Lyman Joe Parrigin '43
(Year Awarded--1998)

Lyman Joe Parrigin was a leader from the moment he set foot on the Davidson campus. Twice elected president of his class, he also participated in D Club, Elections Board, Quips and Cranks, Scripts 'n Pranks, Student Council, and Pi Kappa Phi. He was a member of the tennis team and was inducted into Gamma Sigma Epsilon and Omicron Delta Kappa. He graduated Davidson with a degree in chemistry.

After serving in the U.S. Army, during which time he earned a Bronze Star Medal and an Army Commendation Medal, he received a master's degree in chemistry from the University of Kentucky-Lexington in 1948 and thereafter began a long and distinguished career with Esso Research and Engineering Company. He retired from Exxon in 1983, and soon began his post-retirement career as the director of human resources for the International Executive Service Corps, a sort of Peace Corps for retired business executives. He retired again in 1995.

As a community leader, he was a member of the Borough Council for Mountainside, New Jersey, from 1960-1965. He was chairman of the organizing committee for Community Presbyterian Church in Mountainside and also served as an elder. He was on the Board of Directors for the American Red Cross in New Canaan, Connecticut.

He holds one U.S. patent and is the author of "Confederate Postal Activities at Davidson College, N.C.," published in The Confederate Philatelist in 1987. He is also an avid tennis buff.

This Renaissance man has never refused the call of alma mater. From 1961-1962, he served as vice president of the New York City chapter of the Alumni Association. He served as class chairman and agent for the Annual Fund, as well as serving on the Annual Fund Leadership Council. During the Campaign for Davidson, he served on the Connecticut Regional Committee.

Most recently, he served on the Class of 1943's Fifty-fifth Reunion Committee. Because you are a leader in every sense of the word; because you have always responded to alma mater's call with enthusiasm; and because you make Davidson proud to claim you as her own, the Alumni Association proudly presents you, Lyman Joe Parrigin, the Alumni Service Award on the occasion of Class of 1943's fifty-fifth reunion, October 24, 1998.