Alumni, students honored at OBU homecoming

Five outstanding Oklahoma Baptist University alumni were honored during the university’s annual Homecoming Harvest Dinner Friday in OBU’s Geiger Center. Following the dinner, six OBU seniors received honors from their peers during the annual Harvest Court ceremony in Raley Chapel.
Dr. Joe W. Mosley and Dr. David Sallee received the Alumni Achievement Award; Dr. Branson Craig Stephens was honored with The Graduate of the Last Decade (GOLD) award; and DuJuan Brown and Desire Pierre-Louis were inducted into the OBU Athletic Hall of Fame.
Mosley, ’58, and Sallee, ’73, received the Alumni Achievement Award, the highest honor given by OBU’s Alumni Association in recognition of outstanding life service which has brought honor to the individual’s alma mater.
Formerly a pastor, Mosley serves as director of ministry students at Dallas Baptist University. He earned a bachelor’s degree from OBU, a master’s degree from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, and a doctorate of ministry from Luther Rice Seminary. He and his wife, Eileen, reside in Lewisville, Texas. They have two adult children, Steve, a 1982 OBU graduate, and Julie.
“Joe is one of those rare creatures that has that special, nearly indefinable but nevertheless recognizable characteristic of having the pastoral touch that ministers to people during times of grief and crisis,” said Mosley’s friend and fellow OBU ’58 alum, Dr. Charles Poor, who presented him with the award.
Mosley dedicated the award to his class, which celebrated their 50th reunion during the festivities.
Sallee has served as president of William Jewell College in Liberty, Mo., since 2000. He previously served on the OBU administration and faculty from 1976-93. He completed a bachelor’s degree from OBU, a master’s degree from Pittsburg State University and a Ph.D. degree from the University of Oklahoma. Sallee and his wife, the former Mary Marks, a 1973 alum, have two adult sons, Andrew and Patrick, a 2002 OBU graduate.
Sallee’s friend and fellow alum Larry Walker, ’73, OBU director of business services, recalled his days on Bison Hill with Sallee both as a classmate, and later as a fellow employee.
“During those years, I found David to be an enabler, a person correctly characterized as a catalyst that allowed others around him to succeed and feel good about themselves,” Walker said. “He had a natural charisma about him that is an innate characteristic of a leader. Whether classmates, players he coached, students he taught, or employees he supervised, David had the uniqueness about him that made people around him work well together.”
Stephens, a 2000 alum, received The Graduate of the Last Decade (GOLD) award, presented by Dr. Albert Chen, OBU professor of physics. Stephens is a postdoctoral fellow in the Princeton Center for Theoretical Science, working with numerical relativity and theoretical astrophysics at Princeton University in Princeton, N.J.
He graduated from OBU summa cum laude at age 18 with a bachelor’s degree in physics and mathematics with honors. He pursued graduate studies in physics at the University of Illinois, and completed a Ph.D. degree from the University of Illinois in 2007.
Brown, a 2002 alum, and Pierre-Louis, a 1998 alum, were inducted into the OBU Athletic Hall of Fame for their record-setting tenure at the university.
Brown received his award from Lance Johnston, a ’96 alum and former men’s assistant basketball coach. In men’s basketball player, Brown led the Bison to national finals in 2002 and quarterfinals in 2001. Only the second player in Bison history to twice be named a First-Team All-American, he was named NAIA Co-Player of the Year in 2002. Brown set the school record with 370 field goals in 2003 and scored 40 or more points in a game three times. He currently resides in his home state of Michigan.
Pierre-Louis received his honor from OBU track coach Ford Mastin. A men’s track and field athlete, Pierre-Louis was a four-time national indoor track champion. He won the 600 meters in 1998 with an NAIA record 1:17.92 and ran on the national champion 4x400 relay teams in 1997 and 1998. Pierre-Louis earned six NAIA All-America awards in indoor track and six in the outdoor season to become a 12-time All-American. He represented Mauritius in the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta. Pierre-Louis currently is an associate vice president with Bank of Oklahoma and lives in Tulsa.
 For Harvest Court, senior students were nominated by their peers in six different categories. Seniors voted as Harvest King and Queen are Scott Ramsay, a Bible major from Fredericksburg, Texas, and Lacy Abbott, an art education major from Shawnee, Okla. Best All-Around Man is Chad Taylor, a math major from Holdenville, Okla., and Best All-Around Woman is Rachel Piontak, an applied communications major from Catoosa, Okla. Most Servant-Like Man is Brian Levings, a biblical languages major from Perry Okla., and Most Servant-Like Woman is Becca Murdock, an elementary education major from Clarksville, Ark.