| Newsmakers |
Nov. 5----Bryan Hawkins, founder and president of Hawkeye Industries Inc., is the recipient of the 2022 Power of Industry Award.
Nuts, Bolts & Thingamajigs, the Foundation of the Fabricators & Manufacturers Association International, announced the honor recently during the NBT Awards Gala in Des Plaines, Illinois.
Nominated for introducing NBT camp models to the Tupelo region, Hawkins has helped change attitudes towards advanced manufacturing in his community that will affect generations to come. With the support of NBT and in partnership with the Community Development Foundation, Itawamba Community College, Create Foundation and other local manufacturers, he was instrumental in creating the week-long advanced manufacturing day camps known as 'Tek2Go.' A separate, but identical camp, is also conducted for regional teachers who get the opportunity to see how advanced manufacturing topics relate to subjects they are teaching.
Founded in 1995, Hawkeye Industries serves as a 'high-tech' OEM contract manufacturer of precision fabricated sheet metal components and assemblies for a wide variety of manufacturers. Hawkins earned his bachelor's and master's degree in business administration from the University of Mississippi. In 1999, Bryan retired as a Lieutenant Colonel from the Mississippi Army National Guard where he served for 24 years as a helicopter pilot holding various command and staff positions in army aviation.
The Power of Industry award recognizes an individual, family, or family foundation for its philanthropic efforts. The award recipient is a model of exceptional generosity who, through direct financial support, demonstrates outstanding charitable responsibility and encourages others to take leadership roles in the metals manufacturing industry.
—Pediatric nurse practitioner JodiLyn Allred Ferguson, PNP-C, will now see patients full-time at Children's Clinic in Tupelo. She has been seeing patients on Wednesdays in Tupelo since April.
Children's Clinic is located at 199 Grandstand Place Suite 101, behind City Hall in Fairpark in downtown Tupelo. In addition to Ferguson, the team includes pediatricians Drs. Jennifer Grisham, Ben Meeks, Katie Meyer, Amy Price, Van Stone, Eric Street and Veronica Valdez and nurse practitioners Tina King and Lauren Parrish.
Ferguson previously practiced with Eupora Pediatric Clinic, which is also affiliated with North Mississippi Health Services. She joined NMHS six years ago, working at North Mississippi Medical Center-Tupelo in Pediatrics and the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.
A New Albany native Ferguson e earned her bachelor's degree in nursing from Mississippi University for Women in Columbus in 2016. She completed her master's degree and nurse practitioner training at the University of Alabama at Birmingham in 2019. She is certified as a pediatric nurse practitioner by the Pediatric Nursing Certification Board.
—North Mississippi Medical Center recently presented a BEE (Beyond Exceptional Expectations) Award to respiratory therapist Peggy Brown.
Kathy Hogan, director of Respiratory Therapy, nominated Brown for kindness shown to a young patient from Texas who was injured while working in this area. "His accident left him on a ventilator and paralyzed. He does not have any family in the area, and his family members are only able to travel from Texas to visit occasionally," Hogan wrote. "Following his family's visit, the patient gets depressed."
Because he is unable to use his extremities, the young man communicates with family via Facetime on his cell phone. Recently, his charging cord stopped working, and the tripod that cradled his phone for the calls broke. Brown purchased a new charging cord and phone cradle for the patient so he could once again communicate with his family.
Hogan also wrote about another incident where Brown showed compassion to the mother of a ventilator patient who had been hospitalized more than 40 days. "The patient's mother stays with her. As you can imagine, she is beyond exhausted and dependent on food available to her here," Hogan wrote. "Peggy brought this mother some home-cooked chicken and dumplings with cornbread. This is probably the first home-cooked meal that she has had in over a month."
Brown, who lives in Tupelo, has a combined 20 years of service at NMMC, working at both the main hospital and Women's Hospital. She completed her respiratory therapy degree 35 years ago at Rolla Technical Institute in Rolla, Missouri, and worked in Missouri, Mississippi and Virginia before returning to NMMC 16 years ago.
