is a deacon.

Howard Payne University sophomores Christopher Freeland from Bangs and Tyler Olin from Howe were semifinalists in parliamentary debate at the Texas Intercollegiate Forensics Association Fall Championship tournament held recently in Tyler. HPU competed against 23 universities, winning second place in debate sweepstakes and fifth place in overall sweepstakes. Olin also was named top novice speaker in parliamentary debate.