Vaughan

• DECATUR – Business and Office Technology instructor Christy Ferguson of Philadelphia was recently selected the 2016-17 Instructor of the Year at East Central Community College.

Ferguson joined the ECCC staff in 1999 and previously served as an adjunct instructor for ECCC and East Mississippi Community College. She is also a former business education teacher at Central Academy in Macon.

In addition to her teaching duties, Ferguson serves as a Phi Beta Lambda advisor at East Central. She received the Phi Beta Lambda Outstanding Local Advisor Award in 2014 and serves this year on the Phi Beta Lambda Advisory Committee.

She has also served as a Phi Theta Kappa advisor, where she received the Phi Theta Kappa Horizon Award and the Phi Theta Kappa Paragon Award. She also has served on the Phi Theta Kappa Advisory Committee.

Additional honors include selection for Who’s Who Among America’s Teachers in 2004-05, 2005-06 and 2006-07. She was chosen as a Lamplighter in 2006 and was named Career-Technical Instructor of the Year in 2007.

She currently serves as president of the Mississippi Business Education Association.  Other MBEA positions she has held include President Elect, Vice President, Community College Representative, Web Master and Newsletter Editor. In 2016, she received the MBEA Outstanding Career and Technical Business Educator Award.

Ferguson is a graduate of East Mississippi Community College and received bachelor’s and master’s degrees plus an additional 15 hours from Mississippi State University. She is a graduate of Nanih Waiya High School.

She holds certification in Online Instruction and IC3 (Internet and Computing Core Certification), and Office Proficiency Assessment in Word, Excel, Access, PowerPoint, Keyboarding, and Quickbooks.

She and her husband, Jerry, have two daughters: Leah, an ECCC graduate and senior at Mississippi State University, and Nicole, 19, a freshman at ECCC.

Ferguson is a member of the Spring Creek Baptist Church, where she serves as Sunday School teacher, AWANA Large Group Time leader, and serves on the church’s nominating and outreach committees.

• SCOOBA – East Mississippi Community College instructor Don Rodney Vaughan of Maben was named the Post-Secondary Community College Teacher of the Year during the Columbus-Lowndes Chamber of Commerce’s Education Awards Program.

Nominated for the award by faculty at EMCC, Vaughan was among five teachers and more than 20 students honored during the program at EMCC’s Lion Hills Center on April 20.

Vaughan teaches journalism, theatre and public speaking at EMCC, where he has worked since 2008. Vaughan has written plays produced at the college and scripts for radio dramas aired on EMCC Radio, WGTC 92.7.

Vaughan took undergraduate courses at Mississippi State University and completed his bachelor of arts degree in broadcast journalism at the University of Alabama in 1987. He completed his master’s degree in journalism at the University of Mississippi and earned a doctorate in mass communications from the University of Southern Mississippi.