NSU Alumni Association announces 2017 Distinguished Alumni

Each year, the Northeastern State University Alumni Association Board of Directors selects the honorees for Distinguished Alumni and Outstanding Young Alumni to be honored during homecoming and the Emerald Ball.

This year, Northeastern State University alumni, community members and family will gather on the Tahlequah campus to celebrate four individualsa top Cherokee Nation official, a distinguished epidemiologist, a celebrated high school coach and an esteemed attorney and judge.

Joe Crittenden, Julie Erb-Alvarez, Allan Trimble and Kiemonn Jones, the 2017 alumni honorees, will be formally recognized the Friday of homecoming weekend, September 29, at the Alumni Association Honors Dinner and again at Emerald Ball on Saturday, September 30. Both occasions are open to the public.

The NSU Alumni Association awards are presented annually to NSU alumni who, through personal achievement and service, have brought honor and distinction to both themselves and the University. The person chosen as the Outstanding Young Alumnus has the distinction of having graduated from NSU in the past 20 years.

This years honorees:

S. Joe Crittenden, Distinguished Alumnus

S. Joe Crittenden, deputy principal chief of the Cherokee Nation, graduated from NSU in 1974 with a Bachelor of Science in Accounting and Business Administration. Crittenden has previously served on the Cherokee Nation Tribal Council, as the Eastern Oklahoma VP for the National Congress of American Indians and as a United States Postal Service postmaster. He is a veteran of the U.S. Navy.

Julie Erb-Alvarez, Distinguished Alumnus

Julie Erb-Alvarez, chief of patient recruitment for the NIH National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, graduated from NSU in 1993 with a Bachelor of Science in health and human performance. She continued her education at the University of Oklahoma, earning a Masters of Public Health in epidemiology. She has served as an epidemiologist for the Oklahoma Tribal Epidemiology Center, the Indian Health Service, and for the Bureau of Public Health, Ministry of Health in the Republic of Palau. Erb-Alvarez was commissioned into the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps in 2010 and was deployed to Monrovia, Liberia in response to the Ebola crisis in West Africa in 2014-15. She is a life member of the NSU Alumni Association.

Allan Trimble, Distinguished Alumnus

Allan Trimble, Jenks High School football coach, graduated from NSU in 1985 with a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics Education and again in 1988 with a Master of Education in School Administration. Trimble is the most successful high school football coach in Oklahoma history, winning 13 state championships and four runner-ups in 21 seasons. His coaching prowess continues in spite of being diagnosed with Lou Gehrigs disease. Trimble received the Tulsa Worlds All-World Lifetime Achievement Award in 2017, as well as the NSU Athletics Spirit of Excellence Award in 2016. He was the NSU Alumni Associations Outstanding Young Alumnus in 2001.

Kiemonn Jones, Outstanding Young Alumna

Kiemonn Jones, attorney at Riggs Abney, graduated from NSU in 1998 with a Bachelor of Arts in journalism. She continued her education at the University of Oklahoma, graduating in 2001 with a law degree. Jones is an associate municipal judge for the City of Tulsa and an adjunct instructor at Tulsa Community College. As a student at NSU, Jones was a member of the Presidents Leadership Class and was honored as an Outstanding Senior.